The Bachelor Chef.

[Dave_M]

Okay, so during the week I work nights so my dinners mostly consist of sandwiches and Subway. During the weekends I like to cook but always have a hard time spending hours on prepping a meal that will be enjoyed by only myself (I have an easier time cooking for others for whatever reason). So, I've sought out and made my own recipes that are not only easy but fast with minimal cleanup. I plan on updating this thread as time goes on.


First meal: Kielbasa with sauerkraut & spaetzle.

Yes, this dish is very Germanic. It also involves ingredients that my ex would never let me use, namely:kielbasa, sauerkraut, and spaetzle.

Ingredients:
-Kielbasa
-Sauerkraut
-Spaetzle
-Salt & pepper
-Paprika
-LaRue Dillo Dust
-Butter
-Beer

Normally, I like one-pot meals when I'm cooking for myself. Less dishes = less work = more time to masturbate. However, with this dish I'm go out on a limb and use 1 pan and 1 pot. You can alternatively throw everything in one dish but I like it this way better.

1) Put a pot of water on high. Add some salt and bring to a boil. Add spaetzle
2) Slice kielbasa and put in pan along with sauerkraut, beer, paprika, Dillo-Dust, and salt and pepper. Cook at medium. Add enough beer to at least half-way cover the sausage.



3) Cook spaetzle until tender yet firm.
4) Drain spaetzle. Add a bit of butter if you prefer
5) By this time, the kielbasa and sauerkraut should be cooked through. Serve with a slotted spoon to avoid excess liquid

Plate & Serve!

Goes well with a nice spicy brown mustard.

An alternate way is to skip the spaetzle and add a cubed potato to the pan /w the kielbasa. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer until potatoes are cooked through and then serve.






Second Meal: Kielbasa /w rice and beans
Ingredients:
-Kielbasa (guess what was, "Buy one get one free" this week?)
-Can of black beans
-Rice Sides: Creamy Chicken
-Pepper (plenty of salt in the, 'Rice Sides' packet)
-LaRue Dillo Dust (anyone else seeing a trend?)
-Garlic Powder



1) Slice the kielbasa like shown:


2) Put a pot of water on (the rice side will have directions on it, forget that and add ~3-4 cups of water)

3) Put rice contents and kielbasa in pot as it warms up

4) Drain and rinse beans


5) Add black beans to pot


6) Add pepper, garlic powder, and Dillo-dust to taste


7) Bring to a boil and cook until thickened (this will depend largely on how much water you added--call it 10 minutes). Make sure the rice is cooked through.


Plate & Serve!



Clean-Up is very easy. Just throw everything in the dishwasher with the other normal items you stick in there



If you really dick the dog and everything tastes bad, just fall back to the old normal dinner routine:



More to come as I go on....

[TDW586]

I like everything about this thread. Also, that's a fine looking kielbasa you got there...wait, that didn't sound right. Anyway, I'm hungry now.

[Dave_M]

And see, some of ya'll thought I was joking about the contingency plan:




But seriously, you can make a badass dinner with these


Third Meal: Bachelor Chili Mac

Ingredients:

-Velveeta microwaveable shells & cheese (far far better than the kraft)
-Chef Boyardee Chili Mac
-Ground red cayenne pepper
-Dillo Dust

1) Prep the Velveeta shells & cheese as described by the package


2) Microwave for 3:30


3) While that's working, dump the Chef Boyardee into a microwave-safe bowl


4) Add spices




5) When shells & cheese are done, mix in cheese mix


Stir thoroughly. The cheese mix is what makes the Velveeta so much better--the kraft is just powder but the Velveeta is like the cheese you get on gas station nachos--much better

6) Microwave the Chef Boyardee chili mac for ~1 minute

7) Mix both together



Plate & Serve!

[TravisM.1]

Less dishes = less work = more time to masturbate.

[bluesquid]

OMG! as a chef, I abhore this!

try this.

Saute in a large pot:

1 onion chopped fine
2 celery stalks chopped fine
1/2 pound sausage (pref. hot)
garlic (as much or as little as you want)
let that cook until sausage is 3/4 cooked and rest is 100%

add 1 large can of chkn broth
6 cans of white beans(drain all into pot)
1 bag of chopped romaine

let that reduce for 1/2 hour

take a loaf of bread and slice on bias as thin as you can.

turn off pot if getting thick.

put oil and chopped garlic on plate and soak one side of sliced bread
Bake until brown. About 5 mins on each side in 350 degree oven

when bread is nice and crisp. add 1/2 cup of any grated cheese to pot. stir

serve gruel in bowl and put two crostinis on edge of bowl

the crostinis and the gruel can travel well in ziplocks. Eat at camp for a mind blowing meal.

[sammage]

Never thought about Velveeta shells and cheese mixed with chili mac, genius.

[gravediggerfour]

So Dave can other Bachelor Chefs rock out on this thread or what??

[Real_Ale_Act]

Chili mac + more Mac&Cheese = serious win. So obvious I never even thought of it. Cheers to you for that one.

In the spirit of one-pot meals, and I hope y'all can accept a recipe from a female bachelor...

I give you: One Pot Hoppin' John

Ingredients:
1 package uncased italian sausage meat, regular or hot (about 1 lb.)
1/2 large or 1 medium yellow onion
1 bunch collard greens or kale, washed and cut into finger-width strips
beer, any kind (you can use water or stock if you don't want to share your beer)
1 can blackeye peas
cayenne pepper, flakes or ground, or whatever other spices you like

To cook:
Chop onion into chunks. Heat a big lidded skillet or soup pot over medium high with 1 Tbs oil. Add onion and cook until it just starts to soften. Add the sausage and turn the heat down a little closer to medium. Break up the sausage into small bite-size pieces while it's cooking.

You can also use already cooked sausage, like Dave's kielbasa in the other recipes. Just slice it into bite size pieces and brown it for about 4 minutes before adding the greens.

When the sausage meat is broken up and somewhat browned (it does not have to be cooked through) add the cooking greens and a generous spash of beer and turn the heat down to medium. Stir well to get them coated with sausage grease. Put the lid on the pot and cook the greens, stirring occasionally, until they are nearly soft enough to eat. This takes at least 10-15 minutes with tough greens like collards. Add more beer or water if the food starts to stick to the pot too much. (Note: it is possible to use frozen cooking greens for this. Just skip most of the cooking time in this step and don't add liquid.)

Once the greens are cooked, add the can of blackeye peas without draining them, and add cayenne pepper or other spices of your choice (Dave, it's ok to use Larue Dillo Dust here... ). Stir well to mix everything. Heat until hot.

Serve and eat. Goes great with beer.

Leftovers of this are exceptional with cheddar cheese melted on top.

[Civilian Scout]

Great stuff! I'm also a big fan of one-pot/one-pan meals, and Glocks in the dishwasher.

Nice placemat.

[Tonto]

I wept when I saw that store bought "kielbasa" no, not jealous of it's size or girth, but... but.. it's freaking store bought yucky tasting garbage! Gotta go with the homemade stuff.

I only get kielbasa from the meat market, homemade and fantastic....

I do like these recipes when it's FFYN at the Tonto compound.. FFYN is fend for yourself night.

[Dave_M]

So Dave can other Bachelor Chefs rock out on this thread or what??

By all means! Looking forward to it!

[crypto]

Steak n' Shake Chili Mac on a Budget

First, let me start out by saying I think SnS has the best chilimac ever prepared by man or robots. If you hate it, dont bother with this recipe because it's going to come out tasting just like Steak n Shake chili mac, and its dead simple to make.

Look in your supermarket for Chili Beef. It will be in either a tube (like breakfast sausage) or in a square box, in either case in the same cooler or freezer as the breakfast sausage. The kind at my local place is called "5-star". It is precooked greasy ground beef with a shit-ton of chili spices in it. This is your base ingredient.

Keep it in the fridge when you get it home so it's not frozen.

Making Chili Mac Sauce:
Mix ketchup and Worcestershire sauce in a 2:1 ratio. i.e., one cup ketchup to 1/2 cup wooster sauce.

Boil up some spaghetti or elbow mac.

Get a bowl or plate of macaroni and use a spoon or ice cream scoop to put a few ounces of chili beef on the noodles. Throw the plate in the microwave for 45 seconds to get the chili beef soft.
When it comes out, apply the sauce liberally. Add more ketchup and parm cheese if you feel like it, or grated cheese and onions to make chili mac deluxe.

I used to make enough noodles in one shot to make a shit ton of this stuff. A 1-lb package of chili beef should get you about 6 servings of chili mac.

Its seriously delicious.

[Murph]

I my easy Asian dinner is:
Microwave Minute Rice
Microwave Bourbon Chicken pieces
Microwave Egg Roll

[gravediggerfour]

going to have to charge the camra now.

[waltcallie]

heres my 2 cents. this is a great marinade for anything, i call it AP or all purpose marinade. great on about anything before cooking on grill.
2 parts olive or vegetable oil
1 part ssk in oiloy sauce
juice of 1-2 lemons
1-2 tablespoons of fresh garlic
1 tablespoon dijon mustard

mix all ingredients except oil. slowly whisk in oil. marinate chicken, beef, wildfowl or lamb. delicious

[JTNieman]

I used to enjoy making a bunch of seriously shitty meals that probably had 800% of my daily req'd salt per meal, but later on, found that it's REALLY easy to make all those good meals the women in my life used to make me, if I'd just figure out how to do it. And the figuring takes SERIOUSLY little time... like.... google results quick.

Prep time for "real" meals compared to microwave or boiled-water-easy meals is almost negligibly different. Having a kid, and deciding it would be terrible to force these 'bachelor' meals on him would probably not be the wisest thing for a responsible parent to do ON A REGULAR BASIS... kind of forced me to learn to cook decent meals well, without resorting to pre-assembled oven or microwave meals.

However, I still go back, occasionally, to savoring a tasty pot of brats and kraut. *drooooooools*

Best Bachelor Chef meals ever = barbecue. No one judges you for drinking at 10am, if you're standing next to a smoking barbecue grill It doesn't even have to be stuff that takes a while... simply throwing burgers and long-ways-cut-sausage on there will go a long way and not take very long to cook. Throw some veggies on the non-direct-heat-side or the veggie rack if you got one, and BAM, it's a decently rounded meal.

[ferret]

bonus points for the Bass!

[Confucius]

1 lb ground beef
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 of an onion
1 cup medium grain rice
2 cups beef broth (half sodium)
1 cup frozen peas
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp chili flakes
lots of pepper

Brown beef with garlic and onion, drain off most of the grease, mix in the rice, paprika, chili flakes and some pepper and stir to coat all the rice. Add broth, lid up and cook until most of the broth is cooked, stir a bit and add the peas. Stir until the rice as achieved the level of creamyness you so desire, top with more pepper and some parmesian. Tasty and can all be done in a single skillet.

[Dave_M]

pictures gentlemen. We need pictures!

[GeneralDiscontent]

Back when I was a young bachelor, my sister bought me this cookbook:



It's full of recipes that can be made using two or three prepackaged items (canned soups & vegetables, instant pastas, etc) & basic seasonings that turn out WAY better than you'd expect. (As you can guess, though, most of the ingredients have a ton of salt, so if you're watching your sodium intake you might want to pass).

Apparently there's a whole series of them now, with different themes - grilling, microwave, tailgating, etc.

[MyDogMike]

In my single days...the crockpot was (and still is) my best friend in the kitchen.

Probably more of a weekend thing but...

1 rack baby back ribs cut into 3 pieces
1 cup Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce
1 chopped onion
1 chopped apple
1/2 cup apple juice

Throw it all in the pot, making sure to coat ribs throughly with sauce.
Top with 2 shots of your favorite whiskey.
8 hours on low and it's done.

[ogreboy]

I like everything about this thread. Also, that's a fine looking kielbasa you got there... I'm hungry now. wait, that didn't sound right.

The magic of cut and paste.

[juiceleague]

Excellent thread!
Now I'm hungry for Keilbasa and Saurkraut.

Did you know you can open one end of the Keilbasa package and pour beer in there, then throw the whole thing on the grill?
The plastic doesn't melt and it comes out great.

I'm gonna do some of those mango sausages tonight.
Sweet sausage is almost as good as sour/vinegar sausage.

Later.

[Dave_M]

Fifth Meal

Okay fuck it, it's just a variation of Meal #2

Ingredients:


Once again, black beans and a rice sides thing. Some frozen peas.

Start with 3-3.5 cups of water, toss in the rice mix. When it comes to a boil, throw in some peas and the black beans (drained). A slab of butter is optional but recommended


Add you spices. A bit of garlic, a lot of pepper, some chili powder and, of course


Cook it for ~7-10 minutes until it thickens.

Enjoy!