I've used the cheapest stove at a place with a cheap (but not terrible, he fixed stuff quickly at least) landlord, you don't really need that good of a stove burner to cook stuff. That oven was pretty bad and uneven though, for casseroles it was fine but I wouldn't do any desert more complex than cookies there. Even frozen pizzas sucked because of the hot-spots. But if you have a shit stove you don't know the ins-and-outs of then you'll have a bad time regardless of recipe.
Reading your other comment it looks like you had to preheat your burners, which definitely makes pasta more annoying and not a quick thing to cook (I didn't even know cast iron hotplates were a thing, the cheapest stoves here are just bare resistive coil with no hot-plate cover). My go-to cheap/quick meal is pasta and whatever thing I throw together in a sauce, or pasta salad cold for later. I usually boil most of the water in a kettle, and boil a tiny amount in the pan to preheat it, it doesn't take that long doing it, and kettles are cheap.
Looks like on your bad stove it makes more sense to make a meal where you do prep while the burner/pan pre-heats like a stir-fry or something.
The recipes you talk about that fake being easy annoy me more because they never account for people not having good knives or knife skills and needing twice as long to prep, the difficulty of cleaning afterwards. Also Jamie Oliver always having a stupidly expensive niche ingredient, and over-relying on fresh foods (not canned or frozen) when he went on his anti-poor health-tirade is annoying.
I've done fine cooking, I was a pretty good home cook by then, but I can absolutely see how if you want to learn it as a time strapped adult, and those are who those 30 mins recipes are for, you're just gonna quit after the third time of following directions that take you 1 hour 15 instead of 30 minutes.
What was the quickest recipe you can make on that stove? Aren't you fucked no matter what if your burner takes that long to heat?
Rice takes like 15-20 minutes to cook, probably longer on your stove not using a rice cooker, potatoes take longer because you boil them from cold water so it's heavily stove dependent, I'm not sure what cheap starch makes sense for your stove tbh.
Pasta/noodle is still probably the best option if you have an electric kettle, that tip should be on every recipe where you throw something in boiling water. It really does save time, especially in Europe where the kettles should be faster because higher voltage.
But most recipe books are bad and seem like they're by a person who just copied it from somewhere else and never cooked it, and chatgpt is going to make this worse.
Cooking should probably be taught in school, but I was still specifically perplexed by your pasta tirade because that should be the quickest starch to make other than asian-style rice noodles or ramen, which idk if those are common in Europe, and still require boiling water quickly.
What was the quickest recipe you can make on that stove? Aren't you fucked no matter what if your burner takes that long to heat?
Incredibly large amounts of food for multiple days, because the cast iron plates did hold the heat insanely well. Use the time while they heat up for misé en place, cook once for like 2 hours and eat that for 4 days or so.
Quick starch if need be was usually Gnocchi via boiled water by the kettle
I'm not sure what cheap starch makes sense for your stove tbh.
Again, former stove.
but I was still specifically perplexed by your pasta tirade because that should be the quickest starch to make other than asian-style rice noodles or ramen, which idk if those are common in Europe, and still require boiling water quickly.
Ramen is common, rice noodles not so much. OTOH you can get cheap cooked lentils in a can here, that's been helpful back then.
I've used the cheapest stove at a place with a cheap (but not terrible, he fixed stuff quickly at least) landlord, you don't really need that good of a stove burner to cook stuff. That oven was pretty bad and uneven though, for casseroles it was fine but I wouldn't do any desert more complex than cookies there. Even frozen pizzas sucked because of the hot-spots. But if you have a shit stove you don't know the ins-and-outs of then you'll have a bad time regardless of recipe.
Reading your other comment it looks like you had to preheat your burners, which definitely makes pasta more annoying and not a quick thing to cook (I didn't even know cast iron hotplates were a thing, the cheapest stoves here are just bare resistive coil with no hot-plate cover). My go-to cheap/quick meal is pasta and whatever thing I throw together in a sauce, or pasta salad cold for later. I usually boil most of the water in a kettle, and boil a tiny amount in the pan to preheat it, it doesn't take that long doing it, and kettles are cheap.
Looks like on your bad stove it makes more sense to make a meal where you do prep while the burner/pan pre-heats like a stir-fry or something.
The recipes you talk about that fake being easy annoy me more because they never account for people not having good knives or knife skills and needing twice as long to prep, the difficulty of cleaning afterwards. Also Jamie Oliver always having a stupidly expensive niche ingredient, and over-relying on fresh foods (not canned or frozen) when he went on his anti-poor health-tirade is annoying.
I've done fine cooking, I was a pretty good home cook by then, but I can absolutely see how if you want to learn it as a time strapped adult, and those are who those 30 mins recipes are for, you're just gonna quit after the third time of following directions that take you 1 hour 15 instead of 30 minutes.
What was the quickest recipe you can make on that stove? Aren't you fucked no matter what if your burner takes that long to heat?
Rice takes like 15-20 minutes to cook, probably longer on your stove not using a rice cooker, potatoes take longer because you boil them from cold water so it's heavily stove dependent, I'm not sure what cheap starch makes sense for your stove tbh.
Pasta/noodle is still probably the best option if you have an electric kettle, that tip should be on every recipe where you throw something in boiling water. It really does save time, especially in Europe where the kettles should be faster because higher voltage.
But most recipe books are bad and seem like they're by a person who just copied it from somewhere else and never cooked it, and chatgpt is going to make this worse.
Cooking should probably be taught in school, but I was still specifically perplexed by your pasta tirade because that should be the quickest starch to make other than asian-style rice noodles or ramen, which idk if those are common in Europe, and still require boiling water quickly.
Incredibly large amounts of food for multiple days, because the cast iron plates did hold the heat insanely well. Use the time while they heat up for misé en place, cook once for like 2 hours and eat that for 4 days or so.
Quick starch if need be was usually Gnocchi via boiled water by the kettle
Again, former stove.
Ramen is common, rice noodles not so much. OTOH you can get cheap cooked lentils in a can here, that's been helpful back then.