Hungry sibling desires recipes!
November 1, 2007 11:13 AM   Subscribe

My sister needs some ideas for what to cook. She is not very experienced in the kitchen, and she's in Medellín, Colombia with only a two-burner hotplate for heat.

She's not a food-wimp, but she's hardly the world's most adventurous eater. She's okay with spicy, but anything that sounds too uncommon won't get made. Guaranteed.

My sister likes typical plain American fare: meatballs, macaroni and cheese, mom's chicken soup, steak and potatoes. But in Colombia (w/o transportation, and only near a few bodegas) it's hard for her to find familiar ingredients, and she's hesitant using ones she doesn't know. Last week she couldn't find any marinara, and I tried to instruct her in making her own, but she wasn't able to find fresh tomatoes -- even canned. Or tomato paste.

Ability-wise, for a metric, I'm sure she'd be happy to cut up some chicken breasts, but I think breaking down a bird is probably beyond her abilities. Back stateside her typical dinner prep would be meatloaf or shrimp scampi. And without an oven, and only two burners ...

So, using minimal (universally available) ingredientes, what recipes can you come up with?
posted by mr. remy to Food & Drink (6 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Anyone Can Cook, an article listing 101 simple recipe ideas, was posted to the blue a few months back.
posted by turaho at 11:24 AM on November 1, 2007


Rice and beans? Can she find canned beans?

What about pasta in butter sauce with steamed veggies?

White rice and some sort of meat (beef, chicken) and veggies, stir-fry style?

Soup or stew

Eggs/egg sandwiches

At a certain point she's going to have to expand her horizons/abilities. Breaking down a bird is not too hard, and taking advantage of fresh local ingredients will exponentially improve the quality of her meals. Maybe someone can give her a bit of a cooking class, Colombian-style?
posted by DrGirlfriend at 12:14 PM on November 1, 2007


cheese, ground beef, red beans, rice, tomato paste, bread, butter, eggs and chili seasoning:

Cheese omelets
red beans and rice
grilled cheese sandwiches
scrambled eggs
chili (sprinkle some cheese on top)
sloppy joes (serve on bread)
chili cheese topping for rice
posted by misha at 2:20 PM on November 1, 2007


Bacon, onions, butter and garlic. Fry it together and you can make a few things:

On toast with cheese and melt in oven (or in frying pan if there's no oven).
With eggs and capsicum and sun-dried tomatoes for omelette/scrambled eggs.
Simmered in wine, full cream and herbs of choice (I go with taragon) for a pasta sauce (helps to add a bit of shredded cheese as well).

Another quick and easy one I like is rice and tuna (straight from the can) with capsicum, peas (boiled), soy sauce, and sweet chilli sauce.
posted by kisch mokusch at 3:00 PM on November 1, 2007


She probably has ample access to dried beans. The internet is her cookbook there; they're easy once you get the hang of it. Beans + rice + a bit of meat = probably the most common diet in her area. There are also breads that can be cooked in a pan, and she should access to flour and corn meal for that.

Eggs may be harder to get, but omelettes (or just scrambled w/ cheese/meat/veg) are pretty forgiving.

Any chance she can get a toaster oven? That expands her options drastically.

You didn't say how much Spanish she speaks; if she can get the names of some of the fresh food available in the nearby bodegas, she (or you, if you need to print and mail) can get her head around some of those ingredients via internet. Even better, if she's got enough of the language to pull it off, she should befriend some locals and ask for cooking lessons. Her circumstances are probably not unusual.
posted by Lyn Never at 5:45 PM on November 1, 2007


She's in Medellin? She can subsist on "red peppers, cocaine, and milk".
posted by sockpup at 6:22 PM on November 1, 2007


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