(3-4 Spoons) Double Use Recipe: Tuna Croquette and Tuna Wrap

So I really wanted to make THIS recipe but it seemed really complicated for a spoonie so I made a Spoonie friendly version of it!! Tuna Croquette The more you make the more spoons it will take to make it ive found because of the mixing and amount of cooking All the ingredients are based around using ONE 2.6 package of tuna so if you want to make more you can but you will have to adjust accordingly) Ingredients:

Prepare: Put all ingredients in a bowl (or you could use the package the tuna comes in and you wont have dishes!)  and mix. You are aiming for a paste like consistency thats thick and clings to the spoon but will fall off lightly with touch.  After mixed put it in the fridge to chill slightly. This makes it a bit more firm ive found but you could skip this step heat up a pan with some nonstick spray on the bottom (or any sort of fat like butter or oil) and with a spoon scoop out small amounts of the mix. If i squish them against the side of a small mixing bowl ive found i can make patties instead of using my hands Place patties in pan and cook until a small crisp browness comes to each side this may be less apparent if you didnt use bread so in that case heat until more firm and hot At the last minute i like to sprinkle some cheese on one side and let it melt slightly into the croquette but this could also be skipped for less spoons Tuna Wraps

Follow the above directions using the same ingredients up until cooking them. Instead of cooking them smear the cold mix on a flour tortilla and wrap accordingly. If making wraps you may want to take out the breadcrumbs bc double starch. But you could leave it in if you want. 

So it turns out I have a strong sensitivity to raw eggs and one of my favorite meals is spaghetti carbonara so I needed to come up with an alternative. Here's what I came up with. INGREDIENTS: - canned fish - pasta - PLENTY of seasonings, whatever you want. I picked salt, pepper, old bay seasoning, paprika, crushed red pepper, onion powder, a little bit of sugar, and fresh thyme. - olive oil - (optional) butter UTENSILS: - pot - pan - spoon - colander/strainer INSTRUCTIONS: - Put pot on with water and salt on high for pasta. - Put pan on high on different eye of stove when water is boiling -put pasta in water - take top off fish can, rinse using colander, and take out bones if there are any -dump fish in, throw in all seasonings heavily then put pan on lowest setting and walk away for TEN MINUTES. When I say heavy, I mean it, cover the fish with it. - check pasta for doneness -drain pasta of ALL water if possible using the colander -put pasta in pan with fish and drizzle with olive oil (optional) and butter to taste. Stir and leave on low for a little while. -check if it is well seasoned 3-5 mins. -plate and eat! The active time was about 5-7 minutes and sitting 10-15. There's very little stirring and despite the two different dishes, its not a lot to do. This is a FOUR SPOON recipe because of lifting and light stirring, as well as using the stove. Enjoy ! -Mod Jacob

10 minute 2 or 3 spoon Tuna Salad

What you’ll need

Yields: 1-4 sandwiches or wraps, depending on how many cans of meat you use.  Can be refrigerated for up to 7 days.

How to make it:

Spread on toast, bread or on a wrap, and enjoy!  This is a good one to have on hand if you’ve got lunches to pack or you know that you’re coming up on a low-spoon week, because it keeps really well in the fridge and when all is said and done, you’ve only got 4 things to actually wash.  (Fork, spoon, tupperware bowl, tupperware lid)

Enjoy!

ace-of-swords

Year Of The Monkey!

Celebrate the Lunar New Year with some traditional Asian dishes! Chinese cuisine is infamous for being rather finicky and high maintenance, but some are simple and cheap, and common during the Eastern holiday season!

Baked Fish (2-4 spoons)

The Chinese phrase  年年有餘 means ‘may the new year bring prosperity’. And the character ‘餘’ (meaning prosperity) also phonetically sounds the same as ‘魚’, which means fish. So came to be that fish is essential in a traditional Lunar New Years meal. 

Common fishes eaten are catfish, flounder, bass, perch, and snapper. Take a gutted and scaled fish, head and all, and lightly rub with salt and mild seasonings and herbs. Cook in a preheated 400 F oven upon a baking tin lined with tinfoil for 30-35 minutes. Serve with soy sauce.

Dressed Rice (2-4 spoons)

It’s common to add supplementary ingredients to a pot of raw rice before it’s all steamed, making it a full meal with a single button press. Add raw prawns, cut potatoes and yams, slices of chicken or duck, quail eggs, chestnuts, bamboo shavings, and bay leaves.

Papaya Milk (3-4 spoons)

Blend the meat of one medium, overripe, seeded Jamaican papaya with a glass of milk. Sweeten with condensed milk or honey. Makes a good dessert!

Red Bean Soup (4-5 spoons)

Red beans are a common dessert ingredient all throughout Asia. Red bean soup is very easy to make, but does take more than a day; soak 2 cups of red beans (also known as adzuki beans) in cold water for at least five hours, maybe overnight if you can help it. Then, place the beans in a pot, add water to just about cover the beans, and boil for three hours, stirring occasionally. 

Add a cup of sugar and boil for 15 more minutes. If the beans aren’t softened by this point, some blend the mixture in a food processor. Commonly added is condensed milk for extra sweetness

Tilapia with fruit salsa

Not sure how many spoons this takes for others, but for me it’s like 2 as long as I don’t have to clean a pan. My wife came up with this recipe and made it in the toaster oven.

Ingredients: 4 or 5 tilapia fillets 1 jar of fruit salsa Olive oil or cooking spray Foil Foil pan

Heat the oven to 350 to 375. Oil or spray the pan. I buy my tilapia frozen, so I just cut open the little individual packets and slide the fillets into a pan. Once I fill the pan in one layer, I open the jar and dump it over the fish. I usually put some water in the jar to get out all the salsa and add that for moisture. Cover the pan with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Check the fish then. It might need more time if you have thick frozen fillets.

You can eat this by itself really, or with some salad greens from a bag, or some heat and eat rice or quinoa, or tortillas. It’s nice because it seems fancy, has protein, makes leftovers, and you can switch it up with different salsas or sides. I get everything at Aldi and it’s pretty affordable as well.

Protein Salad

This recipe is great if you have some spoons once in awhile and then need to eat off the same thing for a week. 

For the salad part: Chop (or food process) a bunch of low-moisture, long-keeping veggies, like cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, and carrots. Mix and store in a covered container in the fridge. 

For the protein part: Keep cans of chicken or tuna handy.  Combine one (drained) can with a scoop of mayo, salt, pepper, onion powder, spices to taste (such as dill weed or dry ranch dressing mix). Mix with your chopped veggies to taste (1 part tuna/chicken salad to 2 parts veggies is a good combo).

Since tuna or chicken salad keeps for a few days, you can make extra of this as well. Just mix with the veggies in the amount you want to eat for a given meal. Egg salad works too. If you have spoons and perishable veggies, you can add lettuce greens, cukes, celery, pickles, sunflower seeds, mixed nuts, or anything else that strikes your fancy.

Cheap + Easy Salmon Croquettes

Hi, lowspoonsgourmet! Sorry if this is very long, but I want to share a recipe that was one of the first ones my mom taught me when I was a kid, but it’s also one of my family’s go-to meals when short on time, energy, or ingredients. It is a fish dish that can be served with plain spaghetti, plain greens, or just eaten alone and it can be refrigerated + eaten cold on bread or toast safely for up to a week afterward. I also want to share a cool simple low-tech tool my family uses to mix + chop the ingredients that is great for people who have trouble fine chopping with conventional knives.

The prep for this dish takes a some spoons (I would rate around 5-6 spoons on your spoons scale) but it has some unique pros that are notable for a fish dish:

Here are the ingredients:

Here are the tools you need/can choose to use:

OK, so this is how you do it. Prep + cook time is around half an hour to 45 minutes and includes can opening, chopping/cuisinarting, mixing, touching food with hands, and frying on the stove. But no heavy lifting or kneading.

You should come up with 6-12 croquettes depending on how large you make them.

Enjoy! Fish can be difficult to eat with low spoons because of the threat of spoilage and the planning involved in cooking it. But my family always keeps a can of salmon in reserve in case we need an emergency dinner option that can feed several people in a pinch with low chance of “failure.” It’s also “fancy” enough to serve to unexpected company and feel like effort despite just being mostly canned salmon.

Mac and cheese heaven

Hey, I’m not qualified to mod for you, but I’m super into what you are doing! Thought I would offer my 3 best ‘can’t cope’ recipes.

All start with: 1. Box mac&cheese (I use Annie’s, but literally any will do) 2 Tbsp Butter - real if you can get it. ½ c plain yogurt/ yoghurt 1/2Tbsp minced garlic or ½ tsp garlic salt (or powder) 1 small onion chopped

Boil water, add noodles. Cook onion and garlic in butter on med heat. When onion is glassy, remove from heat. After about 5 minutes stir yogurt and cheese powder into the onion and butter (if using garlic salt or powder add now). When noodles are soft, drain, don’t rinse, stir into sauce. Eat.

Variations: 1) Add lemon juice or lemon essential oil to the sauce and double the garlic. Add chopped broccoli (frozen is fine, but flash boil it).

2) double the butter, and add canned chicken or tuna (drained) when the onions are glassy, cook to your taste then finish sauce as above.

3) cheeseburger mac: cook ground beef or turkey with the onions and drain. Melt butter, cool and make sauce as above then add dry or prepared mustard to taste. Mix cooked noodles, sauce, and meat/onion mixture. Chopped pickles, tomato, literally any cheeseburger toppings can be added.

Enjoy!

Low spoon fish bake.

At walmart you can buy these frozen tilapia fillets 7 Dollars for a 2 pound bag

Pre-heat the oven at 350 degrees.

Now these are individually wrapped and since its fish there's a special trick to thawing i like to use.

You take out two fillets and run hot water over them until they are thawed. Its low effort.

Then you get a small baking dish like a casserole dish or any baking dish with high sides that liquid wont spill out.

You cut open the 2 packages you thawed and put them at the bottom.

Then you put 1/4 stick of butter on top of the fish. Pour lemon juice over the fish until it has a light coating on the fish itself. Then sprinkle garlic powder over the fish.

Then you cover the fish in a california blend mixed vegetables, sells for about seven dollars. Then powdered the top with your cajun spice blend and add 1/2 cup of water. By the time this is done your oven should be hot enough.

You will be able to make multiple meals with the fish and veggies so per meal its fairly cheap.

Then cover the pan in aluminum foil and bake until fish flakes easily when tested with a fork and veggies are cooked (about 20-30 minutes). It might sound complicated but in reality it requires very little physical effort.

This is a fairly balanced meal, you can also make a cup or two of instant rice to go with to round it out.