h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

KB:

As I understand it, chips are quite commonly served from Palestinian felafel carts as one of the free all-you-can-eat accompaniments.

Besides - there was a good reason why I was hungry.

And it was mighty felafel!

The lentil-mushroom lasagna was delicious!

It was good enough to make handling the limp, slimy lasagna noodles worthwhile.

Well, handling something limp and slimey - at my age that´s not news.

Glad you liked it, paulh.

Many thanks to Edward the Bonobo for the lasagna recipe.

Here's a recipe that I would like to share. I'm makng it right now, so I have the recipe at hand:

It's called "Hearty beef and vegetable soup." I photocopied it from a book, but can't tell what book it was.

Spices: 1 tsp dried marjoram or fresh equivalent {probably 3 times as much)

Liquids: 3 cups of water
1/2 cup red wine

Canned: Garbanzos
Tomatoes
Mushrooms
[People who have fresh equivalents of these should use them. It's midwinter here, and I like to be able to put together a meal using things I have on hand]

Frozen: Carrots
Zucchini

Fresh: steak or other cut of beef
onion [I use one, but you can use more. Leeks would work, but I never have them on hand]
Potato [I use one red potato and don't peel it. I have to limit carbs on doctor's orders, but the recipe calls for two large ones]
Celery, 3 ribs

I didn't photocopy the page that had instructions. Chances are, anyone who might want to try the recipe would have methods of their own.

When I started eating the stew in my previous post, I realized that I had omitted any mention of stock, salt, and pepper. I use one cube of beef bouillon, though it's possible to buy canned beef stock or make your own. The advantage of bouillon cubes is that there is a fixed amount of sodium in them. You don't have to add any salt when you serve the soup. As for pepper, this is a recipe that benefits from 8 to 12 peppercorns. I also add margarine or butter to the soup just before I eat it.

Paul, the usual problem with receipes in a very international forum - one takes sizes for granted. A "cube" of bouillon or yeast can have rather inedible results.

Thanks for mentioning that, Pit.

A cube of bouillon in my country holds about a teaspoon of granulated bouillon powder. The thing is, I'm not even sure how well teaspoonfuls and tablespoonfuls of things translate. The measuring spoons I use are close to the same size as the silverware equivalents. Are American teaspoons a different size than English or French or German teaspoons, though?

Bouillon cube here - ~1.5 cm squared,so about a teaspoon. Spoons seem to be pretty much compandebile, cups can be anything from 200 to 250 ml.

YMMV - un café au lait au lit is about one pint and nice when served by someone nice.

Thanks for mentioning the cups, Pit. My measuring cups have cup measurements on one side, and metric measurements on the other. In the future, when I post recipes,I can give both types of measurements. Thanks for the info on spoons,too.

Be happy not to be be burned at the stake. IIRC America went metric in the 18hundreds, but nobody trusts dem dere newfangled s***.

(Act of July 28, 1866; 14 Stat. 339)

"IIRC America went metric in the 18hundreds, but nobody trusts dem dere newfangled s***." [Pit]

I recall reading somewhere that Thomas Jefferson encountered the metric system when he was in France, and became enthusiastic about having that system adopted by the U.S. I'm a huge admirer of Jefferson, not just because of his brilliance, but also because he had a kind heart and was generous to a fault. I still maintain that his intentions toward Sally Hemings were probably kind ones, though we'll ne ver know because family members burned letters that might have shedlight on this.

I like the metric system for many reasons, chiefly as a means of measuring distance. If I want to divide a loaf of bread or cake, centimeters are much easier to work with than inches. Liters are very similar to quarts -- 250 milliliters of anything are almost identical to one cup. I have a harder time with kilograms. Centigrade or Celsius is more logical than Fahrenheit, but I still can't do quick conversions. Sure, there's a fraction (5/8 or 8/5, depending on which direction you're going) I can use, but I'm not into doing those things in my head. i like it that -40 is the same in both Centigrade and Fahrenheit.