Extremely simple recipes for people who aren't good at cooking.

10 responses total.

Cream of Onion Chicken:

1 package of raw chicken (breasts, legs, whatever), not more than a pound or
so.
1 can Campbell's Cream of Onion soup.

Cut up chicken as desired (not strictly necessary if chicken is already in
parts instead of whole).  Pour some cooking oil (olive oil is good, almost
anything like corn, canola, peanut would be OK) into a baking pan (a skillet
would be OK in a pinch, or maybe pie plates), just a 2-3 inch diameter puddle.
Put in chicken pieces, stir around a bit to get some of the oil onto most of
the chicken.  Pour condensed onion soup (straight from can) over chicken.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 30-35 minutes.

Serve over egg noodles or potatoes, or whatever sounds good.  If you want
potatoes you should cut them up a bit and start them boiling about the same
time you put the chicken in the oven.

Why bother greasing the chicken?  They grease themselves from the inside.

Scott mailed me about this item.  It got me into the cooking 
conference.  (For those who don't know, I'm an incompetent cook now 
having to cook for myself.  I've never made an appearance in this 
conference before.)

Here's one I've made twice, more or less successfully:

Chicken fingers w/Honey Dijon Sauce:

Ingredients for chicken strips:
4 skinless boneless chicken breasts (4 oz each)
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
3/4 cup milk
1 cup vegetable oil for frying

Ingredients for Honey Dijon Sauce:
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup dijon mustard

1st: Make the honey mustard sauce a day or two in advance.
Mix 1/2 cup honey and 1/4 cup of dijon mustard

2nd: Prepare the chicken strips
1. Cut chicken into 1/2 x 2" strips
2. Mix flour, salt and pepper in small bowl
3. Dip chicken into milk
   Roll in flour mixture to coat well
   Place chicken on waxed paper

3rd: Fry the chicken strips
4. Pour 1/2 inch oil into large heavy skillet.  Heat over medium high
   heat to 350 degrees
5. Divide chicken into batches.  Place chicken in an even layer in hot 
oil.  Fry, turning once, for about 3 minutes on each side or until 
golden-brown and crisp.  Drain on paper towels.  Serve with sauce.

When I am late or I have a final to study for I make, or talk one of the kids
through what we affectionately call Swill

Cook 2-3 boxes of macaroni from your favorite Mac and Cheese mix (really the
only convenience food we use)
Drain and rinse.  Put the amount of butter/margarine called for in the pan.
Chop 1 or 2 onions and saute in the fat.  Add 1 can tuna (we prefer water
packed) per box of pasta and 1 lb bag of frozen mixed veggies, or corn, or
half corn half peas (you get the idea) and cook til veggies are soft.  Add
the milk called for, you can add it a bit earlier to help cook the veggies.
Add the drained pasta and the cheese packets, salt and pepper to taste.  I
sometimes add granulated garlic.  Heat til everything is heated through.

Another quickie that STeve and the kids love is Tuna and Rice.
Cook enough white rice for everyone, we use a rice cooker so I'm not sure of
the exact measurements.  Make a white sauce:

Standard Roux (White Sauce)
1 Tablespoon butter/margarine
1 Tablespoon flour
per 1 Cup milk for thin sauce

2 Tablespoons fat and flour per Cup of milk for medium (this is the most used
and used for this recipe, use meat drippings as the fat and water or broth
instead of milk for gravy)

3 Tablespoons fat and flour per Cup of milk for thick.

Melt the fat and stir in the flour.  Stir until thick and the flour has cooked
some to loose the floury taste.  Add the milk 1/3 at a time stirring
continuously until thickened.  Add salt and pepper, and any other herbs you
may like to taste.

To a medium white sauce, about 1 to 2 cups of sauce per person, add 1 to 1.5
cans of tuna and a fair amount of marajorm (sp).  Cook until tuna heated
through and spoon over the rice.  To make it truly balanced serve with a
veggie or a salad.

Richard, my Minnesota Lutheran ex-roommate from Chicago, knew how to cook two
dishes -- the one where the Bisquick goes on top, and the one where it's mixed
in with everything else.  Both were quite good.  Cooked ground beef (or canned
tuna), veggies (but not many, this being Minnesota food, after all), cheese,
and pancake mix.  Assemble.  Put in oven.  Take out again.

Actually, that apartment was a good place for simple recipies, since none of
us really knew how to cook.  Spider was a big fan of potatoes cooked in beer.
She claimed not to know how to make them any other way.  When we finally ran
out of beer, we came home one night to these fascinating sweet-and-sour
potatoes with an interesting crunchy-sticky texture and a vaguely charred
flavor.  They were really surprisingly good, and we spent most of the evening
guessing at the secret ingredient.  It turns out Spider had substituted for
the beer the only other beverage we had in the house -- orange juice.

We also kept needing to improvise dessert, since we'd all wind up craving
something sweet and realize we'd already eaten all the cookies (or whatever).
We'd make those premade just-stick-'em-in-the-oven biscuits with butter and
sugar on top.  They weren't half bad, especially when the other option was
walking five blocks in the middle of winter in Chicago for an overpriced
brownie or something at the student union.

Another real quick meal.

Brown some ground beef and diced onion.  Add 1 can of cream of mushroom soup
per pound of meat.  If too thick add a bit of water.  Heat through and serve
over rice or noodles.  Works with any ground meat.

(Or, to the above, add yogurt or sour cream.  "Hamburger stroganoff".)

Fake Mexican Chicken:

2 pieces of chicken (I tend to use boneless, skinless breast halves, but
any two serving-sized pieces of chicken will work)
1 12- to 15-ounce jar of your favorite salsa
1/2 to 1 cup rice
Perhaps about 1/2 cup of water.

Heat oven to 350 F
Pour uncooked rice in bottom of 6" or 9" baking pan or other
similarly-sized ovenproof container.  Shake the pan so the rice is in a
more or less even layer.
Place chicken on top of rice.
Pour salsa over chicken and rice.  If you're using more than 1/2 cup of
rice, add water until the salsa/water mix equals about twice the amount
of rice (i.e., if you have 1 cup of rice and a 12-ounce jar of salsa,
add 1/2 cup of water).
Cover pan with foil and place in oven for 45 minutes or until rice is
done.

While the chicken is cooking, prepare any side dishes you might want.  I
generally eat this with a spinach-leaf salad or a pile of raw vegetables
and some kind of dip for them (a combination I call "finger salad").

Chicken curry and rice:

Steam in a rice steamer, or cook in a pan, 2 parts water to 1 part 
rice-- steam or cook until rice absorbs the water.  Add curry powder 
to the water before steaming or cooking: about 1/2-1 tsp. per cup of 
rice should do it.

Cook chicken by any method easiest for you, but make sure the internal 
temperature is at least 180 degrees.  I often cook chicken in a 
pressure cooker, and leftovers generally constitute chicken for this 
recipe.  Pressure cooking generally gets the chicken soft and moist, 
and it's easier to deal with bones if there are any.  If you do 
breasts, cut them into smaller pieces.

Microwave or cook over low heat the chicken again in yogurt, adding 
any of these spices to taste (a liberal dash generally works for a 
bowlful):

mint, cumin, ginger, allspice, cinnamon, garlic, fenugreek

Add stewed canned tomatoes, raisins, apples, boiled egg crumble, or 
any other topping you like-- this is not authentically Indian by any 
means.  Chutney is good, too.

You should be fine, provided you don't spice the chicken in the yogurt 
sauce too heavily.

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