Experiments...in the kitchen!

I have never been great at planning my evening meals nor my lunch boxes unfortunately, so often I found myself opening all the cupboards in the kitchen trying to scrape something up together or even just ending up with a sandwich. I am generally a good cook and I do like cooking when I have the time and the motivation (when others are there to benefit from it too basically). 

So...In light of all the above, I started daring a little and experimenting with my dinners, implementing a good and solid scientific method "cough cough". Kind of. 

To start with I needed an hypothesis;

Hypothesis 1: It is possible to make a delicious meal under 20 minutes.

The experimental design involved trying to make something decent in the shortest time possible...and with whatever I had in the cupboard. That's because, as I have already mentioned, there is no way I was going to think before hand what to have for dinner (I only have room for plankton related planning at present, thus my internal memory is full). And because I hate shopping, there was no way I would actually drag myself to the supermarket unless moths were the only thing left in stock. 

(I do occasionally stop at the corner shop though...well you know...when the milk turns into yogurt I need to replace it).

The first experiment I attempted involved freezer related "stuff" plus some pasta and half a tomato that was in desperate need to be used up. While I put the pasta to boil (10 minutes), I chopped the tomato up then I added the frozen peas and prawns that I scavenged from the freezer and mixed with a pinch of salt and herbs.  Then I microwaved the whole lot together. Oh! and for a touch of class I added a couple of drops of the lovely truffle oil that my friend Liz got me for Christmas...

Once I drained the pasta and added a knob of butter I splattered the "sauce" on top and proceeded eating it. The result wasn't as bad as I thought, a little tasteless maybe...well I wouldn't pay for it in a restaurant but I think I had worse things. But then again I was late for the comedy show at the Norwich Play House so I just had to be happy with that.

For my second attempt I actually put a little more effort in (considering the first time around my effort level was 0). I discarded the freezer in favour of mystery cupboards 1 and 2 and the fridge. I found:

In the fridge:

• out of date tofu (only 5 days)
• wrinkled up pepper
• a sorry looking leek
• some shriveled up carrots 

Strange looking barley/lentil grainy thing

In the cupboards:

• lentils
• strange looking barley/lentil grainy thing, left behind from a previous housemate since 2009 (see pic)
• out of date saffron (surely being a dried spice it never goes off?) best before 2009 

I chopped the sorry looking veggies and then I mixed them all together with the other items in a pan, adding white wine and stock to stop the whole thing from sticking and adding spices and salt as I wanted.

I think the experiment was a success, I did like the result and I will make it again!

Experiment 2 results

I have to mention that hopefully soon I will be able to find the motivation to cook properly again, my partner is finally coming home from Qatar to stay and not just to visit! Finally after so many years. Maybe he can cook too...