Cooking for People Unsure of What a Stove Does: Recipe 1 - Simple Noodle and Vegetable Stew

It probably looks like this, just, you know,
 attached to the counter.

   Oh hi there!  So you're away from home, where you don't cook anything because you're not sure of how to convert ingredients into anything edible, the University's cafeterias and Mensas are closed (because they're for breakfast and lunch silly), and you really need to save some money somewhere, so you can go to that "museum" on the weekend.  Never fear!  Each week I will post a new, simple recipe which can be made in about 20-30 minutes, relatively cheaply, and without any guesswork.                                        Guten Appetit!

Simple Noodle and Vegetable Stew

Ingredients:

• Noodles of your choice (approx. 125g of bagged or boxed pasta, or 1 packet of ramen noodles)
• Mixed vegetables (fresh or frozen, diced)
• Vegetable bullion (powdered, cubed, or paste)
• 2 cups of water
• Oil or butter
• Salt and pepper (to taste)

Bubbles at the bottom of the pot is not boiling!

 Fill your pot about 2/3rds of the way with water.

          Get that pot of water to a rolling boil.

Resist the urge to break the noodles!

f      

j        Add the noodles.  If they don’t all fit, give them  time to to cook on the bottom half.

        

I wasn't kidding!

          Then they will be able to fall in.

Put the noodles directly into your bowl if you don't
have a strainer handy.

d    

          Cook the noodles until they are no longer crunchy.

     The thinner the noodles, the shorter amount of time that they need to cook. (5 minutes is a good ballpark figure for most types of noodles.  If you are using ramen, they will cook in about a 1.5 minutes.  Seriously.)

        Drain the noodles.

Add a little, mix a little, repeat.

      Put the noodles into your bowl or container, and then toss them with a small amount of oil or butter.  This prevents them from sticking to each other.

Go easy on the oil at first; veggies have a lot of water in them.

e

      Put your pot back on the burner, add some oil or 

\     butter, toss in some vegetables (frozen or fresh, but don’t forget that fresh ones will cook in a shorter time), and stir occasionally.

     

     When your vegetables are cooked (softened and starting to brown), add in in the vegetable bullion.  Stir until the veggies are evenly coated with the bullion.  (if you are using cubed bullion, break apart the cubes using your stirring utensil inside the pot)

Not too much if you aren't measuring!

       

      Add about 2 cups of water to your pot.

Boiling off some of the water thickens the broth.

      Bring the stew to a rolling boil, then turn down the heat, and allow it to simmer (just barely boiling) for about 5 minutes.

Paprika is also a good option, if you have it around.

    

      Season to taste (Easy on the salt; that bullion you just added is very salty on its own).

Finished!

Now just pour the stew over your noodles and enjoy!

For your Amusement

These are rapeseed flowers, used to make canola oil, like in the bottle above.

Easter Bunny cake, 2014.  Frosting for everyone!

Proverb of the Day

If you see everyone around you running to the train stop, you should already by running too.

You're going to be exactly 9 minutes and 55 seconds late.  Sorry about that.

*The background music is from a personal music project in progress.