The Busy Nerd's Cookbook

• 000 - Introduction
• 001 - Easy Meals
• Burritos with Rice and Beans
• Minced Beef Soup
• Mediterranean Couscous (v)
• 002 - Artisanal Sandwiches
• 999 - Notes
• On Rice, Onions, Pasta, and Gate-Keeping in Cooking.

000 - Introduction

I am a lazy nerd.

And I've been accused of having ADHD on any number of occasions.

001 - Easy Meals

Burritos with Rice and Beans

Ingredients

Bread:

1. 8 large tortillas

For Fajita Vegetables

2. 3 medium onions
3. 3 bell peppers (red or yellow)
4. 1 pkt fajita spices
5. A discretional amount of butter (or oil)

For rice

5. Rice
6. Cumin
7. Tomato puree
8. Salt & Pepper
9. Chicken stock
10. Black beans

Recipe

There are no amounts in this recipe. This is not baking. Put in a sensible amount of rice to fill the number of tortillas you have, and use a reasonable amount of beans. Leftover rice can be eaten by itself, so make more rather than less.

Cook the rice however you like. Don't let people gate-keep your rice cooking by insisting on a proper method. The following method is guaranteed to annoy as many people as possible, so feel free to use it.

• Fill a pot halfway with water.
• Add the cuin, tomato puree, salt and chicken stock.
• Bring to boil.
• Add rice. Cook for 10 minutes.
• Slice the onion and bell pepers along their longest axis. You want sticks, not small pieces.
• Put them in a skillet with your frying lubricant of choice.
• Put over a low heat until they're soft.
• Add the fajita spices and approximately 1 cup of water towards the end.
• Drain water from rice.
• Wrap a portion of both ingredients in a tortilla to make a burrito.
• Microwave the tortilla for 10 seconds to make it pliant.
• Eat.

Minced Beef Soup

Notes

Cooking is one of the few places where cheating is acceptable. Cooking should not be difficult, and anything you can do to make it easier is a win. For this purpose, I always keep 2 bags of "soup vegetables with potatoes" in my freezer. This can be converted into an easy meal in minutes.

It is, of course, augmented through ample use of fresh bread. Fresh bread turns a soup into a meal. Find a local store and purchase a loaf cooked today.

Ingredients

1. Minced beef (450g)
2. 1 medium onion
3. Beef stock
4. Small amount of butter or oil
5. Pepper and salt.
6. Worcestershire Sauce
7. Frozen, cheating bag of soup vegetables.

Recipe

Everything in this recipe goes in one pot.

• Start by slicing the onions however you believe onions should be sliced.
• Fry them in a large pot on a medium low heat until they're soft and browning.
  • The longer you cook them on this low heat, the more they'll caramelize and the more flavourful they will get.
• Add the minced beef to the pan and brown it.
• Put approx 1.2l of water in a kettle to boil.
  • If you lack a kettle, buy or steal one from your local kettle store.
• Add the beef stock, some salt, plenty of pepper and the Worchestershire sauce to the beef and onion mix.
• Add the bag of frozen vegetables to the top.
• Cover the whole thing with approx 1l of boiling hot water.
• Allow to cook for 10 minutes.

Serve with fresh bread.

Mediterranean Couscous (v)

Ingredients:

• 2x Zucchini
• 2x Bell Pepper
• 2x Small Red Onion
• 15x Cherry tomatoes
• 1x Can of Chickpeas
• 1x Jar of Olives (do not drain fully)
• Olive Oil (and/or butter)
• Balsamic Vinegar
• 200g Feta, cubed or crumbled.
• 500g couscous
• Salt
• Mint
• Parsley

Put butter in the frying pan. Olive oil if you're going vegan. Chop onions lengthways and add to frying pan on medium-low heat. Chop zucchini into quarters, then slice. Add to frying pan. Chop cherry tomatos in half. Add to frying pan. Boil kettle of water. Chop bell pepper, add to frying pan. Empty olive jar into frying pan. Add balsamic vinegar and some of the olive juice to the frying pan. Add salt. Cook for 10 minutes.

Cook the couscous in a large pot, ignoring the directions on the box. Continue to add water until it is cooked. Season with an amount of salt and some mint. Also add some olive oil.

Once the couscous is cooked and all the water has soaked in, add the vegetables to the couscous pan. Add feta and fresh parsley. Stir. Serve. Eat.

002 - Artisanal Sandwiches

999 - Notes

On Rice, Onions, Pasta, and Gate-Keeping in Cooking.

The Art of Cooking

Cooking is a personal art, and a requirement for life.

If you explore recipes, which I have to at times, you'll run into people insisting that their way of doing something is correct. It may be confirmation bias, but I've noticed this much more often amongst us nerds. I'm not sure why.

I'm here to tell you one thing: These people are wrong.

If you snap spaghetti in half, do you know what you do to the quality of the dish? Absolutely nothing. Despite what 60 million Italians might have to say about the matter. There is no wrong type of pasta.

If you have a rice cooker, great! If you cook rice in exact quantities, good for you! If you want to boil rice in an approximate volume of water and drain the rest (for example, if you have ADHD and exact measurements lead to burned rice and ruined pans), do exactly that.

The best onion to use is the onion you like. The second best onion to use is the onion you have. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you a cookbook.

If you're one of these Gate-Keepers.

Consider your actions.

Are you really declaring yourself the sole arbiter of something as personal as cooking? Are you so advanced in the field that you can definitively state that the way you're doing something is "correct"? In a matter as subjective as taste, where your own personal experience can literally only ever be 1 out of 7,000,000,000?

Most likely you're an amateur who considers themselves professional due to a few successes. You're unlikely to be in a position to be shitting on others from a standpoint of actual authority, and if you were, you'd likely have better things to do with your time.

You're not Gordon Ramsey. Even Gordon Ramsey isn't Gordon Ramsey when he's not acting for a camera.

Don't be that guy.