Feed me

As is fairly common knowledge, I am a far cry from the world’s greatest cooks. In a cook off between me, the Muppets Chef, a retard with a spatula and Ghandi, the only person I am likely to do better than is Ghandi, and that’s only because some bugger shot him. In all fairness he could probably still do better than me.

Anyway, all that is set to change. Since arriving in Queenstown, I have been making a concerted effort to start cooking proper meals, with the following results:
1. Chicken Stroganoff. Made it twice, but eaten it four times. That’s not because of some dubious bird inspired regurgitation technique, but because I am cooking some things in double portions. This turned out pretty well, but I am not sure if I am actually doing it right. Basically I’m frying chicken, mushrooms and onions, and then making a white sauce (i.e. milk and cornflour) with a bit of mustard powder and chucking it on.
2. Miscellaneous meat pasta type stuff. Even I can’t stuff this up, had lots of fun being poncy with the garlic clove, and was overall quite nice.
3. Sausages and mash. There’s no masher here, so it’s either the blender or whippy fork action a la Mum’s mash. It’s winding up a little lump with the fork, and I’ve been told its because I am using too much milk. I definitely did the first time, but the second time it was less puree and more mashy. As for veg, I am boiling it all in the same pot, and using the water for the gravy, which was horribly thin the first time, but I believe I am on the way to cracking it.

Anyway, what’s the point of all this? Basically I am soliciting for recipes. I want fairly simple to make, but quite interesting dishes. You get bonus points for special techniques, shortcuts and any other unique elements you can bring to the table. You also get credit for being explicit in your instructions. I don’t know a Julienne from a Julian (although I suspect one is a TV chef, whilst the other is a technique a TV Chef might use) so please make it clear! Please email or post suggestions as comments … I’m hoping for personal recipes here though guys, not something copy and pasted from a website!!