The I Hate to Cook Book (42 page)

5–6 servings

3 tablespoons olive oil

cup butter

1 big cut garlic clove

1½ pounds frozen shrimp, thawed

1 cup sliced fresh mushrooms

juice of ½ lemon

toast

First, you heat the fat, in a skillet, with the garlic. Add the shrimp and cook about seven minutes. While they’re cooking, sauté the mushrooms in a little butter in another pan. When the shrimp are browned, add the mushrooms and lemon juice and simmer five minutes.

Serve it on toast.

     FAST RABBIT     

3 servings

½ pound grated sharp cheese

1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup

cup ripe olives, sliced

a bit of chopped green pepper

Just melt the cheese in with the undiluted soup in the top of the double boiler, and when it’s hot, add the olives and pepper. Heat it another minute or two and serve it on toast.

This brings us, logically enough, to Welsh Rabbit. Fast Rabbit becomes Welsh Rabbit if you replace the mushroom soup with cheddar cheese soup, add 1¼ cups of milk, a can of your favorite beer, a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, and a touch of cayenne pepper. You merely heat it in the top of your double boiler and serve it on whatever is handy: on toast, rice, split English muffins, split-open baked potatoes, et cetera. And just think of all the things you can add to it if you want to! For instance:

chopped luncheon meat, first fried a bit in butter

sliced hot dogs, first fried a bit in butter

crabmeat, tuna, shrimp, boned chicken

leftover meat of any kind

sliced hard-boiled eggs with any of the above items or by
themselves (Well, your husband had lunch in town, didn’t he?)

And you can pour Welsh Rabbit
over
things. Over

sautéed mushrooms on buttered toast

broiled hamburger patties

fried tomatoes on buttered toast

canned, fresh, or frozen asparagus on buttered toast

buttered toast, then topped with crisp bacon

Creative cooks often tell you to take a recipe and spike it with something, as though the recipe you’ve been given isn’t quite good enough for you as it is. This is flattering, because it makes you feel like that fairy-tale princess who tossed all night because of the pea beneath the thirteenth mattress. But my own feeling is that you should give the recipe the benefit of the doubt and make it true to form before you start changing it. After all, someone has worked herself loop-legged in her kitchen perfecting a recipe that a lot of people like, and, while you can add and subtract ingredients, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s any better than when it started.

Finally, we come to a few random last-minute odds and ends.

     FAST SPAGHETTI SAUCE     

4 servings

¼ cup olive oil

¼ cup butter

1 garlic clove, minced

2 cups mushrooms, thin sliced

salt, pepper

¼ teaspoon oregano

First, start cooking enough spaghetti for four—say, an eight-ounce package. Next, warm the oil in a saucepan. Add the butter and simmer till it’s melted. Now add the garlic, mushrooms, and salt, and cook till the mushrooms are tender—about twelve minutes—stirring it most of the time. Finally, add the oregano and pepper, mix everything thoroughly, and serve it over the cooked spaghetti.

     CHOPS AND GRAVY     

4 servings

cup uncooked rice

4 pork chops

3 whole chopped green onions

1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup

cup milk

Start cooking the rice. Then fry the pork chops over low heat, browning both sides, about twenty-five minutes. (Add the chopped green onions for the last two or three minutes of this time.) Thin the soup with the milk, pour it over the chops and onion, and let it all simmer till supper is ready. This makes good gravy for the rice.

     FAST BUDGET BEEF