A bluffer's guide to cooking a sort of potato curry thing

There's very very little I can cook at all competently, but continuing my theme of posts where a beginner teaches a complete ignorant something to the hilarity of the watching experts, how to cook something edible with a complete minimum (or absence) of effort and ability:

1. Take a frying pan. Put oil in. Make it hot

It should be somewhere between the point where the ingredients start to sizzle gently and the point where they burn, find this by experiment.

I use olive oil which is traditionally considered more expensive and nicer, but it probably works the same with other oils.

Add another small splash of oil later if things seem to be sticking rather than frying, but don't drown everything.

2. Add spices (cumin, which apparently goes in everything, and paprika, which is scarlet) and a chopped chilli and two chopped garlic cloves.

If you're a complete beginner, you can substitute curry powder for the spices and the chilli, and pre-chopped garlic for the garlic. But honestly, all of those keep really well, there's little benefit to not having the real ingredients even if you've never cooked.

If you've never cooked anything before, you may not know that a "bulb" of garlic is the bulb-shaped thing with crackly skin, which contains about eight "cloves". If you accidentally try to put in two "bulbs" of garlic, you'll get something that tastes totally awesome, but people will look at you funny.

I and everyone I love likes quite a lot of chilli and quite a lot of garlic. Obviously adjust these up or down, or leave one out entirely if you really prefer.

When you've chopped the chilli wash your hands.

3. Add onions, then add everything else

Add onions. Add any other vegetables you like over the next 20 minutes depending how much you want them to cook.

Common choices for me, depending what I have handy would be: potato, cut really really thin and add immediately; mushrooms, add lots and lots (and maybe fry some separately and add them to the dish just before you serve, so they don't just melt into the sauce but maintain their mushroomy consistency); frozen peas, add five minutes before you serve so they have time to warm through; aubergine, courgette and other "staple" vegetables add quite soon but not quite as soon as the potato, etc, etc.

I recommend adding LOTS OF MUSHROOMS, but not everyone will agree.

4. When everything is nearly cooked but not quite, and nothing is blackening yet, add vegetarian mince

The vegetarian mince works quite well.

I imagine you could add traditional mince in the same way, but it may be undercooked and bad for you physically or something, I have no idea. (And will very probably be bad for you ethically, but don't listen to me, no-one's subscribed to the church of "doing whatever Jack says" yet, so my pronouncements aren't binding or anything :))

You can make a similar dish by using kidney beans instead (but they probably need to simmer longer to really meld with the sauce). Or by using EXTRA MUSHROOMS AND POTATOES/AUBERGINES and no other "bulk" ingredient at all. Or by using quorn chicken pieces, but putting them a bit earlier, so they fry along with everything.

5. After a few minutes, (or when the mince has been thoroughly mixed) add a tin of chopped tomatoes

If the mince was frozen, it may take a little time to break down from one big block. Wait until that point (when it's actually started mixing with the ingredients) and after that add tomatoes.

Add a tin of chopped tomatoes and stir. Now it looks less like a fry-up and more like a sauce.

Add a little bit of water so it doesn't go dry too quickly. I add very little, about a 1/4 of a tin can, but some people would recommend a whole can. Now stir, and let the whole thing simmer.

6. At about the same time, start cooking some rice

At about the same time, start cooking some rice. Get some rice (ideally, some sort of healthy brown tasting-of-something rice, since the sauce will take 40m from start to finish anyway, but use whatever rice you have in the house), pour into a cup. Pour the cup into a saucepan, and add two cups of water to it.

Then heat the water until it starts to boil, then leave it simmering.

Eventually the rice will suck up all the water apart from what evaporates off, and then it's done.

I sometimes add a stock cube so the rice itself tastes of something, but many people think this is weird.

7. While it's cooking wash up, and grate some cheese

While everything is cooking, stir anything that looks like it needs it, check the rice isn't boiling over, and clean all the knives and plates and chopping boards you used. (Or leave them till later, but you might as well do something useful now.)

Grate a bowl of cheese.

8. Serve

Ideally the rice will be dry (an eensy bit moist, but no visible water) at the same time as the sauce (which should be very moist, but preferably have only none or only a little bit of actual liquid). If one is ready first you can add a bit more water to the other (don't let it cook too long, but a bit is ok), sieve the rice (if you added too much water to start with, but you're sure it's swelled as much as it's going to), or take one off the heat and re-heat it when the other's ready.

When they're ready, turn the heat off, put some rice on a/some plates, some sauce on the rice, and some cheese on the sauce. Then eat it.

Run a little water into the pans so they're easier to clean later, and aren't still hot if someone accidentally touches them.

Conclusion

OK, now you can cook! Even if you're now the worst cook in the world and I'm the new second-worst :)

Notice, I described this as I find instructions most helpful: not just an unrelieved list of commands, but context for which are "this isn't supposed to make sense, just do it", and "this has a lot of lattitute so long as you do something vaguely related to this" :)

A bluffer's guide to basic data structures: "array"

Most people would understand code like:

int main() {
  int square_size = 12;

  int square_area = square_size * square_size;
  cout << "The area of the square is: " << square_area;
}

Even if you've not done any programming in your life, you should get the general idea.

( Read more... )

Decluttering progress, as of March 2010

It seems like there's N sorts of stuff:

- stuff you need to keep which is put away in its place (this is the best sort of stuff, in fact, when I say stuff, I mostly mean the other stuff)
- stuff which you need to keep, but doesn't have a place, or isn't in its place
- stuff which needs fixing
- stuff which you don't need to keep, but still have
- stuff which you don't know if you need to keep or not because it's a big pile of amorphous stuff and you don't know what's in it.

Basically, purge these in reverse order until the categories collapse as much as possible :)

Living room

1. I have purged over 9/10 of my "books I borrowed and had difficulty returning" pile:

- lots and lots to Rachel's lovely lovely new bookshelves
- half a dozen to my parents (we treat our collections fairly fluidly, but things they like and I didn't need to go back)
- several to their owners
- several to my main collection or to charity (because their owners didn't want them, or weren't who I remembered they were)

That leaves just:

- 3 DVDs for Minipoppy
- 1 DVD for Justin
- 1 book for my first girlfriend who I've slowly lost touch with
- 1 book I've not had that long and want to read

2. I have purged two small stacks of paperwork which have sat untouched since I moved in, trashing most of it, but sorting and filing some.

Entertaining contents include:

- Address of previous tenants
- Notes for proposed start-up business ideas we tossed around at university (that never went anywhere in the end)
- Maps and notes for the first roleplaying campaign I GM'd (sessions 9-12/16 of the ad hoc spoons campaign with sonicdrift and her housemate and alextiefling's brother :)

3. There are some stationary/electronics which I go through periodically but wants to be stored in a more convenient manner, and I unsurprisingly need more bookcases, but it is completely cleared out of piles of stuff that I don't know if I need or not

Things still need lots and lots of cleaning, but at least they're comparatively tidy

Kitchen

I have moved some kitchenware around, unpacked a box which had been sitting there since I moved in, rearranged the cupboards and surfaces a little. Again, things still need cleaning, but they've got a lot tidier.

The cupboards are still a bit mixed with stuff I own, and stuff which came with the flat, but it is completely cleared out of piles of stuff that I don't know if I need or not

(There's also a lot of stuff which needs fixing, here and elsewhere, but that's on a separate mental list.)

Spare room

I donated about eight big boxes of books and videos to Oxfam. I have half-a-dozen little boxes of books left, which I want to keep and would put on a bookcase if I had another one.

In fact, when I've purged my books, they're less out of control than I think. I have a fairly large number I like and want to keep, and up to a dozen I want to read, but the spectre of an unfinishable to-read pile (always a risk) has actually receded.

I sorted a box of paperwork and stuff from my last-but-one employer.

There remains a folder of stuff to return to poohsoc, but otherwise it's completely cleared out of piles of stuff that I don't know if I need or not

Bedroom

With Liv's marvellous help I sorted and threw out or donated several bin bags of clothes which were too old/worn/torn or didn't fit or I didn't like and didn't wear. I've also sorted most (but not all) of the paperwork found in the other rooms into my concertina file.

Things which remain cluttered:

- Several small boxes, half of one dresser and one large drawer which contain mixed stationary, geegaws and paperwork
- Concertina file needs a sort-through and reordering
- Some stuff which is in with the χmas ornaments
- A box of electronic bits-and-pieces, and some boxes-things-came-in, most of which I need, but some of which I need to throw out

Summary

In summary, I'm actually very pleased. I feel I exceeded a high watermark, in having less unsorted paperwork than I did when I first moved in :) There's still a lot of things that need lots of cleaning or sorting out or fixing or buying etc etc etc and my flat is still a mess, and my life will probably never be as well-organised as some people's, but I'm very very pleased at the reduction so far!!

In fact, there was never that much clutter, there was just enough I didn't know where to put it and never got started.