Anyway, the following recipes are recipes that I’ve culled from other sources—my mother (who’s the true chef in the family, trust me!), other cookbooks and some that I’ve even made up myself—that I’ve tweaked over the years to suit my own personal palate. You’ll probably notice in a lot of these recipes I don’t give specific measurements the way they do in other cookbooks. I’ve always hated the rigidity of cookbooks where they say you have to put in a teaspoon of this or you have to put in a tablespoon of that. Many—or most—cookbooks apparently don’t take into account that people have different tastes and may like different amounts of spices and flavoring and such in the food they cook. So, that’s why in my cookbook I refrain from doing that and instead let the person who’s doing the cooking decide how many tablespoons and/or teaspoons they want to put into a specific dish they’re preparing from this blog.
The recipes in this blog are relatively quick and easy to make (since this blog is, after all, aimed at guys!). And even the ones that take longer to cook are still relatively easy to fix. Many—or most—of the following recipes can be prepared in the microwave or on the George Foreman Grill, which I consider to be the greatest guy cooking invention since the microwave! So put on your apron and chef’s hat (or don’t, I really don’t care!) and enjoy!
TONY’S QUICKIE HAMBURGERS
This is the recipe I’m most proud of since it’s one of those I came up with all by myself. I was watching the Food Network one night and they had on this hamburger cook-off—I don’t remember where exactly it was held—where cooks from all around the country fixed their own special hamburgers to compete for a big cash prize. I was amazed at all the different kinds of stuff people put into their burgers. After watching the show, the wheels in my head started spinning—which can sometimes be a pretty dangerous thing!—and I came up with the following recipe. Enjoy!
Marinade ground beef with Worchester sauce for at least a good 15-30 minutes (an hour if you really want a good marinade).
Add in a few shakes of Garlic & Pepper seasoning (NOTE: This is garlic and pepper that’s already been mixed together and not—I repeat—NOT separate garlic and pepper seasoning that you mix together yourself, although that might work too.)
Add in just a smidgen of Olive Oil for extra taste (optional).
Mix the seasoning into the ground beef by hand.
Form into hamburger patties.
Cook on George Foreman Grill—or oven if you so choose—until done (different grills, of course, have different cooking times just like microwaves and regular ovens).
TONY’S QUICKIE TUNA FISH SALAD
This is one of those recipes that I’ve tweaked over the years. This is also one of the first dishes that I learned how to fix and is also one of the simplest recipes in this book. Enjoy!
Take two cans of tuna—or three, depending on how hungry you are and, of course, how many people you’re fixing it for—or Albacore if you’re more health-conscious.
Add lettuce, chopped onion, and tomato (tomatoes optional).
Add in at least two or three tablespoons of mayonnaise and the same amount of sweet relish.
Add in three—or four—chopped boiled eggs (also optional).
Mix together thoroughly and serve either as sandwiches or just salad.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I stated earlier that this was one of the simpler recipes in this book. Actually, if you want tuna fish that’s really simple to make, just add mayonnaise to tuna and voila!
TONY’S QUICKIE SPAGHETTI
This is one of those recipes I wouldn’t necessarily call a “quickie” recipe, but it’s still relatively quick and easy to prepare (at least in my humble opinion!). Enjoy!
Fill a large pot with water.
Add about ½ cup of Olive Oil, two tablespoons of salt and a few shakes of Onion Powder to the water.
Bring water to a rolling boil and then throw in about ½ to ¾ box of spaghetti.
Stir until it starts cooking and then stir repeatedly afterwards to keep spaghetti from sticking.
Cook for about 45 minutes (adding water if needed).
Drain spaghetti after it’s cooked.
For the spaghetti sauce:
Pour about ½ cup of Olive Oil into the pan.
Throw in either two smaller bottles of spaghetti sauce or one large bottle.
Add in a few shakes of Onion Powder and the same amount of Italian Seasoning to taste.
Add a teaspoon of Garlic Juice (optional).
Add about ½ package spaghetti mix.
Throw in one or two cans of mushrooms and/or diced tomatoes (also optional).
Cook on very low for also about 45 minutes.
Stir in cooked spaghetti sauce with cooked spaghetti.
TONY’S QUICKIE CRACKER CHICKEN
This recipe is also known as “Chicken With Breadcrumbs” or at least that’s what my mother used to call it, though I never understood why since there are no breadcrumbs involved in the making of this particular chicken. Anyway, there’s a longer—and, in my view, better—way to cook this kind of chicken, but, since this is a “quickie” cookbook, here is the shorter version of said recipe. Enjoy!
Crush up at least two packages of crackers while still in package.
Melt one or two sticks of butter in a bowl in the microwave—depending, of course, on how buttery you want your chicken—for about a minute or two until fully melted.
Throw in crushed crackers into butter in bowl and mix thoroughly.
Place chicken—boneless chicken strips work real good here—on a pan that’s been sprayed with Pam—or any other non-stick cooking spray—and spread butter and cracker mixture thoroughly over the chicken.
Cover the top of pan with aluminum foil.
Place in oven after heating it to 300-350 degrees and cook THOROUGHLY for about an hour-and-a-half to two hours.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: You can also use your George Foreman Grill—and I know you guys have got one!—or your outdoor grill—and I know you guys have got one of those too, don’t you!—to cook the chicken. But, however you decide to cook your chicken, just make sure that it’s THOROUGHLY cooked since, of course, partially cooked chicken is not the healthiest thing in the world for you!
TONY’S QUICKIE BEANS
Bean Recipe #1 (for stove):
Fill large pan about ¾ full with water.
Add about ½ package of beans.
Put in a couple of tablespoons of salt and at least one tablespoon of sugar (or artificial sweetener of your choice).
Add in about ½ cup of Olive Oil.
Throw in at least three strips of bacon.
Bring to a boil then reduce to low.
Add water whenever the water cooks down.
Keep on simmer until done.
Bean Recipe #2 (for crock-pot or slow cooker):
Fill crock-pot—or slow cooker—about ½ full of water.
Add in about ½ cup of Olive Oil.
Add in a couple of tablespoons of salt and at least one tablespoon of sugar (or, of course, artificial sweetener).
Throw in three or four strips of bacon.
Cook on high all day.
TONY’S QUICKIE ROAST
Like beans, there are a number of different ways you can fix roasts. Again, here are a couple of ways that I’ve tried. Enjoy!
Roast Recipe #1:
Put roast in crock-pot and/or slow cooker.
Add in a couple of cans of cream of mushroom soup.
Add in a package of onion soup mix.
Add in at least a cup of water (NOTE: You don’t want to add too much water since roasts make their own juices while cooking.)
Cook on high all day.
Roast Recipe #2:
Follow first step in recipe number one.
Add in a couple of packages of brown gravy mix.
Add in a couple of tablespoons of both Onion Powder and Garlic & Pepper seasoning.
For crock-pots, cook on medium for at least two hours and then turn up to high until done.
For slow cookers, cook all day.
TONY’S QUICKIE BAKED CHICKEN
This is another one of those recipes that’s not really what one could call a “quickie” recipe. Actually, I don’t think there’s really any way that you can fix “quickie” baked chicken. Oh well, this recipe is still simple enough—at least relatively so!—for any guy to make. Enjoy!
Rinse one baked chicken after it’s been thawed.
Dry off with paper towels.
Add in some chopped onions and sliced apple and stuff pieces into cavity of chicken (for those of you who don’t know what a chicken cavity is, it’s the big hole in the center of the chicken!).
Rub chicken with Olive Oil and then sprinkle liberally with both Onion Powder and Garlic & Pepper seasoning.
Place chicken in oven bag and poke holes in top of bag.
Cook until done.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: It normally takes a few hours to cook a baked chicken, so you’ll have to check it periodically to make sure that it’s THOROUGHLY cooked.
TONY’S QUICKIE CRAB SALAD
This is a good, quick dish to make if you’re cooking dinner for your girlfriend or wife (or mistress, if you have one!). Enjoy!
Place lettuce in a bowl and add one package of crabmeat on top of lettuce.
Add in three or four tablespoons of mayonnaise.
Add in a few shakes of Onion Powder to taste.
Mix together thoroughly.
TONY’S QUICKIE PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES
This is another good, quick recipe for you guys out there with a sweet tooth (and I’m sure there are quite a few of you!). Enjoy!
Put in three or four heaping tablespoons of peanut butter—preferably creamy—into a bowl.
Add in one egg.
Add in one teaspoon of vanilla (optional).
Add about one cup of sugar (or artificial sweetener of your choice).
Mix together thoroughly.
Roll mixture into balls and flatten them with a fork on a baking pan that’s been sprayed with Pam or some other non-stick cooking spray.
Bake at about 350 degrees for between 10-15 minutes.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: These cookies cook fast, so be sure to keep an eye on them while they’re baking so they don’t burn.
TONY’S QUICKIE CHILI PIE
This is another recipe that I came up with all on my own. Well, sort of. I suppose it would be more correct to say that this is actually one of those recipes that I’ve tweaked. Enjoy!
Place corn chips in bowl.
Pour chili over chips (chili beans work here too, though, I must say, not as good).
Add chopped onion and cheese (whichever type of cheese you want will work fine).
Stir and pop in microwave for a couple of minutes.
Stir again.
Part Two:
WAYS TO LIVE ON THE CHEAP
The second part of this blog contains a few suggestions on how you can save a few bucks here and there. You can rest assured that everything I discuss in this part of the book I myself have tried at one time or another. And, just like the recipes in the previous cookbook, these money-saving ways are, I feel, surprisingly simple and easy to do.
Enjoy!
BUY GENERIC BRANDS
When you think about it, it really doesn’t make a lot of sense to pay the markup for name brand items when you can buy generic brands that can last just as long—and sometimes longer—as their name brand counterparts. I’ll give you an example from my own personal experience: A few years back I bought a Symphonic brand VCR for $50 at Wal-Mart. Symphonic, I found out, is put out by the same company that puts out the Emerson brand. Since then, I have purchased a few more name brand VCR’s. As it turned out, the Symphonic VCR has outlasted the other VCR’s I purchased, including a $40 Emerson that I purchased also at Wal-Mart. Here’s another for-instance: The last name brand pair of tennis shoes I bought were a pair of Reeboks I bought from a JCPenny store a number of years ago for, if memory serves, around forty bucks or so. They tore up on me almost nine months after I purchased them. I then went and bought a pair of what I like to call “Wal-Mart special” tennis shoes for $10. Again, it turned out that the Wal-Mart specials lasted me over a year. I have not bought a name brand pair of shoes since. Here’s another reason to buy generic brands: As I have pointed out, many companies that put out name brand merchandise also put out generic brands. These companies know that there will be consumers willing to pay the oftentimes substantial markup for name brands. That’s how they make their money.
USE MONEY ORDERS TO PAY THE BILLS
A telemarketer called me up a while back and asked me if I owned a credit card. I told her that I didn’t. Hearing surprise in her voice, she then asked me if I had at least a checking account. Again, I told her I didn’t. Again, hearing surprise in her voice, she asked me, “Well, how do you pay your bills?” I told her unapologetically that I paid them with money orders. She then said in a rather snippy voice, “Well, thank you.” And then she promptly hung up the phone. Of course, the telemarketer’s response really wasn’t so surprising when you think about it. We live in a society where more and more people use credit cards and/or other forms of plastic instead of using cash. And this, of course, is why more and more people in this country are getting more and more into debt and, even worse, becoming victims of so-called identify theft. And this is precisely why I use money orders in lieu of plastic. I did have a checking account for a while, but the bank I had the account with started charging me a seven dollars a month service charge, so I got rid of it. I know many—or most—banks offer “free” checking, but I saw this guy being interviewed on TV who was doing time for identity theft. He said all he had to do was go into the dumpster behind a bank and steal the trash where they threw out their old records and other information about the people who had accounts there. Instant identities! So that’s why I haven’t stuck my money in a bank again. As for using credit cards, what gets people in trouble is not so much what they wind up charging on their credit cards but rather the high interest rates they have to pay along with their purchases, and that’s why there are an incredible number of Americans who wind up filing for bankruptcy every year, especially before they revamped the bankruptcy laws to, of course, make it harder for people to file for bankruptcy (which was pushed by—you guessed it!—the credit card companies!). Some people even have the grand idea of trying to pay off their credit card bills by using—that’s right!—credit cards. And they, not surprisingly, end up getting into even more debt. With money orders, you don’t pay any high interest rates and instead pay a small service charge (anywhere from a quarter to almost a dollar at the post office). And, unlike checks that require clearance time, money orders can be immediately cashed. Probably the best thing about using money orders is that there is less risk of identity theft by using them. As for using plain old cash, my motto is: If I don’t have enough cash to pay for something, then I don’t need it!
No comments:
Post a Comment