millycooks - Tumblr blog

[millycooks]

Do any of u have decent recipes that are like 5 ingredients (not including spices) and take 45 mins or less to prepare i gotta stop eating sandwiches for dinner

[millycooks]

but on the real though, here is your guide to assyrian rice preparation from your friendly neighborhood assyrian:

start wanting rice. (or, if you are traditional, simply recognize your constant desire for rice.)

measure out two cups of rice. then one more. then two more. then another. this seems fine. you love rice. there is no way that this will backfire on you.

remember that your great-great-uncle’s recipe says it should be soaked overnight.

become consumed with despair.

decide to soak it for half an hour instead, acknowledging that the final product will be inferior and anger your ancestors but will still satisfy your now almost-overwhelming need for rice to be inside your body much faster.

remember that you should have set the water to boil when you soaked the rice. goddammit. 

once the water boils, put the rice in until it is half-cooked. the eyeballing or intuitive method is less effective than a timer but that’s how your aunt does it so you feel compelled to meet her standards.

now that the rice has fluffed up, realize how much rice six dry cups really is. holy shit. you’ve fucked up immeasurably. 

take a minute to dwell upon your failings.

grease a baking dish with butter. this will never be as elegant as you want it to and your fingers will get greasy, but the slightly shameful, self-indulgent joy of licking your fingers afterwards will make up for it.

pour the rice into the dish. wonder immediately if you actually buttered the dish beforehand and if you’ve just fucked up. 

melt approximately one thousand pounds of butter in the microwave and pour it over the rice, pondering your imminent death from rapid-onset arterial clogging. put a small pat of butter on the top to properly gild the lily.

put your pan into the oven, which you have absolutely preheated after your previous lack of foresight. shake the rice once or twice while it bakes to make sure the butter is well distributed. resist the impulse to climb into the oven with the rice. for the last ten minutes, sit next to the oven and count the seconds until it’s done.

remove the dish from the oven. shed a tear or two at the perfection laid before you. if you are dining with others, this is the time to serve the rice while making passive-aggressive statements about how oh no, you don’t need any help, you just made dinner all by yourself, you can serve everyone as well. (this is still fun if done alone, but optional.)

CONSUME THE RICE.

realize that you have eaten half of the dish in one sitting. no matter how much rice you made, this will always happen. 

put the leftovers away, if there are any, and enjoy a cup of chai while marveling at the amount of food you have just eaten. if possible, fall asleep in an armchair, sitting up, head tilted slightly back, like a grandpa.

for the rest of the evening, think fondly of how much rice you have in the fridge now and how many meals it will supplement, refusing to acknowledge that you will almost certainly eat the rest of it in a few hours for a midnight meal.

[millycooks]

Schnitzel sandwich time 😊

The schnitzels are a little smaller than I intended so 2 make 1 sandwich not 2 sandwiches.

With mayo, cabbage, and cucumber.

I got a pack of chicken breasts in this week's shopping and I decided, since I didn't cook much over the last couple weeks (covid boo) that I'd process them into several meals.

There were six chicken breasts with the tender still attached so I separated off the tenders, then cut off the thinner pointed end, and finally sliced each of the thicker top halves in half to create twelve sandwich sized schnitzels. The tenders I diced up and separated into two bags to freeze, and the point ends I cut into bit sized pieces to turn into nuggets.

Chicken Schnitzels

I seasoned the flour with salt, white pepper, and ground garlic. I floured each of the schnitzel pieces before doing the egg (2 beaten eggs) and bread crumbs (panko).

I do this just to minimise mess since it's just me. That way I can use my left hand for egg coating and right hand for crumbing.

I separated the schnitzels into three meals of four each, two lots went in the freezer and one lot into the fridge for tomorrow.

Spiced chicken nuggets

I topped up the flour mixture with more flour, ground chipotle, and smoked paprika. I coated each nugget in flour before egg and crumbing in batches.

I put them in a single bag to freeze. I'm unsure how much heat the seasoned flour will actually give, it should be mild enough for A to eat.

[millycooks]

I got a pack of chicken breasts in this week's shopping and I decided, since I didn't cook much over the last couple weeks (covid boo) that I'd process them into several meals.

There were six chicken breasts with the tender still attached so I separated off the tenders, then cut off the thinner pointed end, and finally sliced each of the thicker top halves in half to create twelve sandwich sized schnitzels. The tenders I diced up and separated into two bags to freeze, and the point ends I cut into bit sized pieces to turn into nuggets.

Chicken Schnitzels

I seasoned the flour with salt, white pepper, and ground garlic. I floured each of the schnitzel pieces before doing the egg (2 beaten eggs) and bread crumbs (panko).

I do this just to minimise mess since it's just me. That way I can use my left hand for egg coating and right hand for crumbing.

I separated the schnitzels into three meals of four each, two lots went in the freezer and one lot into the fridge for tomorrow.

Spiced chicken nuggets

I topped up the flour mixture with more flour, ground chipotle, and smoked paprika. I coated each nugget in flour before egg and crumbing in batches.

I put them in a single bag to freeze. I'm unsure how much heat the seasoned flour will actually give, it should be mild enough for A to eat.

[millycooks]

Quiche!

Oh yeah, nom nom nom

[millycooks]

After a good sleep I got up and did some middle of the night cooking, today's adventure had me making bolognaise and quiche, since they were gonna share a good chunk of ingredients.

Bolognaise has: bacon, bolognaise mince (pork and beef), carrot, zucchini, tomato paste, tin crushed tomatoes, minced garlic, dried oregano, and Worcestershire sauce

Quiche (no pastry) has: bacon, zucchini, carrot, garlic powder, parmesan, and egg

Bolognaise is done and in fridge for tomorrow, and quiche is in oven. Quiche could've used a couple more eggs but I only had six jumbos left and the bacon needed to be cooked after defrosting so I went fuck it, it's enough.

I had a week-long migraine so it feels nice to be able to function again and cook. Housemate is making us roast chicken on Friday so very excited for that. She asked me to get a lemon in last week's grocery shop and I was like, ah, you did not notice, we still have a lemon, so looking forward very much to her lemon and garlic roast chook (I am having happy butt wiggles whilst typing, A does a real good roast chicken).

Last week I had a dumpling making day with B again, and made some pork ones again (with some added ginger) and also vegetable ones. I used the same recipe as last time for the seasoning mixture but fudged the amounts when it came to how much vegetables to do. The vegetables ended up with cabbage, Chinese broccoli, tofu, shitaki, and carrot, with a bit of garlic and ginger thrown in. I hand crimped all the pork ones whilst B used the little mold for the veggies. It made so many I had to send B to the shops before they shut to get more wrappers because I greatly misjudged the veggie amounts and we ended up using a bit over 2kg of wrappers instead of 1.5kg like the recipe called for (a stack of wrappers is 500g and we used 4 and a bit stacks, the recipe is meant to use only 3 stacks). After freezing I divided them up between B and me, with some going to Tiff, Is, and K. I accidentally (I blame lowering cognitive functioning as my migraine was starting) I stacked a bunch of veggie ones on a plate to freeze thinking it'd be fine they come apart easy and no, no I have a disc of veggie dumplings. I'll leave them til we have hot pot and defrost them all at once to have in it.

Anyway, I'm gonna go check the quiche 😀

[millycooks]

So we end up with leftover sauce, so I was making myself rice bowls by cooking in the rice cooker 1/2 cup rice, 1 small tin black beans, and 1 cup water, then while that was cooking pan frying some chicken, shredding/dicing it once cooked, then frying some eggs, when they are almost done adding several big spoons of sauce on top and a few dashes hotsauce, once it's all heated through adding to the bowl with the chicken, then the rice and beans, mixing all together, adding avocado dip or soft goats cheese, and finally eating with cornchips (cos I am a gremlin and like the cronch).

A tried some and was like "that, I like that" and so I've poached two chicken breasts and made the sauce tonight before bed so we can make ourselves bowls tomorrow whenever we want. I restocked the mini tins of black beans so we can make individual amounts of rice and beans, or use a whole normal tin and a full cup of rice if we eat together. We've got avocado dip, goats cheese, and cucumber in the fridge, and mini tins of corn (for A, not me), so we can add what we want. Basically a cross between enchiladas and taco bowl. We can also crisp up some corn tortillas if we want.

Making enchiladas, second time cos we greatly enjoyed the first lot. There is zero authenticity to these, but they are tasty.

Seven because that's how many tortillas were in the packet in the freezer.

Filling is poached chicken and black beans with sauce and cheese, then more sauce and cheese on top.

I poached a whole chicken breast with one stock cube, 6 garlic cloves, and 2 chopped onions. Once the chicken was cooked it was removed and shredded. To make the sauce I drained out most of the poaching liquid leaving the garlic, onion, and about a cup of water. To this I added another stock cube, a packet of taco seasoning, a teaspoon dried oregano, and a tin of crushed tomatoes. I simmered this for 3 minutes then, taking it off the heat, blitzed it smooth with a stick blender. I returned it to the heat then let it simmer for another 3-5 minutes. I then set it aside.

To the shredded chicken I added 1 tin of drained and rinsed black beans, and approximately half a cup of the sauce. Mix it til coated in sauce.

To each tortilla I sprinkled a tiny bit of shredded mozzarella, and several spoonfuls of the chicken mixture. I rolled each one up and placed them in the baking dish seam side down. I top the lot with sauce and mozzarella and have put in the oven at about 200c, I'll take it out once the cheese is all browned and melted and the ends of the tortillas are crispy.

I have diced cucumber and tomato, and avocado dip to serve them with.

[millycooks]

Made chicken Pad Thai tonight, it turned out good. The recipe author says it's somewhere between a fully bastardised western recipe and a traditional one. They recommended that if you can't find tamarind paste/puree to use good old Aussie tomato sauce, which since for the life of me I could not find even though it's something you can generally find, even in Coles (😭 I don't know why I couldn't find it, I blame user error though, not the shops), was a godsend.

I used fresh noodles (pho rice noodles) because I always without fail fuck up dried rice noodles, and the bag is a whole kilo, so way more than what the recipe calls for, so I tripled the sauce, but kinda, fudged only one or one and a half amounts of the rest. Also I didn't use any eggs because I ate them all and only have one til I get to the farmers market monday (egg man egg man eggs from the egg man).

I know now that A doesn't like chives, so took the suggestion to use extra garlic and spring onion instead. I also added one shredded carrot, cos we like carrot. I don't know what weight amount of chicken I used, it was a whole chicken breast I thinly sliced 🤷‍♀️. And an onion, half a bag of bean sprouts, and half-ish of a 550g container of firm tofu. I uh, look, I measured the sauce ok? Some care was taken.

I have a lot of leftovers now, but no photos cos I was hungry and talking to my friend and A. A only really likes Thai curries, especially massaman, but not any of the Thai noodles or stir fries, so she's just gonna have to bear with me while I make stuff. I will make her some egg noodle Pho soon in thanks.

Anyway here's the recipe I used:

B is coming over tomorrow to make dumplings again. He shall be fed some noodles. I told him and he replied "I assume not prawn" and I feel seen, but also attacked, as yes, I do not like crustaceans.

[millycooks]

I am so hungry, I am wiggling in excitement but also being good and waiting a little so I don't burn my tongue

Making enchiladas, second time cos we greatly enjoyed the first lot. There is zero authenticity to these, but they are tasty.

Seven because that's how many tortillas were in the packet in the freezer.

Filling is poached chicken and black beans with sauce and cheese, then more sauce and cheese on top.

I poached a whole chicken breast with one stock cube, 6 garlic cloves, and 2 chopped onions. Once the chicken was cooked it was removed and shredded. To make the sauce I drained out most of the poaching liquid leaving the garlic, onion, and about a cup of water. To this I added another stock cube, a packet of taco seasoning, a teaspoon dried oregano, and a tin of crushed tomatoes. I simmered this for 3 minutes then, taking it off the heat, blitzed it smooth with a stick blender. I returned it to the heat then let it simmer for another 3-5 minutes. I then set it aside.

To the shredded chicken I added 1 tin of drained and rinsed black beans, and approximately half a cup of the sauce. Mix it til coated in sauce.

To each tortilla I sprinkled a tiny bit of shredded mozzarella, and several spoonfuls of the chicken mixture. I rolled each one up and placed them in the baking dish seam side down. I top the lot with sauce and mozzarella and have put in the oven at about 200c, I'll take it out once the cheese is all browned and melted and the ends of the tortillas are crispy.

I have diced cucumber and tomato, and avocado dip to serve them with.

[millycooks]

Making enchiladas, second time cos we greatly enjoyed the first lot. There is zero authenticity to these, but they are tasty.

Seven because that's how many tortillas were in the packet in the freezer.

Filling is poached chicken and black beans with sauce and cheese, then more sauce and cheese on top.

I poached a whole chicken breast with one stock cube, 6 garlic cloves, and 2 chopped onions. Once the chicken was cooked it was removed and shredded. To make the sauce I drained out most of the poaching liquid leaving the garlic, onion, and about a cup of water. To this I added another stock cube, a packet of taco seasoning, a teaspoon dried oregano, and a tin of crushed tomatoes. I simmered this for 3 minutes then, taking it off the heat, blitzed it smooth with a stick blender. I returned it to the heat then let it simmer for another 3-5 minutes. I then set it aside.

To the shredded chicken I added 1 tin of drained and rinsed black beans, and approximately half a cup of the sauce. Mix it til coated in sauce.

To each tortilla I sprinkled a tiny bit of shredded mozzarella, and several spoonfuls of the chicken mixture. I rolled each one up and placed them in the baking dish seam side down. I top the lot with sauce and mozzarella and have put in the oven at about 200c, I'll take it out once the cheese is all browned and melted and the ends of the tortillas are crispy.

I have diced cucumber and tomato, and avocado dip to serve them with.

[millycooks]

I made this again with two adjustments:

1. Half the amount of biscuits (so 3/4 of a packet instead of 1 1/2 packets)

2. Instead of just lime I used a mixture of lime, mandarin, and lemon. To make up the 1/2 cup juice needed it took two limes, one mandarin, and one lemon. I also got a new zester so it had more zest in it.

With less biscuits it wasn't as dry or cakey as the first one, and with the stronger citrus flavours it was more flavoursome. The light scent of the mandarin was especially delightful and balanced out the stronger lemon, with the limes lighter flavour allowing it to still be lighter than a straight lemon flavour. Highly recommended mixing up the citrus and doing a blend.

Trying out making this tonight

I saw this and was immediately like "this works on the same principles as choc ripple cake" and so I got all the supplies (except limes, that I forgot to buy, repeatedly, for 2 weeks) and I'm splitting it into two smaller ones so I can share it easier with friends over the weekend (there's no way A and me can eat it all).

It came together quickly, the thing that took the most time was zesting and juicing limes til I had 1/2 cup of juice, which took 5 small limes. Then it was a matter of dumping juice, zest, evaporated milk, and condensed milk in a mixing bowl and stirring well. In order to fit into the two small aluminium baking trays I had took a little biscuit finagling, but I got four layers of biscuits which worked out to the one and a half packets she listed in the description. Love it when the recipe is both simple and works exactly as they tell you 😀

I just mixed the lime zest in instead of garnishing on top, I'm not a garnish person and no one eating it will care about presentation, also having all that lime zest dispersed through will add to the flavour 🤤

[millycooks]

Made Pad See Ew tonight for the first time. I've never cooked with fresh rice noodles before so that was an interesting learning curb. Couldn't find any Chinese broccoli in my grocer (and was at the end of my walking limit so didn't go looking in the other places) so I grabbed spring onions and choy sum. Discovered choy sum is not my favourite so will remember to grab the Chinese broccoli in the Asian grocer next time.

Next time will prob use chicken instead of pork, simply cos I will prob run out of pork fillets in the freezer soon. I will also double the amount of sauce and garlic. And if A isn't gonna eat it I'll add a bit of chilli oil.

Anyway, for my first foray into both stirfrying and rice noodles I think it was OK.

This is the recipe I used:

[millycooks]

Pan fried them, they're good 😀

Our bodies hurt, but B and I have made, just, so many dumplings.

We used this recipe cos it was simple and required the least amount of ingredients to buy. At first B hand pleated and I used the dumpling mould, but we soon changed over as it became apparent that I could crimp better than B. To be fair to B I should have gotten him to watch a video of it before, since the instructions weren't clear to him, whereas I've seen dumpling videos many many times.

Most of them are in the freezer and I will divide them up tomorrow. These ones will be cooked today after we've had a bit of a rest.

I am quite impressed at myself for my crimping, I didn't expect to get it down that quick. We will see whether they actually hold up though when cooked.

I feel really lucky that my area has some really good Vietnamese supermarkets, grocers, and butchers. Whilst Coles and Woollies are getting better at stocking international foods, they still lack many things, and what they have tends to cost more (even though it's the same brands). Also it's nice to shop at smaller family owned places, and now I know exactly which place to go to get dumpling and hot pot supplies.

[millycooks]

Our bodies hurt, but B and I have made, just, so many dumplings.

We used this recipe cos it was simple and required the least amount of ingredients to buy. At first B hand pleated and I used the dumpling mould, but we soon changed over as it became apparent that I could crimp better than B. To be fair to B I should have gotten him to watch a video of it before, since the instructions weren't clear to him, whereas I've seen dumpling videos many many times.

Most of them are in the freezer and I will divide them up tomorrow. These ones will be cooked today after we've had a bit of a rest.

I am quite impressed at myself for my crimping, I didn't expect to get it down that quick. We will see whether they actually hold up though when cooked.

I feel really lucky that my area has some really good Vietnamese supermarkets, grocers, and butchers. Whilst Coles and Woollies are getting better at stocking international foods, they still lack many things, and what they have tends to cost more (even though it's the same brands). Also it's nice to shop at smaller family owned places, and now I know exactly which place to go to get dumpling and hot pot supplies.