If you look down the comments on the ‘About’ page here you’ll see a message from a lady called Jane asking me if I was interested in writing for a student magazine. Needless to say, with my current restricted income, I was VERY interested in doing this, especially since I write about food on a daily basis anyway.
So Jane and I started conversing over e-mail and she eventually sent me the front page of the magazine. The line on the bottom right of the page caught my attention. “Quick and Easy Recipes.”
Hang on. Is this the stuff I’m supposed to be doing? I wondered if Jane had actually looked through the site because I can’t recall the last quick and easy recipe I posted. Most of my cooking takes about two hours to complete. True, the double G&Ts slow me down somewhat but the timings hardly compare to using a stir in sauce.
And what does easy actually mean? If the average student is anything like the engineering undergrads I teach, I’d expect them to find operating a microwave a serious challenge. But that would rule out pretty much any recipe worth writing down.
So I thought long and hard about what to write and eventually came up with…
Spicy breaded turkey cutlets. Cheap, easy and sort-of quick. Plus its a good way of getting rid of unused bread.
The idea is simple. You take these thin turkey steaks, brush them with tomato puree, coat in egg and cover with a mixture of dry breadcrumbs, cayenne, paprika and mixed herbs then fry until cooked. They go pretty well with some cous-cous and courgettes.
The turkey only takes a minute or two to cook and the preparation time would have been about 15 minutes had I not been cleaning the kitchen whilst cooking. The pack of turkey, which cost £3.60, would feed three or four easily and the spices hardly add anything to the cost. So I estimate that with a fairly simple cous-cous and courgette accompaniment the price would be around £1.50 for a large meal.
Hopefully it will do for the magazine. I have some turkey left so I might try again at the weekend and see if it can be improved. I think maybe getting some tomatoes and making a garlicky tomato and courgette salsa might work.
Now I just have to think of one more. Maybe this should be a long slow cook recipe that can be left in the oven while the student goes down the pub. Hmmm…..
If you look down the comments on the ‘About’ page here you’ll see a message from a lady called Jane asking me if I was interested in writing for a student magazine. Needless to say, with my current restricted income, I was VERY interested in doing this, especially since I write about food on a daily basis anyway.
So Jane and I started conversing over e-mail and she eventually sent me the front page of the magazine. The line on the bottom right of the page caught my attention. “Quick and Easy Recipes.”
Hang on. Is this the stuff I’m supposed to be doing? I wondered if Jane had actually looked through the site because I can’t recall the last quick and easy recipe I posted. Most of my cooking takes about two hours to complete. True, the double G&Ts slow me down somewhat but the timings hardly compare to using a stir in sauce.
And what does easy actually mean? If the average student is anything like the engineering undergrads I teach, I’d expect them to find operating a microwave a serious challenge. But that would rule out pretty much any recipe worth writing down.
So I thought long and hard about what to write and eventually came up with…
Spicy breaded turkey cutlets. Cheap, easy and sort-of quick. Plus its a good way of getting rid of unused bread.
The idea is simple. You take these thin turkey steaks, brush them with tomato puree, coat in egg and cover with a mixture of dry breadcrumbs, cayenne, paprika and mixed herbs then fry until cooked. They go pretty well with some cous-cous and courgettes.
The turkey only takes a minute or two to cook and the preparation time would have been about 15 minutes had I not been cleaning the kitchen whilst cooking. The pack of turkey, which cost £3.60, would feed three or four easily and the spices hardly add anything to the cost. So I estimate that with a fairly simple cous-cous and courgette accompaniment the price would be around £1.50 for a large meal.
Hopefully it will do for the magazine. I have some turkey left so I might try again at the weekend and see if it can be improved. I think maybe getting some tomatoes and making a garlicky tomato and courgette salsa might work.
Now I just have to think of one more. Maybe this should be a long slow cook recipe that can be left in the oven while the student goes down the pub. Hmmm…..
