Cooking Challenge...Please help?

[Phoenix]

Ok. I need to treat myself better in the nutrition department. I also need to keep costs fairly low. To that end, I bought half a small pumpkin, half of a small head of red cabbage, some mushrooms, some chicken breasts, and a couple of heads of broccoli. I have rice, spaghetti noodles, and macaroni as well. Oh, also bought some medium sized thin-skinned potatoes.

I have a rice cooker, a single-burner camp stove, an electric kettle and a toaster.

I will, in realistic terms, probably only cook about 3-4 meals this week. Any suggestions for what I can make?

[Tulipana]

This is H_Ls broccoli-chicken-cashew nut (but you could use other nuts too I guess, or leave them out) recipe.

You need (for 1-2 persons): one broccoli, 1 chicken, onion, garlic, ketjap manis, one hand of cashew nuts, rice.

Cut up the chicken breast and marinate in 1 table spoon of ketjap, some pepper, salt and some sambal or some chili flakes. Let it marinate in the fridge for about 1-2 hours (though 15 mins works if you don't have a lot of time).

Chop the broccoli and cook for 10 minutes, drain and set aside.

Chop the onions and the garlic and stirfry them in a large pan. Add the pieces of chicken breast and stirfry them (keep some of the marinade!).

Boil the rice.

Add the broccoli and the nuts to the chicken/onions and let it all warm through. When the rice is done, add that and stir it all through. Add one or two table spoons of the marinade and stir it all through for another few minutes.

It's YUM.

[Phoenix]

That sounds great, Tulip. Do you usually stir-fry the broccoli as well? I may try this!
What is ketjap manis, though?

[Tulipana]

First you boil the broccoli and after you've stirfried the onions, garlic and chicken you add the broccoli.

Ketjap Manis is a soy sauce from Indonesia, this is what Wiki says:

Kecap manis : Sweet soy sauce, which has a thick, almost syrupy consistency and a unique, pronounced, sweet somewhat treacle-like flavor due to generous addition of palm sugar. In cooking, it could be replaced by molasses with a little vegetable stock stirred in. However this is different than the smooth and mild sweetness of palm sugar and the strong flavor of fermented soy, as molasses can tend to have bitter flavors.

A very popular ingredient in The Netherlands as we used to have Indonesia as a colony. I think (though not sure) that you should be able to get in where you are?? Ketjap manis is not so salty as regular soy sauce.

[Tulipana]

Oh, and if you have a siv (sp) or a blender you can easily make pumpkin soup.

[Phoenix]

Hmmm. I think with one burner, I will try stirfrying the broccoli. I can probably get the ketcap manis at the small vietnamese/indian grocery. Thanks!

[whortleberry]

While you're at the grocer you could get a variety of sauces to add to stir-fries. That way you could make different meals depending on the fresh produce that's available/in season and therefore cheaper, and have noodles or rice with it.

Another easy option, if you want to cook Western food, would be to buy some tinned tomatoes and dried herbs (can you get basil/oregano?) and then make tomato-based pasta dishes too.

[Phoenix]

Yeh, I thought of getting some different sauces. I'm just putting it off until I move into my long-term housing at the end of December. I really don't want to move more stuff than I have to! I hate moving.

[Tulipana]

Will you have a better equipped kitchen there Phoenix?

'Cause if there's a better kitchen in the new place then maybe gove yourself a break until then? And do lots of big salads and stirfries in the maintime?

[sprite]

tuplip's looks good, although i'd use the rice cooker and add all the cooked stuff to it for the warm through. you could even steam the veg on top of the rice.
i also like to put a stock cube in with my rice, and i've read a few recipes suggesting that stuff can be fried in the rice cooker before the rice/grains/bulgur/lentils go in.