Stuff I've Cooked

Decided to make a blog of stuff I've cooked. I'm a PhD student at the moment, and as an undergrad I was bought several "student" cooking books. Most of them were written as if cooking was something really difficult and grown-up, that a poor little 18 year old would need gently guiding in to. I saw one student cookery book that literally told you how to make a cheese sandwich, step-by-step, and then on the next page, how to make a ham sandwich, with all the steps repeated again.

Students aren't idiots. They've managed to get at least a couple of A-levels, so are perfectly capable of holding information in their heads. Cooking is easy. At the very basic level, you get stuff and make it hot. That isn't hard. Sometimes you don't even need to make it hot.

The only difficult thing about cooking is clearing up afterwards, when you're full of food (or if you're a student like my housemates and I were, clearing a big enough space in the week-old washing-up on the side to work in).

So, here we go. Recipes you might actually want to eat, done properly. If you don't like it, or have a better idea, great, do that instead. A recipe is just a suggestion in most cases anyway. You can generally substitute most things with something that you've just managed to get hold of, for example, a recipe for risotto will work whether you use chicken, fish or mushrooms, but you might want to change the added flavourings slightly.

There are very few things that are a must-have, as most things can be substituted, or improvised. If in doubt, use your noggin. You obviously can't make an omelette without eggs, but you could make a cake using granulated rather than caster sugar. It might not be perfect, but who cares, you still get cake at the end. Likewise with utensils, if you haven't got a whisk, use a fork or something. If you haven't got a saucepan, use a frying pan. If some particular piece of equipment is important, I'll tell you, and why.