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The Official TSR Recipe Thread

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Reply 460
Well, I was thinking on posting some recipes, taylored for students. Let it be my humble gift to those students from around the world, always strugeling to meet ends.
Fact: you can't study, or work to earn that few extra quit, on an empty stomach. Or a stomach filled with garbage from Macdo or cheap frozen pizza's.

None of the recipes I will write down here are "typical" for Belgium. On the contrary. So you won't find the ultimate brussels sprouts recipe here!
I've chosen the recipes because they're rather inexpensive and not that difficult to prepare, both contrary to popular belief. They have been tested over and over again by students over a period of more than 30 years.
In Belgium, where almost every town with a university and/or a higschool (Ghent, Antwerp, Brussels, Leuven, Louvain-La-Neuve, ...) has a large Islamic community and thus several streets packed with inexpensive grocery stores and butchers, food can be rather inexpensive.
In my experience those stores are at least 30% less expensive than their counterparts from Belgian decent. Something to keep in mind when you're on a tight budget! I suppose the situation in other countries is not that different.
For those interested in contact with "the locals", its interesting to notice that, for example, a better quality potato (such as a Nicola, a Corinne or a Doree) costs around 1.00 - 1.60 per kilo in the supermarket and some 0.20 - 0.30 at the farm.
As ingrediënts can varry widely between countries, I'll try the best I can to describe them. Keep in mind that I'm not a native English speaker tough. Where possible and/or neccesary I'll add the botanic name where less well known herbs, spices or vegetables are involved. I will add pictures illustrating the ingredients and methods/techniques on a Picasa photo site later on.
All recipes for 4.
Don't trow leftovers away! Please! It's a disgrace to trow perfectly good food away, especially now, when, even in the EC, considered one of the richest regions in the world, at least 15% of the population is considered poor or at risk.
Give it away to someone. Deepfreeze it. Buy a few boxes of icecream. Eat the icecream and use the boxes to deepfreeze leftovers.
Reuse it in another dish. Potato leftovers for example can be reused to make potato mash. Or a nice gratin dauphinois that will impress your guests. They can be used as an ingredient to prepare the best Agnes Sorel soup you ever tasted. Don't.Throw.It.Away!
These are the first recipes I will add. One a day, beginning tommorrow.

Spaghetti Bolognaise (It)
Reading this forum, I noticed that lots of people mentioned the classic spaghetti with its Bolognese sauce, stating it takes a long time to prepare. Well... It depends on the definition of "a long time".
Preparation time: 15 - 25 minutes. One and a half hours on the stove. Maximum. Double or triple the ingredients for the sauce and refrigerate. The longer it stays in the freezer, the better it gets.
Contrary to popular belief, Bolognese sauce contains only a few ingredients: finely grinded calf meat, onions, garlic, olive oil, basil, tomatoes, pepper and salt. That's all. Please, don't add tomato ketchup as some barbarians do!
The so-called "Bolognese sauces" containing half a vegetable garden are derived from the original, minimalistic recipe.
This is a clear case of "less is more".
I'll add some "how-to" on preparing spaghetti "al dente" and on how to prevent it becoming a bric after a few minutes. If I can find the time, I'll add some Pestos to use on a slice of "baguette", providing you with a small starter.

Cocq au vin (Fr)

I never liked the French "Nouvelle Cuisine".
I don't need a Van Gogh on my plate. If I want to see Van Gogh paintings, I'll go to a museum. I want food on my plate. Enough food to keep me going for at least some hours. Cocq au vin fits the bill.
Preparing coq au vin is real magic: starting with a cheap supermarket chicken and a bottle of the cheapest red wine you can find, you'll end up with a dish that wil grant you instant cult status.
If you're snobish you can trade the chicken for a high quality bred of chicken such as a "Mechelse Koekoek" or a "Poulle de Bresse" and the cheap wine for a bottle you can only affort once a year, but it won't make much of a difference...
BTW: I realy admire Van Gogh's paintings. But not on my plate.

Couscous (Northern Africa: Algeria, Tunesia, Morrocco, ...)
Couscous is a name wrongly attributed to a specific form of grinded barley, in English known as "semolina". In french it's called "semoule de blé", in Dutch "tarwegriesmeel". Flemisch people, especially older people, call it "smoel", derived from the French "semoule".
The semolina is, in my view, the less important part of the dish. More important is the sauce, more correctly the soup that accompanies it. There are as many versions as there are people preparing the dish, but they all have some ingredients in common: tomatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, courgettes.
Regarding meat, there are several versions as well: with chicken and/or with lamb/sheep. The nec plus ultra is the so-called "couscous royale", containing chicken, lamb/sheep as wel as those thin and spicy saucages, known as "merguez".
A difficulty in preparing couscous is the unavailability of a spice mixture commonly reffered to as "ras-el-hanout". But don't let that come in the way. "Ras-el-hanout" is a meaningless name regarding the composition of the mixture. It means something like "the choise of the shopkeeper". You can't go wrong if you replace the "ras-el-hanout" in any recipe by a mixture of some 80% cummin and some 20% chili pepper.
Reply 461
Original post by Teddy1692
Mars bar mini placed on a choc digestive then 1min in the microwave....mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm


Well I know what I'm trying tomorrow!!! Night even try a snickers or a Milky Way too :biggrin:
Reply 462
A Carrot and Coriander Soup

http://gourmet-student.blogspot.co.uk/

Price per Portion: (this served me for 3 portions, with a total cost of £1.80)


60p

Back of a Beer mat recipe:

5 Carrots
1 medium sized Potato
1-2 litres of Stock (Chicken or Vegetable)
1/2 Onion
2 cloves of Garlic
1 small handful of Coriander (about 15g worth)
1 Tbsp of Cream Cheese
1/2 Tsp of Paprika

1.

Boil the peeled and chopped Carrots and Potato in the Stock . I used a simple 'OXO' Chicken Stock Cube, crumbled and stirred into about as much water as you would use to normally boil your Vegetables (the more water/stock you use, the more soup you get, but clearly the thinner it will be, I like mine reasonably thin, but this is all down to personal taste).

2.

Sweat the Onion and Garlic in a pan, with either Oil or Butter, ensuring they do not brown, add a little water if they start to do so, it will stop this happening immediately.

3.

Once they are softened, add to the simmering stock pot and leave simmering for a further 5-10 minutes (until the Carrot and Potato are soft).

4.

Take off the heat and pour everything into the blender - blend until smooth.

5.

At this stage, make sure you taste the soup, this will help you understand what seasoning it require and how much Cream Cheese to add.

6.

Season to taste, add the Cream Cheese and the Paprika (this gives a greater orange colour and adds an extra dimension to the flavour)

7.

Finally, roughly chop the Coriander and add to the blender. Pulse the mixture until everything is thoroughly mixed in.

Carrot and coriander soup, is delicious, easy and cheap! What more could you ask for on a cold day, in an even colder student house.
(edited 11 years ago)
Reply 463
Loads of my fave, cheap meals here http://bedsitbonnevivante.wordpress.com/
Does anyone have a suggestion for what I can eat with a lobster? I've got one now. The simpler the better, don't fancy buying a ton of ingredients for one meal.

And...

How can I ripen avocados quickly? I've got 7.
Reply 465
Original post by ruthiepoothie
yay!! thank you!!
:biggrin:


I have that book :biggrin:


Posted from TSR Mobile
Original post by Wilfred Little
Does anyone have a suggestion for what I can eat with a lobster? I've got one now. The simpler the better, don't fancy buying a ton of ingredients for one meal.

And...

How can I ripen avocados quickly? I've got 7.


Serve your lobster with tarragon butter:

1. Get some butter and cream it with some dried tarragon then refrigerate for as long as possible.

2. Cook your lobster, gently heat the butter until all the water bubbles away, and decant the clarified butter.

To ripen your avocados, put it in a bag with some other fruit. If it's plastic make sure it's not airtight.
Reply 467
Original post by Wilfred Little
Does anyone have a suggestion for what I can eat with a lobster? I've got one now. The simpler the better, don't fancy buying a ton of ingredients for one meal.

And...

How can I ripen avocados quickly? I've got 7.


I've done this before, i tend to have the stuff in the recipe in the house. It is similar to the chap above with the gross sig...http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/5041/lobster-with-thermidor-butter

Could also make a very posh sammich with it, slice up the tail, mix with mayo, lemon juice, dill and paprika and put in an open sandwich with some salad. Very nice.

Avacados, stick them with bananas.
Original post by K the Failure
Serve your lobster with tarragon butter:

1. Get some butter and cream it with some dried tarragon then refrigerate for as long as possible.

2. Cook your lobster, gently heat the butter until all the water bubbles away, and decant the clarified butter.

To ripen your avocados, put it in a bag with some other fruit. If it's plastic make sure it's not airtight.


Genuinely good idea. I think I'll do this. Any suggestion for a bit of a side? :confused: I'm a fat bastard and will be sharing this lobster so would ideally like something with it. Cheers for the avocado tip mate.

Nice sig btw, it's given little Wilfred a twitch before bedtime :cool:

Original post by Trigger
I've done this before, i tend to have the stuff in the recipe in the house. It is similar to the chap above with the gross sig...http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/5041/lobster-with-thermidor-butter

Could also make a very posh sammich with it, slice up the tail, mix with mayo, lemon juice, dill and paprika and put in an open sandwich with some salad. Very nice.

Avacados, stick them with bananas.


A sandwich ffs :biggrin:

Sounds excellent though, do you reckon I could do both (sandwich and thermidor butter) with one lobster?
Reply 469
Original post by Wilfred Little
Genuinely good idea. I think I'll do this. Any suggestion for a bit of a side? :confused: I'm a fat bastard and will be sharing this lobster so would ideally like something with it. Cheers for the avocado tip mate.

Nice sig btw, it's given little Wilfred a twitch before bedtime :cool:



A sandwich ffs :biggrin:

Sounds excellent though, do you reckon I could do both (sandwich and thermidor butter) with one lobster?

Depends how greedy you are and how big the lobster is.
Vegetable tomato pasta sauce!

There are several points to this recipe.
1. You can freeze this into 6-8 portions (depending on how much sauce you like/need)
2. You are getting hidden portions of vegetables when you don't feel like it
3. It's versatile, you can use it as a simple pasta sauce, for lasagne, spaghetti bolognese/meatballs etc, so it's handy to have.
4. It's incredibly cheap!

These are the ingredients, which come to £5.85

Screen Shot 2013-04-05 at 21.27.38.png

1. chop onion and garlic, and shallow fry.
2. Grate the rest of the ingredients and put in the pan.
3. Add 2 tbsp of tomato puree, add the passata, stir so it's all coated, and simmer for half an hour on a low heat
4. seperate into different containers, and you're done!
I'm gonna buy some frozen mixed berries and fat free yoghurt, blend them to make an awesome smoothie.

Has anyone tried anything similar?
Original post by James A
I'm gonna buy some frozen mixed berries and fat free yoghurt, blend them to make an awesome smoothie.

Has anyone tried anything similar?


Yeah I do that all of the time, I normally get frozen Mango and make smoothies with that or once I made a coffee drink, got a shot of espresso from the machine blended it with milk and ice, added cream and a shot of vanilla syrup- good stuff.
Reply 475
Stumbled onto this on youtube thought you guys might want to see:

[video="youtube_share;d2OuPIegZgY"]http://youtu.be/d2OuPIegZgY[/video]
No faf meringues!!!!
2 egg whites
125g sieved icing sugar
food colouring (pink/blue)

1. heat oven to 150C
2. line a tray with baking paper
3. You need a clean dry bowl. tip the sugar in with the 4 egg whites and whisk to stiff peaks(when whisk taken out the mixture doesn't fall off the whisk)
4. add food colouring , you need more than you think, the colour fades!
EAT :smile:, but they do last for weeks in a tub
I joined this site yesterday!! Why didnt i know about this site 2 years earlier. I love TSR. This site is the best!! Far better than facebook. You learn alot here and you get to share ideas with students like yourself. I have a passion for cooking and baking, those are my hobbies, and now i found this!
Hi,
How much do you like apple walnut cake? I am sharing a nice recipe here.



1 x 8” ~ 3 layer cake
Ingredients:

Sponge:


50g walnuts, chopped

80g unsalted butter

240 ml whole milk

280g caster sugar

1 tbsp baking powder

240g plain flour

1 ½ tsp ground cinnamon

¼ tsp salt

2 granny smith apples

2 large eggs


For the butter cream:

You can use the cream cheese butter cream, for filling between each layer and all over the surface, decorate with whole walnuts; cinnamon and also a “zigzag” drizzle of toffee sauce.

Method:


1.

At first, preheat the oven to 190degree C and line three 8” tins with baking parchment.

2.

To use a hand held electric whisk beat together the butter, flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt on a low speed until the total consistency of fine breadcrumbs.

3.

Keep the milk in a jug along with the eggs and whisk until it gets combined, then dispense three-quarters of the milk mixture into that dry elements and blend on a slow speed to mix. Now swell the speed to a medium and keep beating until the smooth and thick mixture, adding the scrapings from the sides of the baking bowl, then pour in the remaining milk mixture and continue to mix on a medium speed until all the ingredients are incorporated and the batter is smooth.


4.

Then peel, core and chop the fresh apples into 1cm pieces (the total weight should be about 200g) and stir into the batter with the chopped walnuts.

5.

After that spoon the batter into those tins and levels them with a spatula.


6.

Now bake the cakes in the oven for about 15-20 minutes or until they rebound back when quietly pressed. Allow it to cool before just removing from the tins.

Source: secret-recipes

Reply 479
Spicy bolognese
I can't give the price as this was made for family and was approximately 10 portions! I used around 1Kg of mince.


Ingredients

Mince (I used around 1Kg but you would only need around 1lb)
Vegetables (peas, diced carrots, sweetcorn)
Bolognese sauce
Fennel seeds and tumeric (only use these if you already have them as you only use a pinch)
Chilli flakes
Chilli powder
Fresh tomatoes - grated/finely chopped
Fresh chilli - grated/finely chopped
Tinned tomatoes - around 1/2 tin is what I used


1. In a pan (I use a wok-style one just because I feel it is easier to stir) you need some oil, add a small pinch of fennel seeds (optional).
2. Add the mince and stir it around until it is browned. I used chicken mince but you can use any.
3. To this I added a mixture I had made earlier which was fresh tomatoes and chillis grated up together - this is where you can decide how spicy it is.
4. I had some left-over canned tomatoes which I had frozen so I added them too.
5. Add some red chilli powder, chilli flakes and if you want a teeny tiny amount of tumeric - again all of this is to your own taste.
6. Keep stirring - make sure all of the ingredients are incorporated nicely and the mince is properly browned.
7. Here you can add some par-boiled veg if you like - I added peas, carrots and sweetcorn although occasionally I have broccoli too.
8. Add some bolognese sauce - I like the Dolmio extra-spicy one, buying the bigger jars when they are on offer and I used half the jar for this where I had approx. 1Kg of mince, and I put the rest in a container to freeze.
9. Put the lid on and let it cook down.

This was the best bolognese I have ever made! You can make enough to last you for an evening meal, lunch etc. if you have enough of eating it with spaghetti it also makes a great filler for a toastie, or you can put it on potato wedges etc.

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