Food Australia

Jaffles filled with -

Cheese (and ham or tomato)

Baked beans

Spaghetti

Tinned stew

Or leftover bolognese sauce.

Stovetop one pot macaroni and cheese:

If you don’t want to read the whole thing, ages ago I roughly halved it and converted to cups for a simple version. Not perfect but easy.

This is a good amount for one person and requires one pot, one spoon/fork, and one stovetop burner. Maybe a grater if your cheese isn’t pre shredded.

2/3 cups pasta (I use small elbows or spirals)

1.5 cups water

1 cup milk or soy milk

Cheese (a few handfuls)

Seasoning - a pinch/squirt of mustard, a tablespoon or two of paprika, a shake of nutmeg, or just salt and pepper. Whatever you’re using.

There are a lot of instructions in the original to avoid burning or gumminess.

But basically just add the water and boil the pasta til it begins to soften (stirring as it sticks), add the milk and butter, then turn it down to low to simmer. Keep watching and stirring so it won’t stick and burn. When it’s thickening but there’s still some liquid left season it and stir the cheese in.

If pasta is still a bit hard in the middle (pull out a single noodle with a utensil, blow on it to cool and bite it) add extra milk and keep cooking. If it’s too liquid give it longer to cook down. It thickens a bit as it cools so don’t worry too much.

Chicken burritos look good for hot days.

This is from a company’s website so feels weirdly like posting an ad. But it’s fairly no cook.

The gist of it is spreading tortillas with refried beans then filling them with rice, salsa, avocado and cold chicken. You can use a bbq chook and buy precooked rice and almost everything else is in cans or jars.

It can also possibly be made without access to a knife. (The avocado is the one thing that needs cutting but could be scooped out or cut with a butter knife.)

https://www.oldelpaso.com.au/recipes/easy-chicken-burrito

Rice and tuna with mix ins. It looks like a deconstructed sushi bowl but you could probably substitute a can of chicken, beans, or chickpeas if you don’t like tuna.

https://m.youtube.com/shorts/xnix4P0I6LY

I make these mini cheesecakes with 3 ingredients

1 block of philly cheese (I use Aldi's Manhatten)
1/2 jar of lemon curd (about 175g)
8 butternut snap biscuits

Leave the cream cheese out of the fridge to reach room temperature. Place it in a bowl and mash until smooth then add lemon curd. Stir until mixed through. You can do it by hand, with beaters, a processor or a stick blender.

Place one biscuit right way up into a muffin size patty pan. Repeat with the other biscuits and fill them equally with the mixture. Refrigerator overnight. The biscuit will soften and the mixture with firm up.

You can also use jam instead of lemon curd but it may make the mixture brown so you can add a couple of drops of food colouring. You can also experiment with different biscuit bases.

bean fryup:

can of drained mixed 4-5 beans

chuck in frypan high heat

add sliced mushrooms, some sliced cherry tomatoes too if desired

add half a pack of Mexican taco spices

optional: add some spinach leaves if on hand and let them wilt in

make a hole/gap in the mix. crack and egg and cook until it's done to your perfection

serve on its own or on toast

From the other day:

potato, prick with fork and cover in plastic wrap, about 7-8 min in the microwave (depends on size, etc)

while that's cooking; cut and put in pan in order: pancetta or bacon or ham (preferred cured piggie) onion mushrooms broccoli

cut the potato in half and put cut side up in a bowl: potato butter (s&p) cheese hot bacon mix

takes about 10 min from start to finish

Chicken and Red Lentil Yellow curry. Meal Prep. About a dozen serves.

1kg red lentils, soaked 2-24hr then rinsed. Whisk lightly while rinsing. 1 whole chicken. Boil 1hr. Separate into meat, bones and broth. Bake bones 40 mins then reboil in broth, re-strain broth, discard bones. 5+ litre pot required. Mines 6.7L. In the big pot, four diced onions, 50g cooking oil, 150g MaePloy Yellow Curry Paste, 5g salt/citric acid/msg, stock. Simmer for about ten minutes. Then add drained lentils, chicken meat and enough water to cook it all. Not too much, you don't want the tasty oil to rise to the top and overflow. Simmer until the lentils are cooked to your taste, I cook them into a mud in a little over an hour.

It's a big days cook, but if you plan it out, it's a bunch of 5-10 minute jobs throughout the day.

Usually comes in at under $2 a meal. Leave the chicken out if you want vegan (yellow curry paste is the only one without shrimp). Add any leftover veggies in or bags of frozen veg.

Put rice in the rice cooker. Just when it's about done, fry up an egg.

Put the rice in a bowl, put the egg on top, and then add on some seasoning! I can vouch for the following (I haven't mixed them, but you could..):

• Furikake or crushed seaweed
• Soy sauce
• Tomato sauce
• a little bit of salt and sesame oil mixed in to the rice

To make it a little fancier:

• Spring onions
• Shredded carrots
• Sliced lettuce.

Another lazy meal: Put rice in the rice cooker (or pot), put in some raw chicken and/or a shelled egg, soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, dark soy sauce. Let it cook.

To be fancier: boil or fry some frozen corn and/or peas on the side. Mix it in when rice is done.

There you have it - three food groups covered.

Sheet teriyaki chicken with green beans and rice https://m.youtube.com/shorts/gcAWsQCj348

Tuna nori rice bowl https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xnix4P0I6LY

Cottage pie https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6syP2d8KIEQ&pp=0gcJCTMBo7VqN5tD

I forgot this one.

Rotisserie chook + premade coleslaw + dinner rolls = sliders. Maybe add premade pasta salad on the side