April: Showers of Recipes

photo originally uploaded to dreamstime by mafoto

So, today's post is just going to be a little updating on what's been developing in the OntheFly world.


First, it was never my vision for OntheFly to be an "ode to Megan's recipes". As much as I love banging about in the kitchen myself, my aim has always been to inspire the urge to cook in all of those who may otherwise suffer from culinary anxiety. Cooking for yourself is probably one of the single best and healthiest things you can do, and there's no reason for it to be overly-complicated or take up too much of  your evening!

Many of you out there have already started sending me your recipes to publish and I couldn't be any happier. Though I don't have forum capabilities, I would really love for OntheFly to be a platform for sharing fun and easy recipes. That's why I've set up recipes@ontheflyrecipes.com to receive all your favorite kitchen concoctions. And to kick-off this initiative, I've decided to devote the entire month of April to "recipes from others." Want your own recipe to be featured this month? Send it my way!


Next, after months of anticipation, the upgraded website is finally nearly ready to launch! Thanks to Rachel's hubby, the final kinks have been worked out and now all I have to do is transfer content (phew!). The new site will have a new banner, more advanced sharing buttons, a couple pages of useful information and overall a much more professional design. I've given myself until the end of the month to transfer the archives and set-up the new pages, so keep an eye out for it!

I will also be making a bit of a "marketing" push with the new site launch, which means there'll be some sort of treat in store for all of you when I do ...


So, exciting developments are on the horizon for OntheFly, and in the meantime, don't forget to shower me with your recipes!

Happy Cooking!

March Meals in Minutes

miniature fast food uploaded by shimelle

Naturally, people often come to me and OntheFly in search of quick recipes. Though, I will be the first to admit that my recipes are not always fast. Easy, yes. Fast, ehhhh, sometimes.

Everyone [or, at least, many many people out there] want to whip up their meals as quick as possible. But here's the truth, as you'll never hear it from one of the hundreds of "fast recipe" cookbooks out there: cooking is just not a fast process. Unless you're vegetarian, no matter how simple your dish or ingredients are, the meat still has to be cooked...and if you are vegetarian, odds are you've got to chop a whole lot of vegetables.

I've used a lot of cookbooks, most of them quick-fixes, and after an hour of slaving over the stove, I often wonder how any of these books got published. Turns out I'm not alone in this thinking and even the queen of 30-minute meals, Rachel Ray, gets a bad rap for her meals not actually taking 30 minutes. Turns out you have to read the introduction where she carefully specifies that you "remember to chop up your vegetables" as soon as you get home from the store. Not only does that sound a bit excruciating, but a lot of veggies just are not going to last all week chopped up.

another hobby uploaded by havankevin

The other major pitfall of quick-fix cookbooks is that they don't account for side dishes. Sure the main entree may take 20 minutes, but the side salad takes another 20 and the potatoes need to bake for an hour. Oops. So then it turns out that the truly quick recipe books make brilliant use of pre-cooked meat, pre-packaged rice-a-roni and all sorts of other pre-canned, pre-mixed, pre-packaged sauces and flavorings. To each their own, but with today's new age standards of healthy eating, even I'm afraid of overly-prepared and pre-processed foods. Most importantly, many of these things aren't even available outside of big bad USA.

Thus, I have come to the conclusion that quick cooking is a lifestyle. You're going to have to plan a little bit, and be a bit clever in re-using and maneuvering through your meals, but 30 minutes of planning on Sunday afternoon can help make your cooking a breeze all week long. If you can't bear to plan, then just remember to K.I.S.S. Grill a piece of meat (5min each side is a pretty standard bet) with some seasonings or pour on a simple sauce (soup bases are a great start), chop and grill some simple vegetables on the side while the meat cooks and throw a slice or two of toast in the oven. Done in no more than 20 minutes.


In the meantime, if you are willing to plan a bit, here are some tips to get you started cooking real, well-rounded meals fast:

1.  Manage Your Vegetables

Chopping vegetables is probably the single most time-consuming process of cooking. Conquer your veggies, and the rest of the meal is quite painless.

uploaded by trekkyandy

• For the fastest vegetables, use frozen mixes. Unlike nearly everything else pre-packaged out there, frozen vegetables are actually good for you because they are usually frozen while the veggies are fresh- locking in the nutrients. The downsides are that frozen veggies won't have the nice, crisp texture that fresh do and pound for pound, they're more expensive.
• Canned vegetables are the worst for you nutrient-wise, but most health experts will tell you that just eating your greens is good for you. My favorite veggies to get out of a can are peas, sliced mushrooms, french-cut green beans, water chestnuts and corn (if you consider it a vegetable).
• Pre-prepare yourself. Every now and then I do take the Rachel Ray route and chop up a bunch of vegetables in one go-- usually when I notice something (like broccoli) is about to turn or if I'm already chopping a carrot, I may just finish the whole batch while I'm already at it. However, I freeze them when I'm done. Some things should probably never be done this way, though, like tomatoes, cucumbers or onions, but that's subject to opinion.
• One of the most valuable lessons I learned from my mother was to make (ie: rinse and rip apart) enough salad greens as you'll eat in a week and put it in a salad-keeper. You'll still need to add things like tomatoes and onions the day of, but it saves a good chunk of time.
• Befriend the easy-to-handle vegetables. Baby carrots are brilliant- just rinse and cook. Snow and snap peas can be just as easy, though you may want to quickly chop off the pointy tips. Baby spinach also just needs a good rinsing- usually no need to tear up. Tomatoes and mushrooms are quick and easy to slice and fresh green beans can be a breeze if you just master chopping off the tips in bulk.

2.  Make-ahead

This is where the planning comes in. If you're less picky about eating the same meal multiple times in a week, this can really help.

Getting Along uploaded by Orin Zebest

• Since most meals take roughly the same amount of time to cook no matter how many portions you make, make twice as much and doggy-bag half for another day. Meals usually last for three days in the refrigerator and weeks to months in the freezer. If you're really not fond of eating the same meal on Monday and Wednesday, then invest in some decent freezer tupperware and stock-pile a whole inventory of your own microwavable meals for future use.
• You can also make-ahead individual elements. You've probably noticed that I like to say "dump in a serving of rice" in a lot of my recipes. When I make rice, I make as much as the rice-cooker will handle (the size of decent saucepan or about 2-3 bags worth of boil-in-bag rice). Then I either use it all week long, freeze it in meal-sized portions or both. You can do this with pasta, potatoes or vegetables as well.

• I also like to prepare basic meats in bulk. E.g.: if I'm boiling and shredding chicken for use in one recipe, I'll make two meals worth and pack away the second half for another recipe later. This is most useful for unseasoned/generically seasoned meats that can later go into a casserole, pasta or a stir-fry.
• Don't forget some of the most useful store-bought "made-ahead" meats: ham and sausage. Though sausage may have some questionable mix-ins, pre-cooked ham is a very reliable meat that need only be reheated.

3.  Make all-in-one meals.

One of my first and favorite cookbooks was Simple One Dish. Though the majority of the meals are not fast and use a lot of pre-packaged goods, the book taught me the highly useful art of turning one entree into a full and balanced meal.

ham fried rice uploaded by jeffryw

• Sliced, seasoned meat cooks quickly and easily in a pan. Cook with some of the easy-to-chop vegetables and add rice, noodles or pasta for your carbohydrates and your major food groups are nicely packaged and ready to eat.
• Take some of the pre-cooked meat you've been making from lesson 2 and layer it in a casserole dish with potatoes or rice and a can of soup of your choice. Bake for 20 minutes and you have a nearly instant casserole.
• Other classic all-in-one meals are stir-frys, fried rice, pasta with meat and veggies (like spinach), soups and big, meaty sandwiches.

Happy Cooking!

Soothing Soups

Ginger Chicken uploaded by satakieli

With snow almost coming down on my home town last week, it seems like no one can escape winter this year. And with February usually making me shiver (musical reference intended), it's probably the perfect time to explore some nice warm soups and stews.

Fact: drinking a bowl of chicken soup will help you overcome a little winter cold. Actually, most soups will probably help you battle that cold-- not for any magical ingredients in the broth, but the extra dose of liquid goes a long way in helping your body when you're sick. Sometimes there's really something to those old home-remedies.

Now how does something that has to sit on the stove for hours end up on OntheFly? Well...

They're Quick and Easy

A soup can cook in as little as 30 minutes ... or even less if your meat is pre-cooked or you're going vegetarian. And even if you opt to really simmer away your soup for a couple hours or more, it doesn't get much simpler than throwing everything in a pot and walking away for a few hours of television or Facebooking.

Chicken Stock by Homemade Today

Soups keep!

I just love to make a big 'ole pot of something on Monday night, seal up the left-overs and eat it again for lunch or dinner later on in the week. If you don't like eating the same thing more than once in a week, one easy way to mix things up is to add in rice or pasta on the second night or even add new vegetables or seasonings.

They Can be All-in-One Meals

What I really like best about soups is that you can really turn them into a whole meal. Once you've put in rice/pasta, meat and veggies, you're set! And if you really want to go low-impact, you can cheat and use a pre-made soup base like tomato, cheese, cream of chicken/celery/mushroom and just add to it. Remember the tomato soup stew?

Tomato & Basil Soup with Tortellini uploaded by nettsu

Make Quick Fixes with Basic 
Soup Mixes

Similarly, here are some ways to work with pre-made condensed soups or instant soups:

• tomato soup +  spiral pasta, peperoni and mozzarella cheese
• cheese/cream of broccoli soup + broccoli, onions, cubed chicken/ham, potatoes
• cream of mushroom soup + frozen peas & carrots, cubed chicken, bacon bits
• vegetable soup + potatoes or rice, cubed beef/pork, even more veggies

Embrace Ramen

Ramen uploaded by barron

I know I give ramen noodles a lot of crap, but they can be quite useful. Take your basic ramen and throw in shredded lettuce & cabbage and cooked chicken, then top it all off by cracking an egg into it. Suddenly the dorm room staple is actually dinner! You can do other cool things with ramen like turning it into a stir-fry, but that's a recipe for another day...



Go Homemade All-the-Way

And finally, once you become thoroughly convinced with the ease of jazzing up Campbell's and Ramen,  try your hand at making the entire soup, broth and all from scratch. Check out my best bud Rachel's very timely post this week on making homemade chicken broth using chicken and vegetable scraps that you pack away in your freezer and then put to good use making a yummy soup base.

Happy Cooking!

Breakfast of Champions

Originally uploaded by jules:stonesoup as
the big breakfast with chili jam

Raise your hand if you don't eat breakfast in the morning.  That's what I thought.  Well, it's that time of year again, and whether you've set resolutions for yourself or not, I'm giving you one: eat breakfast.

If there's any lesson that I've had to learn over and over again in my adult life, it's to eat breakfast.  It all started sophomore year of college when I started feeling absolutely horrible at 9 o'clock every night.  What did that have to do with breakfast?  It turns out that by running off to class every morning and skipping breakfast, I wasn't starting my metabolism until midday.  So even after a full lunch and dinner, by 9pm my metabolism was still firing but I was running on empty- which made getting through my reading every night a nauseous, fatigued nightmare.


Of course, eating a decent breakfast will help you wake up and start your day feeling fresh and energetic, but it will also help control your weight.  It goes back to the metabolism thing.  Staring your metabolism bright and early will allow it to run its course all day, actively burning off calories and boosting your energy.  By evening it will be slowing down again, and you'll feel less compelled for those naughty late-night snacks and desserts.  And for that matter, letting your metabolic clock wind down at night will also help you fall asleep easier!


But I just don't have time to eat before work in the morning!  Tough.  Make a little time for breakfast and it will be the most rewarding change to your morning routine that you've ever made.  It only takes about 10-15 minutes to eat a simple breakfast- or less if you can grab it on the go and eat while you're checking your email in the office in the morning.  And if you live in America, you have no excuse- there are dozens of microwave-ready, already-put-together-for-you products out there that make breakfast a flash.

Aside from the smoothies, the recipes this month are a bit heartier and time-intensive and are designed for getting a good start to your weekend, but here are some great breakfasts to sneak in before work, all taking 15 minutes or less of your morning:

Originally uploaded by Laurel_Kate as baked oatmeal

• Cereal: Tried and tested, there's probably no more efficient way to get through your morning.  No matter where you live, there are tons of great cereals out there with fruits, nuts and whole grains ready to eat straight out of the box.  Or you could always add sliced fresh fruit to a simpler cereal like Cheerios or Corn Flakes.  And slicing up a couple strawberries or a banana only takes, like, 30 seconds ;)
• Oatmeal / Cream-of-Wheat / Grits: For a few minutes more, hot breakfast is always great on a cold winter morning.  Cream-of-Wheat with a dash of brown sugar is my favorite, but you can add nearly anything to each of these.  Sliced fresh fruit, berries, dried fruit, chopped nuts, a swirl of honey, cinnamon (an antioxidant!) or even peanut butter or Nutella will bring life to an otherwise bland breakfast food.
• Yogurt: So great for your tummy and so easy to eat.  Mix yogurt with your cereal instead of milk or add museli, oats, berries and/or dried fruit to your yogurt for a super-healthy, super-quick breakfast.





Originally uploaded by jma.work as Breakfast

• Loaded Bagels: They'll put anything on a bagel these days.  The classic butter and cream cheese will still get you through your morning, but try making little sandwiches out of your bagels and haul them off to work with you.  You can add jam or peanut butter or stack on your favorite deli meats and cheese.   My personal favorite is sliced cucumber and tomato with cream cheese and smoked salmon (if it's in the budget that week).  You can slice up the veggies/toppings right before bed at night and they should still be decent and ready to stack on your sandwich in the morning.
• Simple Ham & Cheese Sandwich: Throw two slices of bread in the toaster, fry an egg and stack it together with a slice of cheese and ham.  Done in 5 minutes.
• Eggs and Toast: Aside from making one small dirty pan and spatula (which you can rinse and then wash when you get home), you can cook up one or two eggs in no time.  



Originally uploaded by VirtualErn as Breakfast

• Scramble eggs with a dash of shredded cheese, bacon bits/cubed ham and some chopped veggies (onions, peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes).  Or load the same ingredients into an omelet.  Like with the bagels, chop up your veggies/other ingredients the night before and refrigerate till morning.  If I've chopped veggies for dinner, I like to set a little aside for the next morning.
• My favorite breakfast in Southeast Asia was soft-boiled (aka: runny) eggs and kaya toast.  I've been trying to replicate it since I left, but the runny egg is a fine art.  In general, you boil water, then turn off the heat and place a room temperature egg in it and cover for only 1-3 minutes then add a pinch of soy sauce and pepper.  But if you're like a lot of ang mos out there and a little afraid of the runny egg,  submerge your egg in water and let it boil all the way through.  Go about your business while it's boiling, and if you can master the "four-hour work week" guru's technique, a boiled egg and toast can be a quick and easy breakfast. 
• Poached eggs on toast.  Poaching eggs is also an art form, but they're making silicone egg poachers these days that really help. I usually cheat and lightly fry two eggs over easy- or even sunny-side up and plop them on toast.
• Don't forget to add a little life to your buttered toast.  You can sprinkle cinnamon and/or sugar/brown sugar on top, slap on your favorite jam/preserves or spread on some peanut butter, Nutella or kaya (a green or brown coconut spread).  In Asia they also add (sometimes spicy) meat "floss" to their toast.  See if you can grab some at a Chinese market, it's worth it!
• Smoothies: Another quick and increasing popular easy breakfast food is the smoothie.  You can blend nearly anything together and make a breakfast out of it.  There's so much to say about smoothies, though, that I'll have to dedicate an entire post to it!

Happy Eating!

December Diet: Spinach Greens

Ready for Cooking originally uploaded by luckyjimmy

I don't know how many times someone has mentioned to me that the more colors you have in your meal the better it is for you.  Well, it's true- when the color comes from an array of fruits and vegetables, that is.  Different colors of fruits and veggies all bring different nutrients to the mix.  Reds have lycopene, an antioxidant good at fighting heart disease.  Orange and yellows have beta-carotene and Vitamin C.  Blues and purples have cancer-fighting phytochemicals and all sorts of good stuff like folic acids, fiber and potassium.  Whites (like onions, garlic and cauliflower) have allicin, indoles and sulfaforaphanes that help battle cholesterol, high blood pressure, infections and cancer.  And good old greens are full of antioxidants, folate vitamins, minerals and fiber.

This month, to celebrate the season and a healthy, colorful plate, all our recipes will be red and green, with an emphasis on leafy spinach greens.

Why Spinach?

Home Grown Spinach originally
uploaded by OakleyOriginals

Some time last year I read an article about all the antioxidant rich foods that you should incorporate into every meal.  Fresh spinach was the king of that list, so I set out to find a way to include spinach in 3-4 meals a week.  I haven't quite maintained that enthusiasm, but I still try to throw spinach into my meals whenever I can.  

Spinach is so rich in antioxidants and vitamins, the list is almost absurd.  In fact, here it is: vitamins A, C, E, K, B2 & B6, magnesium, manganese, folate, betaine, iron, calcium, potassium, folic acid, copper, protein, phosphorus, zinc, niacin, selenium and omega-3 fatty acids.  The best way to preserve the nutrients in spinach is to each it fresh, steamed or briefly boiled as prolonged boiling can reduce some of the nutrient content (although, really not enough to be too fussed about!).  

You can buy spinach fresh (and often conveniently bagged as just rinse they're ready-to-eat leaves) or in frozen bags.  Both forms take about the same amount of work and are just as good for you.  Since frozen veggies are usually frozen very fresh, they often pack just as many nutrients, if not more, than the fresh greens in the produce section.  I prefer to work with fresh spinach, but for most of the recipes this month, the frozen variety will do just as well.

Here are some great ways to start incorporating spinach into your meals and snacks:

Spinach Empanadas with Poblano Sauce 
originally uploaded by norwitchnuts

• Throw out the iceberg and make spinach your go-to salad green!  You can add a small, restaurant-style side salad to every meal by quickly plopping some spinach leaves, onions and cherry tomatoes on your plate nestled up next to your entree.  For larger salads, toss spinach in with green lettuce like romain or butterhead for a healthy, green mix.
• Spinach is a great addition to nearly every pasta.  Throw it in with chicken alfredo or beefy tomato or bolognese dishes.   Layer it into lasagne or bake it into your cannelloni or ravioli stuffing. 
• Mix it with a little cheese and roll it into a variety of pastries such as cresents or puff pastries. 
• Add spinach, cheese and ham/bacon to your eggs to make a hearty breakfast quiche, omelet or frittata.   
• Next time you make a casserole, mix in some spinach.  You might not even realize it's there!
• Add it to your pizza toppings. 
• Layer it into a sandwich- especially a hot/grilled one.  
• Don't forget to keep spinach dip on-hand for snacks and entertaining.

Happy Cooking!

Perfect Potatoes

I must admit, I don't get into Thanksgiving quite as much as I do Halloween. Not really at all, actually. Aside from the turkey and the cranberry sauce, what do you have? Stuffing, squash, corn, candied yams, pumpkin pie...starch, starch and more starch.  No wonder you always feel fat when the meal is done.  One popular Thanksgiving-day starch that I will always support, however, is the potato.






You should always have a sack of potatoes in your kitchen.  Not only are they a reliable, staple side-dish, but they also last for ages.  [Although, not quite for 3.5+ months as a certain significant other of mine had to learn the hard way]  There's also about a million and a half wonderful ways that you can prepare a potato, so they'll never get boring.  And while I would love to test and share every single one of them, for the sake of this blog and this month's theme, I'll start by covering some potato side-dish basics that have been a regular part of my meal rotation since I first found myself in my own kitchen two years ago.

And so I begin with how to
make the perfect baked potato:

- olive oil
- salt
- butter/margarine
- works best with:
ordinary brown/Russet potatoes, the bigger the better!








1.  Preheat the oven to 350F/175C
2.  Wash the potatoes with a brush or the scrubbing side of a sponge, being careful not to scrape away the skin.  Then, use a teaspoon to dig out any big eyes or knots.
3.  Stab each potato numerous times with a fork or knife and lightly dry them with a paper towel.
4.  Pour the olive oil into a small bowl and dip each potato into the oil and roll it around a bit.  Then, sprinkle salt all over the potato.
*I find the most effective way to do this is not to be afraid of getting messy.  After dipping the potato in oil, I pick it up, smear the oil around with my hand and then hold the potato over the sink while I sprinkle salt on it.  I then put each one straight in the oven as I go...this can actually be pretty efficient if you manage to do the dipping and oiling with one hand and salting & oven door operating with the other.

5.  Place the potatoes directly on the oven rack with an aluminium foil-wrapped cookie sheet or drip pan underneath.
6.  Bake for about an hour, depending on the size of the potatoes.  The best way to know that the potatoes are done is that the skin will get crispy and puffed and sticking a fork in them should be as easy as butter.
7.  Slice each potato open either with a knife or by stabbing a line across the middle with a fork and pressing the sides.  Be careful because the potatoes will be hot- I usually handle them with a paper towel until they're ready to eat.

8.  While the potato is still hot, use a fork to gently break up the insides and plop your desired mound of butter on top.  This way, you mix a great and subtle buttery taste right in with the potato.
9.  Top with any exciting array of your
favorite toppings.
10.  Enjoy!

Notes:

• Don't be fooled into thinking this is a time-consuming task.  So long as you don't mind sitting back and relaxing while the potatoes cook, baked potatoes are pretty simple.
• If you have it, sea salt makes for the ideal salt coating.

Variations:

• Microwaving.  It can speed up the process, and is an unfortunate necessity for the oven-deprived, but I don't recommend it.  I also can't give proper instructions because microwaving a potato is a fine art which depends heavily on the microwave and the potato at hand.  If you dare to microwave, though, stay true to the fork-poking test and do not cut the potato open until you're certain it's cooked.  A cut potato will never finish cooking in the microwave.
• Steaming.  My dearest and most recent roommate somehow manages to live both without an oven AND a microwave.  And this did not bode well the day I absent-mindedly set out to make baked potatoes with dinner.  What I learned that day is that boiling a pot of water with the potato in a steamer basket or on top of a steamer tray for about an hour makes for a decently cooked potato. 

Happy Cooking! 

October Freaky Feature: Happy Halloween!

photo: neepster 

Halloween is my favorite holiday.  It’s not that I don’t love Christmas—in fact, I love Christmas just as much as anyone else—I just happen to love Halloween more [heh heh heh].  Halloween is such a wonderful excuse to have FUN.  Painted faces, silly costumes, scary movies, grinning pumpkins, childish games and creepy food…you might say it’s the most wonderful time of the year, really.

Last year was my first Halloween out on my own, away from home and out of college, and I just couldn’t wait to host my first “grown-up” Halloween party.  I spent the whole month of October planning it (and it took all of my will power not to start in September).   The problem with hosting your first grown-up Halloween party, however, is you’re busy and you’re broke.  Throughout the month, I was able to tuck-away a whopping $250 to spend on the whole ordeal: food, drinks, décor and– oh yeah –my costume.  It was a shoestring budget and I had to make all the food the morning of, but I managed to pull it off. 

How did I do it?

Well, dozens of tiny tea-light candles, a little free printing at work and throwing together a costume with clothes and make-up I already owned certainly helped—but some quick, creative recipes where what really made the party a hit.  So if you love Halloween as much as I do (or even if you don’t), this month I’ll be sharing ALL of the secrets behind my little Halloween tricks, snacks and treats.  Try them if you dare…

This month's tips for an easy and affordable Halloween bash: 


Essentials
- Excellent advice on homemade costumes can be found here.
- For a truly superb list of Halloween-themed cocktails (including how to make them glow) check out this blog: Drink of the Week


Décor
- Tea-light candles are the key to creating a great, spooky ambience.  Plus, they're abundant and cheap in any country.  Buy a pack and place them on tea/coffe cup saucers.  You can also cut an egg carton (plastic or cardboard) in half and place the tea-lights in them for a surprisingly stunning candelabra.  
- Spiderwebs are also a cheap and fantastic must-have.

Entertainment
- A&E's list of the 50 Scariest Movies of All Time

- Silly games that are quite a hoot:
  o  Vampires (Mafia w/ the names changed)
  o  Pin the Wart on the Witch
  o  Halloween Taboo
  o  Hallowopoly
  o  Scary Movie Trivia
  o  "The Withered Corpse" (body part guessing game)
Email me if you want instructions or templates for any of these games  

Happy Halloween!

^0,0^   

September Special Feature: Tomato Soup

photo: pablo diaz

Grocery shopping in a new country has been a big adventure for me.  I remember my second day in Singapore, strolling through Cold Storage, eyes wide and glistening with excitement—there was everything from a Japanese snack aisle to an Old El Paso end cap.  I was so thrilled by the peaceful coexistence of Asian and American products all under one roof that I ran back to the apartment and [literally] wrote home about it.

Although, in time the honeymoon phase would end and I would discover that there was a complete lack of corn tortillas, that London Swiss rolls were nothing at all like Little Debbie, that cheese of any variety averaged about 7 SGD/100 grams and most importantly, that Dr Pepper was apparently a seasonal item.  I was devastated.

It was during this phase that I learned that all too crucial survival skill of adaptation.  When I finally put my love of American junk food aside, I realized that there was a whole world of new products and flavors to experiment with—ginger, coriander, oyster sauce (just to name a few)—and my experimental cooking really took off.

Two years and another continent later, I was still shocked on my first trip to a Dutch grocery store.  I was suddenly very aware of why there didn’t seem to be any jobs at Kraft Foods in Amsterdam: American products were practically nonexistent.  (And while Dr Pepper may be constantly stocked, it is not bottled in Plano.)  However, once I got over that initial shock and started taking random products home and translating the labels, I’ve found a few good grocery store gems here as well.

Which brings me to this month’s featured ingredient: tomato soup. 

This month’s recipes all make use of a fantastic instant soup that I found here in Amsterdam:  Cup a Soup, Tomaten Crème (you can do the translation, right?)

People may scoff, but it’s simple, it’s easy and it makes for some good eatin’.  Hands down, the best way to make a quick, tasty [and cheap!] meal is to use a can of soup for some easy flavoring.  Aside from the featured recipes this month, here are some great ways to use a cup of tomato soup to spice up your meals:

photo: chatirygirl

o   Boil meat on the stove or roast in a slow-cooker smothered in the soup

o   Pour it over beef burgers, steaks or meatloaf

o   Heat the soup with some garlic powder and black pepper in a pan and pan-fry a white fish (like cod or halibut) in it

o   Mix the soup with cooked pasta, ground beef and shredded mozzarella on the stove for some hearty pasta

o   Add rice, carrots, peas, celery and a dash of pepper   OR

o   Add tortellini and some chicken breast to make your soup a meal

o   Pour a little soup into scrambled eggs for easy tomatoes and eggs

Now, this particular Cup a Soup was a new find for me, so it's probably not available everywhere.  However, I noticed it was a Unilever brand, so I did some quick research and found that the same product is marketed as Lipton/Knorr elsewhere, so hopefully you can have some luck locating it.  Otherwise, I would suggest substituting a can of Campbell’s classic tomato or tomato bisque.  The best thing about the soup I have been using, though, is of course, the flavor, so you may want to sprinkle some of these seasonings that I nicked off the back of the box:

                                                                                 o   basil

                                                                                 o   onion powder

                                                                                 o   oregano

                                                                                 o   parsley

                                                                                 o   beetroot

~Happy Cooking!