Congratulations are in order for this not being pasta

I get ideas to get rid of food that is about to expire My thick cream is due to expire pretty soon.

I baked my potato in the oven for about an hour. I sliced it open, put it in the silver plate and drizzled it with butter. I cut up a large portobello mushroom and rubbed some butter in them and spattered them around. I then poured the thick cream on top of it all, about 2 table spoons. Popped it in the oven again for about 5 minutes, once out covered it with yellow cheddar cheese and of course rocket leaves. Each bite was mushy and tender with cream and mushroom pieces covered with melted cheese … YUM

I know, too much pasta! But I’m so hungry and I was planning to go shopping on Sunday after the cinema and guess what Tesco closes at 4 PM! By the time, we got to Marks and Spencer, it was closed, it closes at 5 PM. I’m going to make a chicken dish someday once I go get some from the Pakistani shop which sells halal meat.

This one I made up as I went Taking everything out before it expires and putting it together, though the toast I used has expired days ago but if it’s in the fridge “ما يضره”.

As you see in the pictures I used one of the plates I got when I bought a ready meal and thought why waste it and throw it away when I can use it for future cooking since I don’t have that much cookware anyways, actually, I only have two, a small pan and a small pot

• I semi-cooked the pasta, I wanted to use penne but all I have is spaghetti, and put it aside.
• To make the sauce, I chopped portobello mushrooms and sautéed them in butter, added cream, two spoons of Philadelphia cheese and stirred on the heat.
• On the silver oven plate, I placed some of the semi-cooked pasta, poured some of the sauce, sprinkled yellow cheddar cheese, another layer of pasta and poured the rest of the sauce and sprinked cheese.
• I put one toast in the toaster on full power to make it brown and crispy, and then broke-up the toast with my hands and covered the pasta with toast crumbles and placed the dish in the oven for 10 minutes for the pasta to complete cooking.
• I love rockets leaves, so I put some on top once the dish was out of the oven

This is a fast dish, though not fast enough sometimes It was TASTY, I like the yellow cheddar cheese in the pasta but after I was done, I got so thirsty, I kept drinking water, so this is kind of a warning I think by the time, I finish my time in UK, I’ll be allergic to pasta

Decided to make risotto and since all recipes have chicken stock, wine, onion, seasoning and I don’t have any of those, I decided to just go ahead and make use of whatever I have …. bloggy style hehehehe

You know how they say pictures are better than words, well in this case pictures are better than taste also

Since I don’t have that many deep pans, actually I only have one. I boiled the water and transferred it to my cornflakes bowl and used the pan again to sauté the risotto rice in some butter. I didn’t have chicken stock or any flavors of that kind, what I had was portobello mushrooms that I got from the farmers open market yesterday, so I cut these up and put them in the resting boiled water, just to give the water essence and to sooth the mushrooms.

I gradually poured in the water, burning my hands in the process and spilling on the cooker, then stirring the rice, when all the water evaporated, I poured in some more, of course I took the mushrooms out of the hot water and placed them on a side plate.

After each pour and stir, I taste the rice, if it is still crunchy I pour more water, I then added thick cream, only a little, which kind of made the rice puff up and become mushy, so I added water again and again!

I don’t have that much salt, actually I just took pepper and salt packets from the university cafeteria and forgot to bring in some more so I only used one pack and stirred the rice and finally added the mushrooms and Parmesan cheese.

Placed everything on the plate and sprinkled more cheese on the top.

How it tasted, well I have tasted better risotto, well actually much better. The texture was great, but it was missing salt and a flavor, I could actually taste the water in the rice, so I knew if I used some chicken or vegetable stock, it would’ve tasted better. The cheese helped a lot with the flavor.

I give it 5 points out of 10. It’s good beginners starting point

If you are wondering what the garlic bread is doing next to the risotto, well I got this ready made that will expire soon, so I need to eat a piece everyday before it expires. The disadvantage of food-for-one.

Hungry and needed something to eat before carrying out the rest of the errands I had lined up

Saw Subway and went in -though their bread is NOT as it used to be-, ordered 6 inch steak sandwich

How much?

1.200 KD

Come Again!!!

I remember Subway in it’s early days, when the bread was all puffy and swollen up, now it’s just flat and that has been going on for years now, when I saw the flat bread for the first time, I asked, did you change your bread recipe or ovens, it’s not the same!

It’s been a long time since I went there and yesterday when he told me the price whooa, I remember it was 0.850 KD what happened??

But it was goood, he recommended steak sauce and ranch, weird mix but tasty

I suppose, Subway, is considered FRESH, so a price tag comes along with that!

Why am I complaining, I buy coffee for 1.500 KD!!! anyway … I guess I was taken back a little. But seriously the prices are going up more than once a year, you find them raising up their prices every four months and that’s even before they decided to give us ever so generously the 50 KD

Salary raise here …. increase prices there … give and take …

Subway, you need to bring your OLD bread back, what happened ????