(Embot)
Week-night meals pose particular issues for the terrible cook because not only do you still hate cooking, but you’ve probably been at work all day and now you’re hungry. It is not a good time to be bereft of inspiration and to take, on average, five minutes to chop a fucking onion.
Times like this call for the power of the internet. Husband owns approximately 200 recipe books but they’re not much use when you need to go to the supermarket on the way home from the office. Perhaps one day I’ll prepare meals in advance and do a big weekly shop, like my mum used to, but such admirable levels of organisation seem some way off. And so, on this occasion, I turned to The Guardian‘s Food and Drink site. And I came across this: The 10 best 10-minute meals [1]. Perfect for my ravenous, lazy self!
As I suspect is the case for many shit cooks, I am easily attracted by recipes that promise almost instant gratification because the act of cooking has no inherent joy to me and, the more complex the instructions, the more likely I am to cock things up. However, I have found to my distress that the promise of a ten-minute recipe rarely results in a meal I can eat ten minutes later. Often this is because the recipe wrongly assumes I can do more than one thing at once. And sometimes, frankly, the author has wilfully misled when promising me “supper” (Nigel Slater, I’m looking at you and your insubstantial “buttered eggs”). However, the allure of a meal I can eat in ten minutes remains so magical – and I am always so horribly hungry when searching – that I persist.
On this occasion, I went for Felicity Cloake’s courgette carbonara. She is the author of The Guardian series “How to cook the perfect…” so I am perhaps not her usual target audience. Cooking the perfect anything feels an unnecessarily ambitious goal at the moment. But I like pasta. A lot. And I thought courgettes seemed suitably summery for this unusually seasonable weather we are enjoying.
The method:
The recipe seemed pretty simple. I was cooking for myself so I divided everything by four and got to work. A few things struck me as I worked through it:
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when I am asked to turn a vegetable into a specific shape, I instantly lose all visual/spatial perception. I am flummoxed by the onion’s layers and what will happen if I chop one way or the other. On this occasion, my red onion ended up diced, rather than thinly sliced. If you thought I had exaggerated my haplessness, think again.
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the recipe called for me to thinly slice my courgettes lengthways but I found myself unsure of how to achieve the perfect slice. Should it be cut across the entire courgette or should it just be a strip? I stopped at this point to take a photo of my options and question why the hell I was Instagramming my courgette for a blog. My conclusion was that the size of the slices didn’t really matter. Husband has told me that uniformity is handy in cooking so that every potato or piece of chicken or whatever cooks evenly. But cooking thin slices of courgette isn’t really a precision sport. In fact, a mix was quite pleasing aesthetically. I think I may have been over-thinking this aspect of the meal.
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the recipe requires a shitload of cheese. Again, I felt compelled to record this with my camera. I think this means that this isn’t really a healthy option. Sorry, folks.
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it is hard to beat a solitary egg into 24g of cheese (see photo of dubiously lumpy mixture). I think I’d chuck in an extra egg next time.
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The verdict:
Well, I think it looked quite good! And it tasted – fine. It was much improved with a squeeze of lemon and a bit more salt (as most things are, in my view). Surprisingly, given the amount of cheese, it wasn’t very rich; in fact, it was quite light and fresh. Which is a bit disappointing in a way – if I’m going to eat 10,000 calories on a Monday night, I’d prefer to be rolled to bed groaning about gout than craving seconds.
And the time? Twenty-six minutes, including photography. If I were to make it again, I could get it down to about 18 (I am so competitive about everything that I basically have cooking PBs. What a knob). If you are not as, er, impaired as me, I reckon ten minutes is actually realistic. Sound the trumpets!
So, what do you think? Any suggestions as to modifications/ improvements? And what do you think I should cook next time?
Gem
1 http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/jul/06/10-best-10-minute-meals
Everything But The Kitchen Sink 
Good work Gem! My OH has a similar issue when asked to slice or dice in a certain way, he just can’t seem to figure out what it means!
this made me giggle so much! Well done on cooking – if J isnt in, i would basically have a slice of toast and a brew
That’s my problem, Emily – I have been surviving on cheese sandwiches with the occasional foray into beans on toast every night P has been out for the last 7 years (and, er, most nights for the 7 before that!). This blog is proving excellent motivation though! Why don’t you try out the courgette carbonara?!