White pasta recipe

Capturing here my pasta recipe the way I had to text-explain it to one of my kids that decided to play-cook at home:

White Pasta Recipe

Ingredients

- half a pack of spaghetti
- 1 eggs
- half a cup milk
- half pound of gouda cheese

Instructions  

1. Cook pasta, and drain it - make sure that the pasta is not too cooked.. its better to be "a la dente" (slightly uncooked) since it will be cooked a bit more in the frying pan

2. in the frying pan put the amount of pasta that you want to eat and add milk, the pan's bottom should not be visible - (better to put more milk than less)

3. Turn the heat to full , and mix the pasta and let everything boil until the milk appears to be less (some goes on the pasta some evaporates)

4. Meanwhile cut the soft parts of gouda cheese in a bowl and put it in the microwave for 2 mins to melt - you may need to take it out half the way and mix it.

5. When the cheese is ready..., the pasta is ready (as above) you turn down the heat to low and throw in one egg (2 eggs if you have put pasta for 2 people). Use the wooden spatula and keep on mixing.

You should keep on mixing until the milky-eggy liquid starts thickening up - if it thickens too much throw a bit more milk . the pasta should be juicy. It always thickens when the eggy-milky mix touches the bottom of the pan because it has egg and the eggs becomes solid in heat.

When ready turn off heat throw all the hot cheese from the microwave mix and pour out of the pan into a bowl.

At that pont you can add some parmesan shredded cheese as well

Pita and Souvlaki recipe

Since I started on the recipe thing - I asked my kids to send me what they captured from my instructions (the particular recipe I have below became school project - unfortunately I don't have the pictures).
Note that these are not my instructions - its what my kid heard as my instructions

Souvlaki with Pita 

Ingredients

- 12 Pita Breads – (2 Trader Joe’s Middle Eastern Flatbread packages)
- 4 lbs of Chicken – (Organic Boneless Skinless Thighs)
- 1 lb Tomatoes
- 1 Red Onion
- Tzatziki sauce – See separate recipe
- Olive Oil – (Kirkland Extra Virgin Olive Oil from CostCo)
- Salt
- Pepper
- Oregano Leaves

Instructions

First we add plenty of salt, pepper and the oregano leaves to the chicken and we mix it up. Meanwhile we have started the barbeque to get it heated up. We barbeque the chicken for 10 minutes at the strongest setting – it is important that we don’t overcook it and the meet gets dried up. While the chicken is being cooked we cut the onion and tomatoes in thin slides and put them in bowls. At that time we also prepare the tzatziki sauce (see separate recipe). When the chicken is ready we place it on a board and we cut it in thin short stripes

and put it in bowls and cover it up to keep it warm. At that point we invite everybody on the table because the last step takes just a couple minutes and it is important that everyone gets a freshly cooked pita. We use a frying pan on high with a small amount of olive oil. We place the pitas on the frying pan, you can probably fit up to three pitas every time and cook it from both sides until the get brown and start puff up. At that point you either serve them directly on the plates or you make a stack.  Everybody gets a pita and mixes all the ingredients together and finally you get to enjoy your meal

Tzatziki recipe

Ingredients

- 1 Yogurt – Fage total Greek Yogurt from Trader Joes
- 1 Cucumber – long seedless “English Cucumbers”
- Garlic
- Olive Oil
- Vinegar

Instructions

You use the cheese shredder to shred the cucumber and then you squeeze it to get all the water out of it. You mix it with the garlic and the yogurt adding a bit of olive oil and a tiny bit of vinegar. You leave it covered in the fridge to get thicker.

Meat sauce recipe

My kids every now and then they ask me how we cook some of the foods.
I am not a "cook", so everything is pretty normal - but what I often capture in my instructions to them are the simple little things that I have learned understood and make my food, our food slightly different than the neighbor's food.

Here is my meat sauce recipee I just gave to my daughter:

Meat Sauce Recipee

Incredients:

- 1 Organic Beef 640gr (1.34lb) 15% fat Ground Beef from costco.
- 1 large white onion
- 2 cans of Tomato Sauce (425gr each- the ones I use have already salt/sugar/peper in it so extra salt/peper is optional)
- A bit of olive oil

Time for preparation 30-35 minutes.

Instructions.

Pour the two cans of tomatoe in a medium size pot that is on medium-high heat (I actually start on high and then I lower it when it start spilling)
Use water to clean any remaining sauce from the two can - essentially you add 1 can of water for 2 cans of tomatow. The more water - the longer you will need to wait.
Also the amount of time depends on how much the tomatoe sauce is actually pre-cooked. If you use just plain un-cooked tomatoe juice, it will be quite longer.
Taking it out before its time will have as effect that you will be tasting the sour-ness of the tomatoe. Some people dont' care about that.

Blend the onion to a puree and put it in a hot big ( I use 11") frying pan with a bit of olive oil until it starts to become brown.
You need to keep on stiring it with a wooden spoon.
When it is brown you pour it in the tomate saue pot and stir it. You will need to carefully scrape the frying pan with the wooden paddle - if you leave pieces of onion
they will turn black and some peoplke mind find black things in their sauce.
In the same hot pan you now put the ground meat (if it was frozen I defrost in the mw - high for 2-3 minutes, take out scrape the soften part - back in the microwave, high for 2-3 minutes - take it out scape the soften/thawed part etc.. you can have it ready to use in 5-10 mins from freezer)
Back to the hot pan.
Its important that the pan is hot. Puting the piece of ground meat - we should hear the sizzle.
The next  5 minutes is tiring. Using a big kitchen fork you keep breaking the lump of ground meat in smaller pieces.
In the beginning it feels like an impossible task - but as the meat cooks it breaks up easier and easier.
I like to find chunks of meat so I don't break it completely - but thats a personal taste thing.
You also keep in turning the side that is touching the pan - otherwise it becomes like a hard skin .
When the meat is mostly broken up - the pan should be practically cookiing the meat in its water.
It is important that you don't stop here. You want all the water of the ground meat out - pouring it now in the tomatie pot would result
a) the meat will feel boiled as opposed to sauted b) some of the heavey meat smell will be in the sauce.
After 5 minutes or so all the moisture is gone and now there is tiny chunks of meat that are sizzling on the meat's fat.
Thats good. You need to let it in this sizzling state for 2-3 minutes to get the burned fat taste and smoked smell.
You need to keep an eye for the smallest chunks of meat because they are the one that would turn dark first.
Keep on stiring now with the wooden paddle (no need for forl after the meat break up is done).
Anyway, when you are done with all that ... pour the ground meat in the tomatoe pot,
and turn it to a lower temperature at this point - and cover it up.
(it usually takes me 15 minutes so far and the rest takes another 15 minutes.)
Keep opening it it up ever 5  minutes or so.
When it spills too much around the pot - it means that it is ready.