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[Reudh]

The halwa thing confuzzles me, because in my country halwa is a sweet crumbly mass made of nut butter and... something else. No idea what, actually, I just know nuts are involved and carrot is way out. That's probably a Central Asian thing, since I noticed that your definition of pilaf is also a bit different from ours.

Actually, our usual definition of halwa is made from cooking semolina in sugar water.

Carrot halwa is an exception.

Edit: also, curry here is a sauce made from chickpea flour and yogurt.

Halwa is one of those foods that has managed to make its way throughout most of the Eurasian continent; nearly every Eastern European, Middle Eastern and even as far as India have their own variation on it. Similar to tzatziki, which has slight variations that can be found all the way up to Iraq.

[Flying Dice]

Mm. Went to the good ol' little Vietnamese place, got another big bowl full of thin-sliced beef, flat noodles, bean sprouts, and murderously spiced broth.

[penguinofhonor]

It's not too out there, but here's something new I made recently:

Spoiler: deep fried eggs (also toast) (click to show/hide)

I saw someone cooking eggs this way in a completely non-food-related movie and I had to try it. I will deep fry anything at least once. This deep frying is a little more difficult than most because you're dealing with a liquidy thing and you have to splash the hot oil on top of the egg. Splashing hot oil is something I generally avoid doing intentionally, but it worked out better than I expected. I still got my stove-top pretty oily though.

I was surprised by how well the eggs stayed together, though! They're very neat little circles, and they're cooked well. I'd say they're a little worse than a pan-fried egg when eaten by themselves (the oil taste is pretty prominent) but they were a little better than a regular fried egg when eaten on the toast. This leads me to believe they'd be better on sandwiches. Especially hamburgers, as they're a pretty ideal shape and size for a hamburger egg. But they're a bit more effort (and mess) than a regular fried egg, so I'm not sure how often I'll make them in the future.

If you want to do this yourself, get the oil to 375F and keep the eggs in the fridge until right before you cook them so they're as cold as possible. I used a little sauce cup to pour the egg into the oil - a site I read recommended a ladle, so just use whatever you have that's around that size. A ladle is probably least likely to get you splashed with hot oil since it's got a long handle.

[Sappho]

I've been trying to use barley lately. It's easy to cook, filling, and fairly healthy. Plus cheap. Cheap is good.

Modified a recipe I found online today and made the best dinner I've had in ages. I made enough for one person - scale up as you wish.

Soak 1/2 cup of dried barley for a few hours. Drain, rinse, and set aside.
In a pan, sautee in olive oil: a small onion (or half a large one - chopped small), a couple of cloves of garlic (sliced or chopped), a single chili pepper (I only had dried so I ground one up and threw it in - fresh would work even better), and a sprinkling of rosemary (I could only find ground dried, but dried whole or fresh would obviously be good).
Once everything is getting soft, add the soaked barley plus 1.5 cups of water. Bring to a boil, cover, simmer for about half an hour.
While that's cooking, dice a sweet potato and steam it for 5-8 minutes (done but not soggy). Also steam a handful of green beans (frozen worked fine) for 2-3 minutes.

When the barley has soaked up all the water (don't let it dry out and burn), add the sweet potato and beans and mix thoroughly. Dinner! Didn't even need any salt or pepper. It was divine. Beautiful, too - I wish I'd had the presence of mind to take a photo. There was exactly enough for one filling meal for me.

What's more, the total cost of this meal was hardly more than the cost of that single sweet potato. I can get onions and garlic bulbs for about 1 kc each ($1 ~ 23 kc), and a big bag of frozen green beans is only about 20 kc (and I only used a handful of that). Sweet potatoes are pricey here, but a single one probably costs about 10 kc... By contrast, a meal at a restaurant usually costs around 180 kc, a fast food meal around 100 kc, and a pre-made frozen or instant meal around 60 kc. Cheapest, healthiest, most delicious meal I've made in ages. Will be doing this again, as long as I can locate decent sweet potatoes (sadly not a common food in this country).

[Sappho]

Loved it so much, made it again today. The sweet potato for this one cost about 40 kc, but enough for 2 meals, so really, a very cheap dinner. Just beware: barley farts are a thing.

Spoiler: Delicious! (click to show/hide)

[wierd]

Sweet potato is a very tolerant domesticated plant. If you can get raw sweet potato, there is probably little stopping you from growing it in your back yard.

As long as you have several months of greater than 50F weather, and can subject your dug up tubers to 5 days of 80F weather, you can grow and store them in your area.

There are tricks you can use to keep the plants warm even in colder climates, such as planting directly into decomposing compost. (the heat of the bacterial metabolism can keep them warm enough if you cover them at night.)

Like most tuber plants, the yields are pretty high.  I suspect that you are a zone 4/5 area, given the european zoning map I am looking at. I think you will be able to pull off a single crop run in a year, if you want to try.

[Arx]

I think Sappho lives in a flat, which makes it a bit tricker. Although I guess there's no reason not to grow them in a window box!

[Sappho]

There is one thing stopping me, yeah: I live in a 20 square meter apartment on the second floor of a building in the center of a city. And because of the way the architecture is here, window boxes aren't really possible. I'm afraid I'll just have to buy them. It's alright - I won't be buying them every day, but they're a nice treat now and then when I find some good ones in the shop down the street. Like today. Mňam mňam mňam!

[wierd]

As for my contribution to this thread:

Super bad for you, but still delicious ramen.

You need:
Two packages Mama creamy tom yum flavor ramen. (Metallic foil! Always get metallic foil! Dont be fooled by normal tomyum flavor! NOT THE SAME!)
1 segment polish kielbasa sausage. (approx 6 inches)
1 12oz bag of california blend frozen veggies.

All done in a microwave-- super friendly to college students.

First, nuke the noodles with just enough water to cover the noodle pads in a large bowl. Use the dry flavor pack, but not the lipid pack, Use that later.  When the noodles are done, remove from microwave and set aside. You dont want there to be much liquid left after they hydrate. If there is, DO NOT DRAIN. you will lose flavor if you do.

Nuke the veggies while still in the freezer bag. Toss in with the noodles, distribute evenly, then add the lipid pack. Toss noodles and veggies together to distribute the lipid pack evenly. return to microwave for a about another 2 minutes, to fully cook noodles, and to get the veggies to soak up some of the flavor.

Nuke the sausage, cook completely. Cut into slices.
Toss the sausage slices in with the hot noodles.

Eat up.

It's very cheap. The sausage is the most expensive part, and thats only like 3$ for a big multi-segment job. (Enough for probably 6 servings.) Just freeze the unused sausage, and it will keep a LONG time after opening.

You could try substituting a horrible knock off ramen, like maruchan, but I wouldn't recommend it.

[Osmosis Jones]

So I've been doing a lot of baking with short-crust pastry lately, with just the last four days alone involving both quiches and enpanadas, and I've gotten to the point where I can make it pretty well purely by feel. It's fun stuff. It's also a lot easier once I learnt you can ignore the traditional way of making it where you aren't allowed to mix the dough too much (lest you homogenise the butter and flour too much), and instead mix the everloving crap out of it, then just relayer it using dry flour to seperate the layers.

Works better, is easier, and you can exactly control how flaky you want it.

Simply do half butter, by weight, to flour (edit to clarify, that's 1:2 butter:flour). Generally, they recommend you use unsalted butter and then salt to taste, but I find regular salted butter is fine; add sugar if doing a dessert dish as well. If you're vegan, vegetable shortening should work in an equivalent role, same ratio. Cube the butter up as small as is practical for you, then mix it in to the flour. If you have a food processor, blend till it looks like coarse, lumpy beach sand. If not, mix it by hand until the same, making sure to break up the individual cubes of butter completely.

Next, add a drizzle of cold water, slowly adding more while working the pastry until it comes together into a single ball. Now roll it out, lightly sift dry flour over the surface, and fold in half. Roll it out again, and repeat. I generally roll it between two sheets of cling film, as it makes it easier to flip and rotate the pastry without it sticking to the table. If you keep doing this, you end up with heavily layered, melt-in-your-mouth-tender, flaky pastry, utterly perfect for things like quiche.

[Vector]

-snip-

[Tiruin]

PTW because I'm finally (and firstly) learning to cook! ._.

I made this squash soup today

Everytime I read about 'squash' lately I'm thinking about the local foods here x_x Veggie veggies!

I'm only learning now on the intricacies of why cooking -> food = ♥.

[Catmeat]

I would like to suggest poached eggs and balsamic vinegar on any toast.

And that short crust isnt short crust if you are making it that way Osmosis.
That is more of a variation of flaky pastry, simply put its flaking because of your over mixing.
What you do is prep dry ingredients and fat, put in fridge grate butter as quickly as you can.
Get cold hands work into eachother, rap in clingfilm, cold rest it for use.
Cubing the butter can lead to you exciting the glutten as you work it in.
But im going to try your method to see its potential.

[Sheb]

I made this squash soup today. It's one of the best that I've ever eaten in my life. I put in croutons for carbs, some five-spice-rubbed tofu on the side for protein, and a light milk custard I made 4 of yesterday for dessert. When I opened the fridge afterwards, it's the first time I've ever thought to myself: "wow, my fridge smells great!!"

... I'm eating waaaaay better this year than I did last year. Or ever.

Out of curiosity, what spice did you use for your tofu? I'm more or less vegetarian again since I moved to Berlin, and I've taken the habit of always having a few blocks of tofu in the fridge, and I'm looking for new ways to work it.

Also, I bought some kind of soy proteins "steak". I'm used to buying them in flakes, where they work pretty great as a rough equivalent to ground meat in auflaufs and the like, but those came in square about 5cm on a side, and their textures is... Well, though and spongy. Not bad, but unlike anything else I've ever cooked. I'm looking for some idea, maybe soak them in gravy or tomato sauce so they exhude tastiness when you press them against your palate?

[penguinofhonor]

I'm assuming they used five spice powder, which admittedly has a confusing name.