Cooking For Engineers

[Kimm]

I work in a group home for homeless teenage moms. We get alot of food in bulk, but lack the recipes to use some of the product up like we should, especially the wide egg noodles. The young moms are required to do their own cooking, so it would need to be a simple/quick recipe. Any and all suggestions are appreciated...we also get bulk quantities of : applesauce, peanut butter, instant mashed potatoes, pork and beans. The girls get tired of the same old thing , so any new (yet simple) recipes with any of these ingredients would be welcome,

[McDee]

I just ran a quick ingredient search over at www.cooks.com and came up with some tasty looking applesauce peanut butter breakfast bars:

http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,175,151187-235203,00.html

For the egg noodles, I have a fairly common base that I use. These are approximate amounts for a 2 quart casserole dish that makes 3-4 meals for me.

I keep a ziplock bag full of staled bread and heels in the freezer so that I have bread crumbs on hand. Just take a couple pieces out and run them over the cheese grater while still frozen. Use plain or mix with parmesan and herbs to taste.

Oven to 375

2 cups (dry) egg noodles (or whatever pasta I have in the pantry) cooked 2 minutes short of the directions on the box

Drain and pour into a bowl
Add 2 Tb butter, 1/4 cup flour, a cup or so of grated cheese, a cup of milk, some onion powder, salt and pepper. Mix well to combine.

Add a can of drained and flaked tuna, leftover chicken pieces, ground beef, bacon, sausage, etc. if you have it available. Last time I made it, I used tuna, some leftover canned corn, and frozen spinach (thawed quickly under cool running water and pressed in a towel to drain).

Pour into your baking vessel, cover liberally with bread crumbs, and bake for 20-30 minutes until the liquid is thickened and the top is browned. Cool slightly and serve.

[Guest]

My college roommate and I would often make a kind of crude ghoulash with egg noodles. It's a simple one dish meal. Well, maybe two dishes if you count the pot you boil the noodles in. It's got some veggies in it, so it's kind of healthy.

egg noodles
canned tomatoes, drained
frozen peas or frozen or canned corn
ground meat
onions
garlic
whatever spices you got for flavor

It doesn't take too much ground beef or other ground meat to give the dish some nice flavor.

Start some water to boil in a pot for the noodles. If you're limited by cookware, you can use the same pot for cooking the "ghoulash". It just takes longer.

While you've got the noodles and water going, cut up the onions and saute them in a pot or large pan with some vegetable oil or butter. I usually put in a little bit of salt or seasoned salt or garlic salt or celery salt for flavor. Once the onions are starting to get transparent, throw in some minced or sliced garlic. At this point, you can either scoop the sauteed onions and garlic into a separate bowl, or you can just throw in the ground meat and start cooking that. Once the meat is pretty well browned (it can still have a little pink in it), throw in the rest of the ingredients including the noodles. There are lots of different spices you can throw in at this point: pepper, chile powder, paprika, taco seasoning, cumin, oregano, italian seasoning. Take what you got and experiment a little. After you've adjusted the spices to your liking, you should be ready to eat!

[kgb1001001]

There's always chicken soup

Whole chicken (cheaper) carrots, garlic, celery, water, salt, pepper, and maybe a few herbs you might have handy make an excellent broth base you can freeze and use in dozens of other recipes. To make soup from the broth, add shredded chicken from the original broth, and cook some chopped pieces of carrots and celery in the broth until done. Then add the wide egg noodles. Feeds a big crowd easily and cheaply, and I can't think of anyone that doesn't like chicken soup.

There's a casserole we do with egg noodles that may be a bit on the pricey side due to the parmesan cheese, but that we love -- this is one of our favorites:

Comforting Chicken Casserole (feeds 3-5)

1/4 lb egg noodles
3/4 cup parmesan cheese
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
1 cup cream (we've used half and half successfully but milk won't work)
1 cup chicken broth (use the homemade above or canned)
2 cups cubed (or shredded) chicken or turkey (great for leftovers)
2 lightly beaten egg yolks (use the whites for merangue or omelets)

Preheat the oven to 375 and spray or butter a 2-quart baking dish. Cook the noodles until done then drain. While the noodles are hot, place them in the dish and mix in all but 2 tablespoons of the cheese. Make a sauce by first combining the flour and butter over low heat and cooking for 2 minutes to make a light roux. Slowly add the cream and broth to make a thick sauce. Cook over low heat, stirring often for 5 minutes. Add chicken or turkey and cook another minute.

Enrich the sauce by beating 1/4 cup of the hot sauce into the egg yolks a tablespoon at a time. Add the sauce/yolk mixture back into the saucepan with the remaining sauce. Stir for 1 minute, remove from heat and add salt and pepper to taste.

Add the sauce mixture to the noodles in the baking dish and sprinkle the top with the reserved cheese. Bake 20-30 minutes or until the top is golden-brown.

[mjaz]

The easiest and one of the most delicious recipes for wide egg noodles is simply tossing cooked egg noodles with melted butter (not margarine) that has been mixed with garlic powder and salt. Chopped parsley can be added to dress it up a bit. It is an excellent side dish.

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To make a quick, easy, cheap, flexible and HEALTHY meal:

Mix
- one can of cream of "whatever" soup (mushroom, celery, chicken, brocolli.. whatever you have)
-about 1/4 can of milk, chicken broth, or other liquid
-one can of tuna or chicken
-pepper
-garlic powder and/or onion powder

Toss with
-cooked egg noodles

Throw in some
- frozen peas or green beans, or brocolli.

It can be eaten straight, or placed in a casserole dish, topped with breadcrumbs and grated cheese, and baked at 350F for about 25 mins.

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Another cheap, fast, flexible and healthy meal is soup:

- Meat (1/2-1 lb cooked hamburger, 1 can chicken (with juice), 1/2- 1 cup cooked leftover chicken or beef... whatever)
- about 6c. broth or water mixed w/ 6 bouillon cubes (beef, chicken or vegetarian) OR 6c water and one packet of dry soup mix (ie: french onion)
- 1 box frozen veggies (peas/carrots or soup veggies)
-pepper
-garlic and/ or onion powder
-noodles of any kind (or rice, or frozen hashbrown potatos -cube-tupe)

Add all of this to a pot, and simmer for 15-20 minutes.

Optional:
-any available fresh veggies (carrots, celery, onion)
-1 can chopped or stewed tomatos (with juice), for beef based soups

Creamy Chicken Soup

- substitute 2 can cream of "whatever" soup, and 4 cups of milk for the broth in the above recipe
- delete the noodles, rice or potatos
- Use frozen chopped brocolli
- add grated cheese if desired

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Quick Stroganoff

Brown

-1lb hamburger
-1 onion, chopped or sliced

Drain, and rinse meat. Mix with

-1 can cream of mushroom soup
-1/2 c sour cream
-1 small can tomato SAUCE
-1/2 tsp worchestershire sauce (optional)
-salt, pepper, garlic powder and/or onion powder
-chopped parsley

Serve over buttered egg noodles.

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Hope these help. I still make many of these things, even though I am not concerned with finances, and am an excellent cook. These are some of the things I have taught my daughter to make when she heads to college, so she is not stuck in the "frozen pizza" syndrome.

[ditto]

Lots of noodles? Serve with big meatballs. Good Luck to your Group Home!

MARINARA SAUCE

Medium heat, large kettle.

6 Tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup butter
½ cup carrots, grated
½ cup celery, chopped
½ onion, chopped
1 bay leave
saute

2 Tablespoons tomato paste, heaping
1 garlic clove, minced
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon oregano
½ cup fresh parsley, about 16 sprigs
1 cup tomato sauce
5 cups fresh tomatoes or canned

Procedure

Combine olive oil and butter in a saucepan and heat. Add celery, onion, carrot and bay leave to the saucepan. Saute until softened.

Add tomato paste and stir. Add garlic, salt, pepper, oregano, parsley, tomato sauce and stir. Add tomatoes. Cook slowly for 30 minutes. Stirring often. At the end of cooking time remove bay leave.

Serve over macaroni, spaghetti, eggplant parmigiana, stuffed bell pepers or lasagna it makes a great pizza sauce...