Ok ladies, the cookmaster is here, all you people and your fancy rice cookers and shit. You dont need anything. A heat source will do. You dont want to use the oven? Thats fine, the stove works, it just changes the types of meals you can cook. An oven is an indirect heat, so it cooks meat differently, it tends to leave the meat more hydrated and tender (provided you dont cook them dry) compared to a stove, but takes longer to cook, usually.
Now, to answer your questions:
Rice: The easy way and the not so easy way.
Easy way, take a microwave proof plastic container with a lid and add rice with 1.75 cups of water per cup of water. Cook for 5 minutes on high with the lid, SLIGHTLY off. If you leave the lid on you will understand why Isaid to leave it a little off
The time can vary by about a minute depending on the power of your microwave, im assuming 600W. If your rice comes out too soggy, use 1.5 cups of water, if it comes out crunchy, use more water. If it comes out congealed and stuck together, you have put it in too long. Dont worry, it will only take a few tries and your rice will be fool-proof.
The hard way involves a stove, a pot and rice. Kairi beat me to it, in that you add rice, and pour water so that there is roughly 50% more water than rce volume. The over the top of your hand trick works well here. Bring the water to boil, and keep it there, this should require a fairly aggresive heat to start with, but once its been brought to a full boil (You can tell by the large white frothy bubbles, as opposed to the smaller non-gfrothing bubbles of a half-simmer) you need to bring the heat right down to about 25%, or a medium-low heat. Just enough to keep it bubbling away, a similar heat to boiling potatoes for a mash. Keep the lid ever so-slightly off the pot and let the hot water do its job. Be careful not to let it boil dry or your rice will weld itself to the pot. Steel wool helps to get it off The ice shouldn’t take too long, probably about 10 mins or so on the boil, depending on how much rice you are cooking. Remember, too much water does your far less harm than too little, since you drain the excess off anyway. The rice should appear semi-spherical and about twice the volume of an uncooked grain.
Enough about Rice, since you will probably use the microwave method anyway.
I can’t really help you with seafood due to geography, Barramundi is an exquisite tasting fish when prepared well, but they dont occour in the waters up near Canada
Dont think of pasta as the dish. It isn’t, its the sauces that are the dish, the pasta just gives it a texture and offsets the often strong tasting sauces. Cooking pasta is like cooking rice, except if you microwave pasta you are going to regret it, it usually gets fubared, so boiling it is the only way to go. See the rice section above for cooking perfect pasta (you have to wait till the pasta is firm, but flexible to test for cookness use a fork. If its easy to stab through, its ready)
For some killer sauces to make the Gods weep, Ask Percival, that man can out-cook ANYONE.
As for me, You will have to settle for simple sauces. Experimentation is the key with making a good sauce. Start with a simple tomato paste base and add what you feel like. If you want a stronger tasting sauce, garlic and basil go together well, especially with a salty meat like bacon. On the other hand, if you want a lighter sauce, a simple cheese sauce with chicken (marinade the chicken with red wine if you like it that way) makes a simple to make meal that tastes good AND stores well for later. If you want the exact number for these recepies, bug me and I will post them.
Pasta choices? As I said earlier, they really dont matter much, unless you prefer eating spirals to clamshells
Frying fish is an art that no Australian would be without, when it comes to the art of the BBQ, we are unmatched! HA! Take that America!
Depending on the size of your fish fillet will dictate your style of cooking. Cooking any type of fish requires a reasonably high temperature, so oil of some sort is a must. I prefer olive oil, but you can use a vegatable oil or even a peanut oil! Butter is probably the king of all oils, but its not good for you >.>
Butter leaves a richer tasteing crispier outside on the fried fish, which is why I cook with butter when I want a killer meal, but I digress. I’m assuming you are using vegtable oil, but its not too much difference either way.
With a thin fillet, the objective is to crispify the outside of the fillet without overcooking the fish (it tends to fall apart!). As such, a high heat (about 80% heat) is used. Be careful if you are using butter at this heat, it has a tendancy to burn and ruin your meal. Just cook awaya and flip the fillet over every few mins. Its better to flip too often than not enough, you should be able to see the fish flesyh go a glorious white as it cooks, once that gets about 2/6’s of the way through the fillet, it is a good time to flip it over.
With a thicker fillet, its more of a challenge of not burning the outside while cooking the inside! A 60-70% heat is used here, turning the fish at much longer intervals. This allows the heat to seep through the fillet, remember, flesh is not a good conducter of heat, high heats just burn the meat, they dont cook it faster. You can tell the fish is done if you cant see any non-white flesh when you split it with a fork.
If you want some recepies of the stuff I normally cook, bug me and I will post them, I have written too much atm.
Ask me about my Shalcarian Sticky Date Pudding!