Food/Travel, Frugal Recipe

Frugal Fried Spaghetti

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Hmmm… I think I’m going to post up my frugal recipes on weekends from now on. It’s kinda nice to blog about food for a change. But my recipes would be frugal recipes or aphrodisiac, and the recipes would be really simple to follow.

I don’t think I have what it takes to be a gourmet chef, anyway. My purpose of cooking is solely concentrated on feeding hungry mouth…anything goes for me, as long as it’s edible.

I’m a small eater, but I hate to see food goes to waste. Remember my previous entry about Frugal Spaghetti? Well… I have plenty of leftover pasta sauce and spaghetti, even after walloping 6-7 meals of it. So, I decided to improvise a bit by cooking a simple fried spaghetti meal, as the leftovers are not quite enough to make a decent regular spaghetti meal.

This is the recipe:

Leftover pasta sauce and spaghetti

1 spoonful of chilli paste

4 tablespoon of cooking oil

Chopped onions(optional)

2 tablespoon of soya sauce

1 egg

Firstly, heat up the oil in the wok and sauté the chopped onions with 1 spoonful of chilli paste, soya sauce and the leftover pasta sauce til fragrant. Then, add in the spaghetti, and coat the sauce evenly. Please note that salt are not needed for the recipe, the pasta already has the salty and tomato-ey taste.

Make a ‘hole’ in the middle of the wok by pushing the spaghetti aside, and crack the piece off egg into it. It should look like the picture below:

Wait til the egg is half cooked before stirring the spaghetti once again. The spaghetti should be slightly sticky with the egg when you serve it. More or less, the spaghetti should look like the picture below when it’s done.

Best eaten when piping hot. Suitable to be served as dinner or lunch.

Preparation time: 10 minutes or less

Yied: 2 servings

Cost estimation: Rm5 or less

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Food/Travel

Frugal Spaghetti

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This is my very own classic frugal spaghetti recipe. I cook this one pretty often, ever since I was a college student as it’s simple to make and designed to feed many hungry mouth. This recipe is recommended for college brats who are on budget, and have no time to luxuriate in cooking complicated gourmet.

Cook them at your own risk, however. The author is not responsible for your food poisoning and whatnot.

Ingredients:

1 can of button mushroom

4 pieces of hot dogs/sausages

1 can of stewed tomatoes/canned tomatoes

4 cups of tomato sauce

1/2 cup of water

2 tablespoon of sugar (optional)

1 pack of spaghetti/linguine pasta

Firstly, slice the sausages and button mushrooms.

Sauté the button mushrooms and the sausages together. You may add some freshly chopped onions if you prefer, but I’ve omitted it as I can’t be bothered with it. What’s more, I’ll be using canned stewed tomatoes. The stewed tomatoes already contained chopped onions, celeries, and whatnot.

Open up the canned tomatoes/ stewed tomatoes, and dump it into the pot. Stir gently and pour in 1/2 cup of water, and cook it til the tomatoes are mushy and tender. Add in some sugar if you prefer, and pour in 4 cups of tomato sauce. Stir til it’s simmering and nicely done.

While waiting for the pasta sauce to be done, boil the pasta til al dante.

When the pasta and the sauce is ready, put them onto a plate, and serve while it’s piping hot.

Yield: 6 servings

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cost estimation: less than RM15

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A Penny For Your Thoughts, Food/Travel

Toad Fritters…

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Wait! Don’t go and puke your breakfast, lunch or dinner and flush em down your toilet bowl just yet! ‘Toad fritters’ or rather, ‘cucur kodok’ is a delicacy that’s not made from toads, but from  mashed bananas, sugar and flour.

I got to blame this entry on a certain ‘Cikgu’ who made me think of the food that I used to have when I was a little girl with his entries about a Malay kuih. This blogger’s entry made me think of Cucur Kodok… which means Toad Fritters if you directly translate it into English.

My mum used to make this for me and my kid sister for us to have for tea, and ever since I left the nest, I never had it again. We were quite poor back then, so my mum will make do with whatever she have to feed two ravenous sharks she had the cheek to call her daughters. LOL. We were always hungry back then, especially when we just came back from school.

And as I said, I never had cucur kodok again after I left home.Those that they sold in the stall does not appeal to me, cuz they look like they used more flour for it rather than bananas.

I craved for it this morning, and so I went and buy bananas to make em. This is the most idiot-proof kind of food in my opinion, but it’s not easy to make them, cuz you have to use the correct bananas for it. Do not attempt with just any bananas because some of them will turn gooey when heated and you will go blind if it ‘explodes’ in the hot oil. Pisang Raja or Pisang Awak will do just fine.

Here’s the recipe:

Bananas – 5-6 (peeled and mash with a fork)

6 Tablespoons of sugar, add to the banana

A pinch of salt

300 grams  of wheat flour

Some warm water(optional)

The recipe is easy. All you have to do is mash the bloody bananas til it turn gooey, and mix it with sugar, salt and a little bit of warm water if the mixture is too thick. Heat the oil in the pan, and fry til golden. ( In my case, it turned black, cuz I suck at controlling the goddamn fire… :(… but… it’s edible and crunchy. LMAO…)


The fritters looks like toads, don’t they? Ugly… but don’t be fooled. They make nice, cheap and easy snacks for tea or supper. The preparation time is also minimal. I had these done in 10mins.

Cleffairy: I miss my mum’s cooking! And don’t you all dare tell me that my cooking is ugly! I know it’s ugly, so shut up already. LOL… btw, that’s my first attempt at making cucur kodok. Needs more practice to make it perfect!

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