The recipes here are things that I have made many times as they are things that me or my family enjoyed at one point in our lives. Therefore, these recipes are more for me, my family, or other meal-time guests as a reminder of how something was made. While I enjoy cooking and learning the science and techniques around it, and therefore spend quite a bit of time experimenting in the kitchen, I am not looking to put recipes here just for the sake of content. Except for maybe some stand-out cases that I expect to make multiple times, you will not find things here that use tools or ingredients that are not easily accessible to me, or use complicated, time-consuming techniques. For more food content, please visit the Pictures / Videos link in the menu and select the Food section.
The serving size for most recipes here are between two and four unless it is something that can be frozen that still tastes good when reheated. In most cases, measurements or even ingredients are suggestions, and are only provided as a baseline. Unless a more time-consuming process or “exotic” ingredient adds a significant improvement to my subjective enjoyment of the meal, these recipes will take the easier albeit arguably less “elevated” path. So, take what you find here as a distillation of those things that have made a lasting impact on me in one way or another.
This meal comes together quickly and without too much effort, so is great for “weeknight” cooking. I have tried both straining the sauce as per the original recipe (see References below) and not. While I do think that straining the sauce makes the dish more “upscale”, I tend to skip that step when just making […]
While the total time to make this meal seems a bit long, the actual prepping and cooking process is fairly straight-forward. The chicken mixture can be made in advance as well which will cut 30 minutes of waiting off the time. Really, the wait time is probably not needed, but I like to give the
Chicken Salisbury Steak Read More »
Several of my first attempts at eggplant parmesan consisted of breading the eggplant before frying, and making it a “single layer” dish with thicker slices of eggplant. I liked that, but then I ran across the method described in this recipe where breading is not used and the dish is put together like a lasagna
Italian Style Eggplant Parmigiana Read More »
I used to keep a couple jars of store-bought marinara sauce in the pantry until I found that making my own version was pretty easy, cost effective, and most importantly allowed me to use a single batch of a “base” sauce then transform it in many different ways. Sure, I could always take the store-bought
Base Marinara Sauce Read More »
This dish has all the flavors and “comfort food feel” of stuffed bell peppers, but–in my view–is easier to make. As an added bonus, it only uses one pot making for less clean-up. I have made this with ground beef and ground bison, but my favorite meat to use is ground turkey. In either case,
Stuffed Bell Pepper Casserole Read More »
This is a quick and simple way to make a salad dressing. This recipe results in a fairly small batch that is enough for around four side salads. Different vinegars and herbs may also be used. For example, red wine vinegar along with 1t of dried oregano is a slightly more “potent” version of this
Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing Read More »
This is a quick tzatziki sauce that provides a nice, “crisp” taste to things. I mainly use it when making gyro meat, but also sometimes as a salad dressing. I like a bit of “bite” to the sauce, but if that is not your style, the lemon juice and vinegar may be omitted. The sauce
This dish has something of a Jekyll and Hyde component to it as if you taste it before adding the cream and butter at the end, it really transforms into a different animal after. It is also versatile as other things such as thawed frozen green beans–my pick–can also be added. In this picture, I
Using a slow cooker is currently my favorite way to make chicken stock. One of the challenges with making stock or chicken broth (technically, I think the “broth” recipe linked here is actually still stock since it uses bones) is keeping the liquid at the brink of a very slow boil (I aim for keeping
Slow Cooker Chicken Stock Read More »
This is currently my favorite way to cook a turkey for Thanksgiving. While it takes a bit of preparation, it cooks much quicker. Plus, the white meat can be cooked in a different pan from the dark meat. Since the white meat and dark meat cook at different rates and to different temperatures, having the
Deboned Turkey / Chicken Read More »
