Steak Salad

You can use leftover meat for this. Slice the cooked steak in thin strips. Top them over salad. Slice tomatoes and parmesan and toss them in the salad. Drizzle with balsamic vinegar.

Limocello Spritzer

This is an easy way to prepare a refreshing, light, and slightly sophisticated drink. Now, the trick is to get good vodka. Pour some in into a glass with ice, with lots of freshly squeezed lemons. Pour some tonic over it, and you've got a limoncello spritzer. Gourmet alcohol!

Margherita Omelet

Beat some eggs in a bowl with salt, pepper, and some milk. Toss tomatoes and basil in a skillet. Pour eggs over. Just before it's about cooked, before you fold the eggs, sprinkle more basil and wedges of mozzarella.Every bite will have gooey cheese oozing out!

Crema the Crop!

Gourmet Iced Tea

The secret to restaurant-style, gourmet iced tea is mixing a bit of orange juice to cut down the basic flavor, and infuse it with some sophistication! And some fresh, natural notes, too. Just get powdered iced tea, put it in a cocktail shaker with water and ice. Add some orange juice. That's it. Garnish with a lemon wedge.

A Slightly Greek Sandwich

To make a really good sandwich, all you need is great bread and fresh ingredients. Just slice some tomatoes, and then slice feta cheese over it. Have basil somewhere in there. Salt. Pepper. Sprinkle with some olive oil and balsamic. Yamas!

Hangover Soup

All you need for this is a can of Tomato Soup. Plop it on the stove for a few minutes, following instructions on the can. Add a dollop of fresh cream, stir around for a bit. Top with some sprigs of basil.

Afogato

This easy recipe just calls for espresso over ice cream. Grate chocolate over the top and you've got afogato!

Banana + Ice Cream

Go to your nearest Jolly Jeep or vendor and buy a Bananaque (A whole plantain coated in sugar and deep-fried).

Over the Bananaque, put a scoop of your favorite ice cream or a vanilla sundae.

PBT Sandwich

This is best with a baguette or ciabatta. So first dice or slice the tomatoes. You want to put all the ingredients on the open-faced sandwich while it's still hot. Tear the basil into small pieces. (Cutting it with a knife won't bring out all the flavor).

Toast the baguette and spread the paté. Then top with the tomatoes and basil. Season with salt and pepper.

Not only is this really easy to make, it's also really filling.

Pepperoni Wasabi Sandwich

I love sandwiches. It's so easy to prepare and the best thing is, you don't really have to wash that many items after.

So prepare the dressing first. Just buy a bottle of Japanese mayo in your local supermarket and a tube of wasabi paste. Mix it together in a bowl.

Toast your bread. You can use any kind of bread for this but white bread tastes the best.

Spread the wasabi dressing and lay out your pepperoni. You can use pastrami, salami, ham, any kind of meat.

Season with pepper. An instant meal you can eat with one hand.

Crabstick Bagel Sandwich

You can do this with other kinds of bread, but bagels taste the best.

Toast a bagel. Microwave the frozen crabsticks for about 10 seconds.

Spread cream cheese on the bagel. Then put the crabsticks. Add some cucumbers or lettuce if you like.

Season with a bit of salt and lots of pepper.

Gourmet Food for the Lazy

Good things can come to fruition even if you are lazy. Like preparing gourmet dishes with minimal effort. These recipes are my own, some original, some tweaked from something I ate in a restaurant, some are easy counterparts to things learned in the Food Network. But more importantly, the most work you'll have to do for any of these recipes is chopping and sauteing. That's about it.

This project started out as a topic for my Pecha Kucha talk - where speakers get 20 slides and only 20 seconds per slide. And I figured if you can explain a recipe in 20 seconds, with the help of drawings, then it can't be that hard to do. And this makes it perfect for people like me. Just because you're lazy, doesn't mean you don't want to eat good food.