So recently I've moved in with a couple friends, after deeming that home with my mom was just worth it.
So I've lived here about 3 weeks, its a small house with 4 21+ men and a girlfriend that hangs out 4-5 days a week.
Essentially the only thing we pay for is internet and electricity, our heat is provided by a wood burning stove, and we chop wood to keep the house warm, and our water bill is non existent as we get everything from a well. So basically we pay a 90 dollar electricity bill and a 30 dollar internet bill, and that is it. There is no rent, so basically 100-150 is the maximum i spend on utilities every month.
We live about 20 minutes away from the city, so every day we have to get up a little early work, but it's not bad at all. I make the most money out of our friends, and I am the most responsible, 3 of the men work, while the other is basically our bitch that cleans the house, smokes pot, and is just happy that he isn't homeless.
There is a problem though, I like to cook good food, and all we have in the house is + Show Spoiler +
Burgers/ stir fry/ Curry can only be eaten so many times. It's also inefficient and time consuming , cause 5 young people eat a lot of food.
So basically i want an oven, makes cooking a lot easier for larger groups of people, but I don't want to install an oven. But i don't really know what i can get as an alternative to a wall oven.
also would like some dish ideas. Nothing too time consuming unless its just cooking time, and stuff that can feed a lot of people. We have people very open to food, so basically anything moderately priced is good.
Get a crock pot. Cheap. Easy. Can make lots of food. Yes, the cooking is time consuming. No, the preparation is often not time consuming. There often isn't much more effort than putting stuff into the pot, turning it on, and eating it when the house smells too good.
On February 02 2012 01:07 Smurphy wrote: Get a crock pot. Cheap. Easy. Can make lots of food. Yes, the cooking is time consuming. No, the preparation is often not time consuming. There often isn't much more effort than putting stuff into the pot, turning it on, and eating it when the house smells too good.
Hot damn I wanted to suggest the crock pot.
Seriously I made the most orgasmic pork while experimenting with the crock pot.
Came out like the most perfect pulled pork ever. nom nom nom.
Plus, it's little (some are) and easy to hide in a cabinet or a basement shelf when not using it - mine sits in my basement on a table and I bring it up when I am going to use it. :D
Can you elaborate on your living conditions? 4-5 people living together with no utility-fed heat and well water and no rent? How does well water work? Do you have an electric pump or something that feeds the house?
It's interesting to hear how people got in the situations they're in (not saving you're in a bad situation!). Especially when they don't exactly fit the norm.
On February 02 2012 01:29 Chill wrote: Can you elaborate on your living conditions? 4-5 people living together with no utility-fed heat and well water and no rent? How does well water work? Do you have an electric pump or something that feeds the house?
It's interesting to hear how people got in the situations they're in (not saving you're in a bad situation!). Especially when they don't exactly fit the norm.
Our well where i grew up was awesome, water tasted great. If you left water in a glass for a day or so it would go grummy.. look dirty and taste like shit I don't know if this was specific to our well or just well water in general is never 100% "clean" or with added anti bacterial or something...
I'm guessing you're new to cooking so I'll make this as noob friendly as possible.
Since you are living with so many people it would only make sense to cook in large batches. The crock pot was exactly what I was going to recommend since cheap cuts of meat have a lot of flavour and on a long enough time line will become juicy, melt in your mouth, hearty dishes.
It -really- doesn't matter what you put in but the general formula goes 1) some aromatic 2) some wet stuff 3) some cheap meats and let it cook for a couple hours, then serve over rice or pasta or with bread. As a student I did endless combinations and just let it cook for hours and the end result was almost always good. If you're going to be cooking a lot I suggest you invest in some spices. Oregano and rosemary go with beef, pork, chicken. Thyme goes with potatoes, carrots, onions. A black pepper grinder would be good. Other misc like paprika, cumin, bay leaf, cardamon, cinnamon buy if you want your food to taste really good. For fish just go with salt, pepper, lemon juice and grated ginger and grated lemon zest, maybe some butter to finish it off.
These recipes are the bare bones. If you bought other spices or have other ingredients then use them. Otherwise this would be my "minimum requirements".
Cheap chili 1 whole head garlic 1 whole onion some chilli flakes 2 cans tomatoes 1lb ground meat pre soaked beans or can/pack of bean mix Bash the garlic cloves with the flat side of a knife to peel easier and chop them up. Peel onion and chop roughly. Don't need to be too finely chopped since they'll be cooked till melted anyway. Brown the meat on high heat with a little oil in a pan and halfway done add the garlic and onion. Cook till done and transfer to crock pot and pour over 2 cans of tomatoes, beans and add a little water if necessary. Salt and pepper and sugar to taste. Sugar balances out the sourness from tomatoes. Cook the shit out of it and serve with rice.
Optional: tomato pure, ketchup, bay leaf, ginger, star anise, sichuan pepper.
Oldschool bolognese sauce 1 carrot chopped 1 celery chopped 1 whole head garlic chopped 2 cans tomatoes 1 tablespoon oregano (or italian herb mix which is 80% oregano anyway) 1lb cheap ass beef cuts like shin/leg, brisket, flank, skirt Cut beef into large cubes and sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. Brown in a pan in small batches with a little oil so heat stays high. When done, add a little oil if needed and slightly fry the carrots, celery and garlic in the pan, scraping the brown crusty stuff from the bottom with a wooden spoon. Move the meat and the vegetables to the crock pot and add the oregano and tomatoes. Add a little water (or old red wine if you got it) so the liquid just covers the meat. Salt, sugar, pepper to taste. Cook till the meat fibers start separating. Break up the meat with a fork or spoon and serve over pasta, with a little olive oil drizzled on top.
Optional: red wine, bay leaf, basil, tomato pure, ketchup, white pepper.
Thai style chicken soup 1 lime piece of ginger as big as your thumb 1 whole head garlic 3 stalks lemon grass 1 or 2 fresh chillis (or even more if you got balls) 1 whole chicken Juice the lime, grate the zest. Bash the ginger, garlic and lemon grass. Chop the chillis fine or course depending on how hot you want the soup to be. Put the whole chicken in with all the ingredients except lime zest and top up with water. Press down with your hand and break the chicken up a little so it fits in the pot. Cook till meat falls off the bones, salt and pepper and mix in the lime zest. Serve with noodles. I know this one has a few wonky ingredients but if you make this, sure to impress some people.
Optional: sesame oil, fish sauce, stock instead of water, bullion cubes, lemon leaf, chopped parsley/chives.
There are so many more variations you can make, with curry, or beer, or lamb, chopped up sausage etc. The crock pot is the poor man's best friend.
On February 02 2012 01:29 Chill wrote: Can you elaborate on your living conditions? 4-5 people living together with no utility-fed heat and well water and no rent? How does well water work? Do you have an electric pump or something that feeds the house?
It's interesting to hear how people got in the situations they're in (not saving you're in a bad situation!). Especially when they don't exactly fit the norm.
Well, it started when one of my friends was kicked out of his parents house, it was planned, so he had time to prepare. He didn't have enough money for an apartment, so he was gonna stay at a friends. But his uncle offered his extra home for him to use, it had no expenses besides electric bill, and was just laying there holding shit. So he took the offer of course. Well, after hearing that a friend of his decided that he was tired of living with his mom, and this was the perfect opportunity to leave, so he did it. The last friend was homeless for a bit until roger decided to help him out, so that's why the jobless guy is there. So they had been living there for like 2 months, both of the 2 friends work at the same place so it only required one car, you give up freedom, but save a lot of money. I started chilling there for a couple nights, and found that i liked it more than living at home, company was good, and it saved me money overall. Also helps that my work is on the way to their work, so they can just drop me off, so we still only require one car, saving us oodles of cash.
water is good, we use an electric pump, and it pumps water to the 3 houses that his uncles own, water pressure is good, It does get sulfur in it, so we need softeners to make it not smell bad, but they are cheap. We also kinda have a bad hot water heater, only having 10 gallon of hot water(I'm used to 50) We have wood brought by his uncles every week because he gets it for free at his job, so we just just have to chop it. we get a starter log set for fireplaces every month so that starting fires takes a minute or two.
we have large room/ kitchen area, an average bedroom, and a washer/dryer room. The bedroom has 2 beds, and a computer desk. Mainly we use this place for alone time and sex.(all of us understand that people need personal time, or privacy to fuck). Mainroom, its a large room that has both the kitchen and the living room. We have two desks in the room, one closer to the kitchen, the other closer to the living area, they both have our computers on them. We also have a large LCD TV that we have hooked up to a 360, i mainly use that to play marvel and stuff, and they mainly use it for netflix. So in the living room we have a couch a, recliner, and a bed. We all sleep in one, i take the bed. Eventually ill take the coach, cause i ordered some room dividers so that my friend can have privacy while he sleeps on the bed (he needs privacy more than me). Kitchen is a nice area, with enough room to easily cook in, but limited counter space. We do have a nice dining table in it for when we play D&D or do other stuff together. The washing and drying room is just that..... a room with a washer a dryer, and a shit ton of clothes, we also use it for sex if we have 2 girls over.
So overall it's a good place, we all respect each other, and even though its small, we don't feel like we are falling on top of each other, and we have our own personal space.
Like the first two responses said, crockpot. There's a ton of stuff you can make with that, it is minimal effort and most of the stuff you will make is made in mass, easily frozen and reheated.
Might as well get a foreman grill or something similar so you have another thing you can cook on.
That and just go splurge on a bunch of random spices, many of which that pyro mentioned and bite off some recipes and start experimenting.
It's actually more common than you think, but typically the people that do so have normal running water haha. Well water actually kicks ass right up until you get some funky bacteria that sends your bowels into convulsions
On February 02 2012 04:36 Hawk wrote: It's actually more common than you think, but typically the people that do so have normal running water haha. Well water actually kicks ass right up until you get some funky bacteria that sends your bowels into convulsions
I don't know about it kicking ass, even if you aren't getting funky bacteria. Where I grew up it was common for a lot of people to not have centralized water. The normal filters that are used aren't very good and only remove the bare minimum. The water I had was pretty high in sulfur and calcium, so the water stunk and calcium deposits would build up pretty quick. Other people had high iron so it would leave rust stains on everything. In general, the lower running cost isn't really worth all the other problems.
Like others have said, definitely get a crock pot. All you really have to do is prepare all the ingredients the night before or in the morning, plug it in before you go to work, and you come home to a cooked meal. It's very convenient and a good way to cook large amounts of food. It's also very easy to find recipes. Mine actually came with a little booklet with a dozen or so recipes that weren't bad at all. I've cooked everything in it from chicken to ribs to more soup than I can eat in a week. Just make sure you buy one that's an appropriate size.
Also, look at the bright side of not having an oven, you guys aren't falling into that terrible early 20's male stereotype of living off frozen pizza. That's probably a good thing lol
Can you not use your wood-burning oven as an oven? I don't see why not! No temperature control but you should get good flavour out of it ^^ Breadmaker to make pizza dough and then wood-burning oven pizzas e'ryday!
Crock pots are pretty awesome. So I'd go for that as well.
I don't have one, though. Usually I cook stews and pastas with my stove. Same with rice.
You could try a few of the recipes from my blog (some of them are floating around TL in the blog section. They're called "Food Porn", or here: http://kierpanda.blogspot.com ... sorry for the self promotion D: )
Or sortedfood on youtube: (Leek and butterbean fish) (orange & soy chicken) (prawn and pea pasta)
On February 02 2012 08:12 Chill wrote: Can you not use your wood-burning oven as an oven? I don't see why not! No temperature control but you should get good flavour out of it ^^ Breadmaker to make pizza dough and then wood-burning oven pizzas e'ryday!
actually we are gonna try this, we have a bread machine, and i used to make home made pizza dough and pizza in the oven. so this will be even better, thanks for suggestion.
and about well, i only speak from my perspective and i didnt get grimy water when I used to drink it a lot. I'm that differs from place to place though!
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I don't know if this was specific to our well or just well water in general is never 100% "clean" or with added anti bacterial or something...
Usually I cook stews and pastas with my stove. Same with rice.
