What to cook from nothing?! It is this pressing issue that we will talk about in our article today!
We all have moments in our lives when the refrigerator is empty, the closet shelves are sparkling clean and there’s a whole week until payday. But you always want to eat. In this article we will look at what to cook from scratch! Read on.
Step-by-step recipe for a quick dinner “from nothing”
If you have just returned from work and the refrigerator is a mess, then we suggest making delicious pasta with eggs and cheese. To implement this recipe we will need:
- pasta of any shape from durum wheat - 3 cups;
- cold water – 2 l;
- table salt – 2/3 large spoon;
- sunflower oil – 7 ml;
- butter – 2 large spoons;
- chicken eggs – 2 pcs.;
- fresh dill - a large bunch;
- “Russian” hard cheese – 110 g.
Manti with pumpkin
These steamed dumplings require very few ingredients:
- Flour – 500 g;
- Water – 1-2 tbsp.;
- Pumpkin – 500-800 g;
- Salt;
- Mayonnaise – 3 tbsp;
Preparation
- Mix flour, water and salt into a soft, elastic dough, like dumplings.
- For the filling, cut the pumpkin into small, small cubes with a side no larger than 3 mm, add salt and season with mayonnaise.
- Making manta rays is a very interesting task. Roll out a thin (no more than 5 mm) layer on the table and cut it into squares (5x5 cm) with a knife. Place 1 tsp in the middle of each of them. filling and fasten all the corners together, then fasten the edges and grab the bottom edges.
- The manti will cook in a double boiler for about 20 minutes. They should be served with mayonnaise and garlic sauce.
Food preparation
Before you make a quick dinner out of nothing, you need to prepare all the ingredients. Pasta of any shape is boiled in salted water with the addition of sunflower oil (so as not to stick together). Once they are slightly soft, but not falling apart, they are thrown into a colander, rinsed vigorously and shaken.
Next, boil the chicken eggs separately, peel and chop them into large cubes. As for hard cheese, it is grated. Lastly, finely chop fresh dill.
What to cook from nothing, if only crab sticks?
If you look in the freezer, there’s probably something lying around there too.
Did you find crab sticks? Prepare the crab cakes. Below, watch the original video recipe for making crab stick cutlets.
Instead of fresh fish, use canned fish. It is better to grate the crab sticks as finely as possible. The same loaf is perfect for breadcrumbs.
In the summer you can always find, for example, a head of cabbage dying from inattention in the house. So let's make schnitzels from it.
Cooking process
A quick dinner “from nothing” should be prepared in a deep frying pan. Melt butter in it, add dill and fry a little. Then the boiled pasta is placed in the bowl. By increasing the heat, cook the products until browned. After this, they are quickly mixed with chicken eggs and covered with a layer of grated cheese. At the end, all ingredients are covered with a lid and kept on fire for about two minutes.
When the cheese has melted, the dish is distributed onto plates and presented to the table along with homemade marinades.
Khingalsh with pumpkin
Khingalsh are Caucasian flatbreads with filling, which are served with tea. This dish is very tasty, satisfying and economical. In our menu it plays the role of dessert. It is prepared like this:
- First, knead a simple dough from flour (500-800 g), water, whey or kefir (300 ml), salt (½ tsp) and soda (½ - 1/3 tsp). And we leave it to rest for half an hour.
- At this time, let's make the filling. Peel the pumpkin (1 kg) and grate it on a coarse grater. Then add some salt (2 tsp) and simmer with a little water until soft. When the filling is ready, it must be cooled.
* Cook's Tips - If you have onions, you can chop and fry them and add them to the pumpkin. Grated walnuts are also sometimes added to the filling. — For those who love sweet pastries, you can not add salt to the minced meat, but coat the pumpkin with sugar, cinnamon and vanilla.
- Now let's get to the cakes themselves. Divide the dough into small lumps, the size of a tennis ball, and leave to “breathe” for about 5 minutes. Then we roll out a thin circle, put pumpkin mince on one half of it and cover with the other half. We seal the edges, press them slightly with our hands and place them in a dry cast-iron and Teflon pancake pan. The flatbread has the shape of a semicircle and resembles a cheburek.
- After frying the khingalsh on both sides, transfer it to a wide dish and generously grease it with butter or margarine on both sides.
- We also make all the other flatbreads, fry them and grease them with oil. And when the stack of pastries is ready, cut them in half and invite everyone to the table.
Preparing a nutritious omelette for dinner
A quick dinner “from nothing” without meat will fill you well only if it consists of high-calorie ingredients. Omelette is just such a dish. It is believed that it is served only for breakfast. But if prepared correctly, this dish is ideal for dinner.
So, to make a quick dinner out of nothing, we will need:
- large eggs – 4 pcs.;
- full fat milk – 3 cups;
- butter – 2 large spoons;
- salt, black pepper - to taste;
- fresh greens - optional;
- onion and carrot - 1 large piece each.
Economical cutlets
It turns out that in addition to bread, eggs, onions and other products can be added to ordinary meat cutlets made from minced meat. Most often, potatoes or carrots are used for this purpose. The household will not immediately realize that there will be grated potatoes inside the cutlets. This vegetable combines so organically with meat and does not affect its taste at all. The main thing is not to overdo it with the proportions and not to make potato cutlets. A dish like this will solve the question of what to cook for dinner if you don’t have money. If you add carrots to the minced meat, they will be somewhat noticeable, so this dish is suitable only for lovers of the aromatic orange vegetable.
Formation of dinner and its heat treatment in the oven
A quick dinner out of nothing turns out to be very tasty and nutritious. To make sure of this, you just need to follow all the requirements of the presented recipe.
After sautéing the vegetables, take a deep bowl and place the eggs in it. Beat them with a whisk until a light foam forms. Then fresh fat milk is poured into them and the procedure is repeated, stirring. Finally, add fried vegetables along with oil, as well as chopped herbs, salt and pepper.
After mixing the ingredients, they are poured into a heat-resistant form and sent to the oven. At a temperature of 250 degrees, the omelette is cooked for 35 minutes (until it is completely set).
Serbian soup "Millionaire"
Semolina is the grain that will gather dust on the shelf, even in the most advanced crises. Well, her children don’t like her, whatever one may say. And just now her finest hour has come. It is with this white porridge that we will prepare Serbian soup.
- Pour a little oil into a hot deep frying pan and fry the diced onion until golden.
- Next, add 180-200 grams of semolina to fry, and after heating it for 5 minutes, pour in 500 ml of cold water.
- Mix everything thoroughly and season with salt and any spices you like, for example, suneli hops are good for these purposes. Then, if necessary, add water and let the soup boil. Ready.
This first dish received such a rich name not because of its sophistication, but because of the countless amount of semolina grains in it.
Heat treatment in a slow cooker
Having processed the components, they immediately begin heat treatment of the dish. Pour a little sunflower oil into the multicooker and heat it strongly in frying mode. Then carrots and onions are placed in it. The ingredients are fried until completely soft and transparent (in the same program), then seasoned with spices and placed on a plate. After this, pour a little oil into the container again. While it is heating up, roll all the pieces of fish in white flour and place them one by one in a bowl. After quickly frying the pollock on one side, it is turned over and cooked in the same way. After 3-5 minutes, milk and warm water are poured into the fish, and previously sautéed vegetables and some spices are also added. In this form, the ingredients are covered with a lid and simmered in the same mode for about 6-8 minutes.
Sprats for the holiday
In addition, excellent sandwiches are made from sprats with the addition of fresh cucumbers. In summer, the dish turns out to be the most budget-friendly. Even if you don’t have your own dacha, you can buy vegetables at a market or supermarket at a very reasonable price. Thus, the sandwiches end up with not only cucumbers, but also tomatoes and bell peppers. This dish is a great solution for those who don’t know what to cook when they don’t have money. Instead of whole sprats, you can use sprat pate. Moreover, sandwiches with pate will be much cheaper than with fish, since it can be spread in a thin layer, which cannot be said about pieces of fish.
The process of preparing a hearty dinner
Meatball soup is made very quickly at home. To do this, take a deep pan and fill it 2/3 with water. After placing the dishes over high heat, bring the liquid to a boil, and then place small balls made from minced meat one by one.
After the meatballs are in boiling water and have set well, turn down the heat and add grated carrots, potato cubes and onions to the broth. After salting and peppering the ingredients, bring them to a boil again and cook over low heat for about 25 minutes.
Finally, small vermicelli and chopped herbs are added to the soup, and then cooked for about three more minutes.
Pasta
Most often, people in such a difficult situation turn their attention to simple foods such as potatoes and pasta. The most common food for poor people is instant noodles. It is quite inexpensive and therefore accessible to almost everyone. However, such a dish gradually becomes boring, and there is a desire to diversify your menu.
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You can buy inexpensive, low-quality pasta in the store, cook it and serve it with some sauce. Very often, regular ketchup or mayonnaise is used instead of sauce. Some frugal people eat straight from the pan, thereby saving detergent and hot water. They lay out the cooked pasta in a frying pan and warm it up slightly. Next, they are generously poured with mayonnaise and ketchup. If you have herbs or any seasonings in the house, you should definitely sprinkle them on the finished dish. Thanks to spices, you can improve the taste of any, even the cheapest, average quality food.
Clementines
Recipe for meat with champignons, paprika and orange jam.
What you need: Prepared pieces of pork, veal or turkey (you can use thick slices of ham) 2 tbsp. tablespoons vegetable oil 200 g chopped champignons Large pinch of paprika powder 2 teaspoons orange jam A little remaining meat juice
How to prepare clementines:
- Heat vegetable oil in a frying pan, fry the mushrooms, add the meat there, sprinkle with paprika, add meat juice and orange jam.
- Turn the meat over to the other side, distributing the sauce evenly.
Bon appetit!
How to cook mashed potatoes in an original and tasty way
Ingredients:
- potatoes - 10-12 pieces, medium
- butter
- cheese (preferably two types, at least one salty)
- egg - 4 pcs
- salt
Preparation:
- First, prepare the puree with butter. Place the finished puree on a roasting pan, grate the cheese on a fine grater, sprinkle it over the puree and put it in the oven.
- When the cheese is slightly browned, take out the frying pan and break 4 eggs into this mixture (salt the eggs to make it tasty) and put it back into the oven.
- When the eggs are ready, our dish is ready. Bon appetit!!!
Indian style rice
Recipe for rice with green peas and curry.
What you need: 200 g cooked chicken or pork fillet 250 g cooked rice (any type) A handful of frozen peas 1 onion 1 tbsp. spoon of ketchup Pinch of curry powder 1 clove of garlic Vegetable oil Egg A little soy sauce
How to cook rice the Indian way:
- Beat the egg with 2 tbsp. spoons of water. Heat the oil in a frying pan, pour in the egg mixture, and fry on both sides like a pancake. Set aside.
- In the same frying pan, fry chopped onion and garlic until golden brown, add ketchup and curry. Add peas, simmer for 3 minutes.
- Cut the meat into strips. Add rice and meat to the onion mixture and stir.
- Cut the omelette pancake into strips, add to the rice and sprinkle with soy sauce.
Bon appetit!
Cold roast beef with creamy horseradish
Roast beef recipe with a side dish of beet salad and horseradish sauce.
What you need: Thin slices of cooked roast beef 2-3 small boiled beets 1 small onion 4 small handfuls of assorted lettuce leaves (whatever you have) 1 teaspoon sherry vinegar 2 tbsp. spoons of olive oil
For the sauce: 5 teaspoons grated horseradish 2 tbsp. spoons of cream Pinch of mustard powder Juice of 1/2 lemon Salt, pepper to taste
How to cook cold roast beef with creamy horseradish:
- For the sauce: mix all ingredients, salt and pepper.
- Cut the beets into thin strips and the onion into half rings.
- Mix beets, onions and lettuce leaves in a salad bowl. Season with a mixture of vinegar and 1 tbsp. spoons of olive oil. Mix carefully.
- Before serving, place a mound of salad in the center of each plate, add a spoonful of creamy horseradish on top, arrange the beef slices around and drizzle with the remaining vinegar dressing.
Bon appetit!