<p>What is Rotel?</p>
<p>Cthe flute, wow! I was brainstorming with DD about a graduation present for a friend and I suggested a really good saute pan, my idea of a gift for life, and she’s still laughing at me.</p>
<p>Rotel is canned spicy tomatos, regular, spicy, mexican spices, etc. Delicious, spices up almost anything, I put it even in spaghetti sauce, just adds zing!</p>
<p>My tough guy S did ask for a nice frying pan for Christmas last year because his fish kept sticking to the cheap K-Mart one he bought.</p>
<p>Rotel is great- I use it in place of salsa sometimes.</p>
<p>Tortillas
Any kind leftover meat - chicken, ground beef, pork
Shredded or sliced cheese - american, cojack, mozzerella - whatever your pleasure
Refried beans if you like
Small amount of oil - regular or olive oil.</p>
<p>Top one tortilla with toppings you like - meat, cheese, beans. Put 2nd tortilla on top. Brush outside of tortilla with small amount of oil, or just put a few drops in frying pan. Carefully put tortilla in medium hot pan - brown on both sides. Eat plain, or top with salsa, sour cream.</p>
<p>My husband’s favorite:
1 lb. ground beef
1 can tomato soup
1 can peas, drained
1 small can refrigerated biscuits
Cheddar cheese/American cheese - chunks or slices can work
Optional: chopped onions, seasoning.</p>
<p>Brown one poiund ground beef. Add some diced onion if you like.
Drain grease. Stir in one can of tomato soup and one can of peas. Add seasoning if desired. Pour into casserole dish. Take one can of refrigerated biscuits and some cheddar cheese. Wrap biscuit around some cheese and seal biscuit. Repeat with remaining biscuits and cheese. Place biscuits on top of meat mixture. Bake in oven 350 for about 30-40 minutes or until biscuits are done. </p>
<p>Hardy meal.</p>
<p>^^^That sounds like my husband’s kind of meal. He makes this, and my sons like it a lot:</p>
<p>1 lb. ground beef
Can of tomato soup OR golden mushroom soup
cut green beans (14 oz frozen, or canned, or fresh)</p>
<p>Mashed potatoes (either make from scratch or powdered)</p>
<p>brown beef, add can of soup and green beans (make sure to precook/microwave if frozen or fresh). Add water to preferred consistency. Serve over mashed potatoes.</p>
<p>Pizza</p>
<p>tools:
oven (preheated to 500), pizza pan, leatherman, medium mixing bowl, large mixing bowl, saucepan, skillet, 1 cup measure, can opener, saran wrap, paper towel, knife, cutting board</p>
<p>ingredients:
white whole wheat flour, 1 packet yeast, a bit of oil, shredded cheese, plain tomato sauce, seasoned tomato paste, red wine, meat, canned and/or fresh veggies </p>
<p>1 Put a heaping cup of flour in the medium mixing bowl.
2 Dump half the packet of yeast into the 1 cup measure.
3 Fill the 1 cup measure about half full with warm but not hot water.
4 Mix the yeast and water.
5 Dump yeast and water mixture into flour and mix.
6 Add more water or flour as needed to get a dough that holds together and isn’t too sticky.
7 Put some flour on your hands so your hands don’t stick to the dough and fold the dough over and over again about 20 times and shape dough into a sphere.
8 While you hold the dough, have someone else wash out the medium mixing bowl you just used.
9 Pour a tablespoon or so of oil into your hand and spread over the outside of the dough.
10 Put warm water in the large mixing bowl.
11 Place dough in the medium mixing bowl.
12 Place medium mixing bowl in the large mixing bowl.
13 Cover the bowls with saran wrap.
14 Let rise for about an hour.
15 Put about a tablespoon of oil on the pizza pan and wipe with a paper towel so the oil gets spread everywhere.
16 Put the dough on the pizza pan and press it until it’s round and thin, patching any holes that you make.
17 Heat tomato sauce, paste, and a few tablespoons red wine in saucepan.
18 Spread sauce on pizza.
19 Wash, slice, and cook any veggies that you want in skillet.
20 Sprinkle cheese on pizza.
21 Top pizza with veggies and meat.
22 Put pizza in oven for 5 minutes.
23 Turn pizza and let bake 4 more minutes.
24 Grab pizza pan with leatherman and slide pizza off pan onto oven rack.
25 Let cook for 1 minute.
26 Retrieve pizza with leatherman.
27 Cut and eat.</p>
<p>This is really good…</p>
<p>Place a Big Mac (Wendy’s Quarter Pounder would do), Medium French Fries, Diet Coke (without Ice), and a Chocolate shake in Blender. Blend on high speed for 2 minutes. Pour into cup and Enjoy!!!</p>
<p>I call it Heart Attack in a Cup</p>
<p>:D hee hee hee</p>
<p>Alternative recipe for pizza:</p>
<p>1 Buy pizza.
2 Cut and eat.</p>
<p>^^ That was my reaction, too!
Even faster: order pizza. No need to dress up to go out.</p>
<p>Sometimes, it’s cheaper to order pizza. It’s like 3 for $15 at Dominoe’s(sp?) Save the time to study, pay off in the long run.</p>
<p>I personally love the Dominos thin crust, but it’s more expensive.
Sometimes people WANT to make their own pizza. I can be fun. My son and his gf did this one night (except they bought premade raw dough from the bakery) and it was a hoot. Especially them trying to get that dough spread out to a big round flat shape (it has a mind of its own). It was hilarious, wish I had a video camera.</p>
<p>Fish Tacos:</p>
<p>fish (anything from grilled shrimp or tuna to the frozen battered things in the yellow box)<br>
flour tortillas
salsa (or a mix of creamy dressing and salsa)
cole slaw - take a bag of preshredded angel hair cabbage, add juice of one lime, one t honey, little bit of olive oil, and a handful of chopped fresh cilantro. Let sit in fridge for an hour or so.</p>
<p>Cook fish, warm tortillas (flipping them in a teflon skillet over high heat is better than nuking them, but whatever), place some fish, some cole slaw and some salsa/dressing on each and gobble them up.</p>
<p>I had never heard of Rotell either! I found it at the market this afternoon, and I’m going to give it a try. It sounds like it might be good with
abasket’s quesadillas (post #45) or dragonmom’s fish tacos!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yep. My boyfriend and I have been making pizza once a week this summer. Fun for me cause I grew up making pizza once a week with my family. Fun for him cause he LOVES pizza. Also making it yourself means you can use whole wheat flour, which we do.</p>
<p>[note: the following are vegetarian or can easily be made vegan.]</p>
<p>Soup is a pretty easy and cheap college meal. Only requires one pot and a blender. You can always make a big batch and freeze/refrigerate the rest and heat it up later. These are the directions I gave to some of my friends in college who didn’t really know how to cook. I apologize for the lack of amounts, but I don’t cook that way.</p>
<p>Carrot and Coriander Soup:
Ingredients:
1 yellow onion (chopped)
Butter/Olive Oil
Several Carrots (peeled and chopped)
Large pinch of ground coriander seeds
Salt and Pepper
Cilantro/Coriander
Gyuere or Parmesan though cheddar would work (shredded/grated)
optional: 1 clove of garlic (sliced)
Water/Stock</p>
<p>To Prepare:
In a pot, heat butter/oil until hot.
Add onions. Saute onions until translucent.
Add ground coriander and chopped carrots and garlic if using.
Add water/stock. Simmer covered until carrots are soft.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Blend until consistent. Don’t make it too smooth. You want it to have some texture.</p>
<p>To serve:
Portion. Add a handful of pulled cilantro/coriander leaves to each bowl and top with shredded cheese. Serve with a slice of good bread.</p>
<hr>
<p>Hummus seems to be really popular right now. Everyone buys it pre-made, but it’s really simple/cheap to make. This version is kind of wet because it uses canned chickpeas which retain more water than soaked beans–I prefer it this way to dry hummus, but to each their own:</p>
<p>Ingredients:
1 can of chickpeas/garbanzo beans
Tahini (ground sesame seed paste)
1 Lemon
Several cloves of garlic (chopped finely)
Salt and Pepper
Extra Virgin Olive Oil [the ONLY type of olive oil!]</p>
<p>Preparation:
Drain can of chickpeas.
Add chickpeas to food processor/blender.
Add tahini, a little olive oil, and chopped garlic. Pulse.
Add lemon juice. Pulse.
Add more tahini if needed. Pulse.
Add salt and pepper to taste. Pulse. </p>
<p>To Serve:
Spoon into a container. Top with olive oil and if desired paprika.</p>
<p>For an easy meal we often get the low fat gourmet sausages and stir fry them with cabbage, sometimes onions and peppers. Cook with your favorite Carribean, Indian or Asian sauce if desired.</p>
<p>Surpisingly a lot of people don’t realize that you can (or rather, know how to) cook eggs in a microwave. Poached, scrambled, omelette, etc. are all possible, with a few exceptions like hard-boiled (because you need to break the yolk). </p>
<p>There are some tricks to getting it so it won’t explode or turn into tire-like rubber, mostly not overcooking or cooking too fast - like putting a cup or two of water inside also, and cooking on lower power. I once saw a guy on TV make eggs benedict from scratch using only a microwave, english muffin and hollandaise and all. Unfortunately you have to experiment with your own oven to figure everything out perfectly.</p>
<p>Also, if you have a freezer, cook a giant pot of chili (ground beef, ground turkey, beans, diced tomatoes, onions, whatever strikes your fancy), freeze it in individual portions, and thaw in the microwave when needed. Quite healthy, hearty, and it can be dirt cheap if you use canned beans and tomatoes.</p>
<p>Pizza party-we did this for birthday parties for years. Individual pizzas so each chooses their fav. toppings. Use some romano with the mozzarella on top for more flavor. </p>
<p>Buy frozen WW (I believe in whole grains) bread rolls, though white and pizza dough are also available in loaf size. When thawed, stretch and or roll out on a greased cookie sheet for individual pizzas. Brush with a garlic olive oil mixture, salt, dried basil, bake for 10 minutes at 425 degrees. Take out, top with sauce, and whatever other toppings, return to the oven at 350 till done. My favorite is no sauce, sliced tomatos, sauted onion, and spinach fresh from the bag. Ground pepper on top of the cheese.</p>