I love to cook. Everytime I think of something I would like to cook that I would have no problem making back home, I remember I dont have an oven and the recipe would be impossible without one.
So, I am left to the mercy of my range top cooking skills.
Those of you without ovens, what do you make on your range tops? I need a good/simple inexpensive recipe for tonight. Promised the GF I would cook something for her and one of her friends tonight.
Okay quick n’ easy-
I often try new things or throw bits together out of the fridge.
onion, garlic and if you have some celery (love it in curries!)
lots of chopped tomatoes (those tiny sweet ones will do)
Chicken
Curry powder (Wellcome have it!)
Potatoes
Par boil pots for 10 mins while preparing veg.
Fry onion/garlic (try to use olive oil and a knob of butter)
add chicken and celery (don’t overcook celery- it should crunch)
add chopped toms - just to warm through.
When the pots are done add them to the mix and stir in curry powder. Add corriander if you have some knocking about.
Done. It is a little dry (almost like the potato curries back home) but this was just a throw together, and my first time. You could make it a little saucy-ier by adding a chicken stock cube - although the pots might disintergrate. Perhaps even experiment with making nan -it’s not difficult.
I haven’t/don’t bother with quanities as judging by eye and taste is good enough, you ain’t making a cake! Jugde things by flavour versus proportion not weight!
I used to have to have a recipie for everything, but now I’m much more confident about trying new things and experimenting. I always say to the better half “I don’t know what it’ll be like, it was an experiment.” Nine times out of ten it’s good. Sometimes it’s NASTY!
Enjoy, she’ll love you even if it turns out not-so-wonderful, because you know - it’s the effort that matters 
chili, lots and lots of chili.
simmer some meat,
add onions, peppers, garlic,
then add lots of tomatoes, beans (canned, or presoaked and simmered dry beans)
then mix it up, add zuccini, or preboiled potatoes, or whatever adds color and variety,
spice it up (cumin, cayenne, oregano, sage, thyme, etc)
simmer, serve with chips or over rice or over pasta (also cooked stove top)
i make one mean bison/black bean chili.
do it a little different each time.
be creative. who wants to turn on the oven in taiwan during the summer anyway?
jm
Scroll down in this forum and you will find many ideas for cooking on only your range top. Pot roasts, stews, Mexican, Italian and many others.
Spaghetti Bolognese.
Omellettes
Oh, thats about all I can cook. Take her out to the Diner for a burger…they rock!
Curry. Buy some real indian Masala curry powder(you can find it in RT mart or many other supermnarkets) and some Japanese curry cubes of the sweet and hot variety.
Pot, add water, diced potatoes(local green-tint skinned if you want them to disintergrate and make the suace thicker or foreign white skinned if you want them to hold together but turn softish.), carrots, onion, and diced belly pork (Oo-Hwa-Roe)with the rind cut off first. Add anything else of your fancy, I like to throw in peas and sultanas too. You may need to add a little salt and sugar to your liking.
Chicken breasts in mushroom sauce
Pan-fry some pounded chicken breasts with flour coating (I add seasoning salt, lemon pepper, italian seasoning, and chili powder to the flour…actually, I often take a little bit of everything in my spice rack and add it to the flour). When they are finished cooking, add mushroom soup with 1/4 the required amount of milk stirred in. When it begins bubbling, put the breasts in. Cover and let simmer for a little while.
When the breasts have soaked up enough of the “sauce”, serve them over rice or plain couscous with a few side vegetables (asparagus looks nice with this) and add some sauce over top.
Needless to say, I don’t cook at home anymore. 
But this is damn good considering.
Google for words like ‘stir fry recipes’ and you’ll get lots of free recipes; you can print and laminate them for use in the kitchen. 
Beef stroganoff anyone?
Dead easy to make, a million different ways to make it 
I mean, cooking is so easy and there’s loads of ideas if you do a random google search these days.
Chili’s are also really easy to make, but needs a bit of time to taste its best.
And you can never go wrong with reindeer 
but I guess it could be a tad hard to get hold of in Taiwan…
So, what did you do Del-Boy?
Del-Boy??? I don’t get that one. :s
I made a coconut milk chicken curry with sweet potatos, snow peas, mushrooms, and onions. Served with a side of rice.
Simple, quick, and easy to serve. 2 additional people showed up unexpected. There was plenty to go around even for seconds. So it went well.
Thanks everyone for your ideas!
Del-boy was a character in a crappy British sit com called “Only fools and horses”.
We often use it affectionatly for “Derek”
Lime-boy
[quote=“Limey”]Del-boy was a character in a crappy British sit com called “Only fools and horses”.
We often use it affectionatly for “Derek”
Lime-boy[/quote]
I get it now…
Where did you get that avatar? Brings back too many memories.
Del had a side-kick called Rodney. Del’s catch phrase was “Rodney, you plonka.”
You don’t find many English kids called Rodney nowdays, wonder if it has something to do with this?
Cheers.
L.