Crisps and gravy - hardly haute cuisine

August 21st, 2007

I’m somewhat embarrassed by my lack of culinary skills.

I do toast just like Henry Ford and his Model T car - anyway you want it as long as it’s black.

From time to time I do idly browse through one of the very many cook books that my wife has, but my occasional forays into action see me overstretch myself as I embark on some over-ambitious plan to cook something that I have never prepared before, which I don’t have the ingredients for, let alone enough time to actually make the meal within two hours of the intended time it was due to be served.

I have decided that rather than be a show-stopping virtuoso, there may be more merit in being able to cover the basics well, and when I am good and ready, bulding it up from there. On that note then I am on the hunt for my first ten easy dishes I can make. They need to be recipes that take no more than 10 minutes to prepare, I reckon. They also need to be healthy, easy enough to make once - and then repeat afterward from memory without having to stare at the recipe again - and ideally they should involve mostly basics so that I won’t need to go a wild goose chase for some, well, wild goose perhaps at short notice. 

Not sure what my first dish will be, but I am hoping it will be something more substantial than the crisps and gravy recipe a friend has recommended. As far as I can tell the ingredients consist of a) crisps (any flavour) and b) gravy powder and the recipe is thus: 

• 1. Boil kettle
• 2. Mix water and granules to make thick gravy
• 3. Pour over crisps.

It may be quick and easy to make, but it seems more yukka than pukka to me, and I hope to begin with something a tad more ambitious.

Entry Filed under: cooking, food