what's cooking?

[Shifter55]

Oh! I should check the forums more closely because yeah, this is up my alley as even if I am fairly able bodied, time pressure from job and zero-sum issue of things to do does push me to easier premade food.

On the potato noodle recipe, I would urge caution and watch the video before attempting to "boil" the oil, as it doesn't bubble like water will, instead it will smoke up. It's a good recipe though, and worth researching how long you can freeze the dough once it is kneaded, it's very easy to keep oil-rubbed dough in plastic-wrapped lots to defrost whenever you have need of it. Might freeze different from pastry dough, though, given it's just water and starch.

For about 3 months now I've been making two dishes for breakfast and work break, while my batch sizes were large enough to be difficult to make without power tools it only takes me an hour or two on the weekend to be set for the rest of the month or longer with these recipes, and they can be frozen!

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Slow Cooker Refried Beans



(Based off https://thestayathomechef.com/slow-cooker-refried-beans/)

This is a 3.5L capacity slowcooker recipe for making enough bean paste to fill up to 4 chinese food containers. Due to being fried with butter to a dry consistency the paste does not freezer burn and keeps for a long time in the fridge, at least 2 weeks.
Because there isn't anything to thicken it, you can fry it in a non-stick pan without fear, but it can burn on the bottom if you don't mix it well enough after mashing the beans.

500mL dried black turtle beans
500mL dried pinto beans
1 medium onion, diced
6-8 cloves sliced garlic
3 teaspoon salt
3 L water

frying
80g butter
2 tablespoon ancho paprika
0.5 teaspoon caraway
1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar

1: Halve and dice onions to half the thickness of your finger, slice garlic thinly.
2: Add dried beans, onions, garlic, and salt to slow cooker, pour water over ingredients, making sure not to overflow pot.
3: Set pot to high and cook on high for at least 10 hours, or overnight on auto setting, check pinto beans afterwards to see if they are soft all the way through.
4: Heat a very small amount of water in a large frying pan on high heat until it begins to boil, swirl water around pan sides and discard.
5: Melt butter on medium heat, add spices and cook until aromatic.
6: Use a slitted spoon to transfer beans to pan, draining as you go, do not completely fill pan with beans.
7: Use a metal potato masher to crush the beans to a paste, stirring after a few minutes to avoid burning.
8: Continue adding more beans once all are mashed, and continue mashing and stirring, if mixture in pan starts to bubble, stop adding beans and allow liquid to boil until bubbling sounds less sloppy in tone.
9: Once all beans have been mashed, pour the vinegar over the paste and stir until the paste reaches the desired consistency, I prefer all liquid to be evaporated.

This bean paste is quite plain, and not as smooth as the canned stuff, but I can control the flavour easily and refrying isn't especially difficult when there isn't anything to stick the food to the pan. If you want to buy similar off the shelf I recommend La Morena brand, which is expensive here. Really easy to keep a container in the fridge for making burritos and things in a sandwich press, and you can add it to rice and soup to bulk it up.

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Sunflower Carrot Cake



(Based off https://www.sbs.com.au/food/recipe/carrot-cake/yth8iprja)

I've found this recipe rises too quickly in loaf pans, resulting in it being difficult to apply icing to it, if anyone knows how to prevent that let me know. I've made several changes to the original to make it cheaper and reduce the alkalinity of the final product, but the real star of this is a manual food processor, these things are great and make for extremely safe ways to reduce anything sliced into mince, avoiding the use of a traditional grater. I recommend hand cranked ones for reducing the need for arm strength. I also haven't found a reliable way to tell the cake is cooked through, so I erred for longer cooking times.

You can freeze this if you wrap it twice in plastic wrap, I've been doing this with sliced loaves to reduce thawing time and to accommodate how slowly I eat it.

4 eggs
220g caster sugar
300g carrots, sliced to twice coin thickness
150mL sunflower oil
120g sunflower seeds (can replace half of seeds with pecans)
125g Wholemeal flour
125g Plain flour
1/2tsp salt
2tsp baking powder
1/2tsp ground cinnamon

1: Preheat oven at 160C and oil a 21x11cm loaf pan, if nonstick or enamel the cake should be able to pull away from the tin without a liner when inverted.
2: Beat eggs, sugar, salt, cinnamon, and baking powder with an electric mixer until pale and thick in a bowl large enough to hold 3L of water.
3: Mince sliced carrots in food processor until fine, add to eggs, coarsely mince seeds and nuts, add to egg.
4: Stir in oil, until egg mixes with rest of wet ingredients.
5: Add the flour half at a time, folding the wet mixture over the top of the dry with sweeping motions, when there is no lumps remaining in the batter, add the other half and continue folding.
6: Once batter is combined pour into loaf pan and bake at 160C for 1 hour and 25 minutes, cake should be cooked through when you can't hear quiet bubbling from inside the loaf, best indicator I have, sorry.

I ended up switching to this after the peanut bars I bought for work started becoming notably more bitter and cheap tasting, and bananas don't last long enough around my dad to make good quality banana bread, so carrots it is! If you can get pecans I recommend using them, but pure pecan is too strong and they are the most expensive ingredient in this by far.
I'm usually doubling or even tripling the quantity of this recipe, if you do so hand-beating egg without injury ends up impossible. You can use other vegetables in this but the one I am familiar with is zucchini and it ends up tasting like mcdonalds chips, so... more modification needed there?