So I halved the recipe shown to get something more like 4-5 servings of soup, and it turned out pretty well. I did cook the potatoes beforehand like she did, and I just took a potato masher and mashed up some of the potatoes as well to thicken it.  Towards the end, I took a teaspoon or so of cornstarch, and mixed it in a small bowl with a ladle of the broth, then mixed that paste back in to thicken slightly. The soup had a great flavor with the mild spices from the sweet Italian sausage, and the potatoes adding a hint of potato chowder. Don’t be afraid of the whole milk and half-and-half– it’s diluted with the chicken broth anyhow, and the result is nowhere near as thick and heavy as a restaurant chowder, but is still very satisfying. I expect I’ll be making this a lot in the coming months.

Easy Vegetarian Spaghetti

You could try making this, if you can figure out what “1 crapper spaghetti sauce intermixture – (26.5 oz)” means.  It does claim that “This instruction module help most quaternary people.”

Pork belly is a cut of meat that’s not often used directly in Western cooking, though it’s the cut that’s used to make bacon and pancetta.  It usually has the skin attached, a layer of fat under that, and then tender, marbled meat under that.  Any Asian grocery store with a butcher’s counter will stock it, it’s very cheap, and it’s really, really good.  The only thing I’d add to the recipe is to be careful when you’re scoring the skin to put the herb/spice paste in.  Pork skin is tough to get through, so either use a sharp knife, or a serrated one, and be careful to let the serrations do the cutting, rather than pushing down and sawing the skin back and forth.  The deeper into the top layer of fat you can get the herbs and spices, the better.  As the pork belly roasts, the flavors from the rosemary, thyme, and fennel will be carried down with the melting fat, seasoning the rest of the meat as it drips into the pan.  I didn’t take any pictures, but below is the image from the recipe page, and it’s turned out exactly like this:

Slow-Roasted Spiced Pork at Cook Almost Anything

The first step is marinating the  chicken overnight (or for a few hours) in buttermilk.  I am totally in love with buttermilk, but that’s maybe a story for another time.  If that sounds weird and gross, remember that buttermilk is lower in fat than regular milk (because the butter’s been taken out, remember?), and also buttermilk is acidic, so it’ll help tenderize the meat further.  Know how meat from Greece clear on over to India is marinated in yogurt?  Same reason.  The other big trick I learned from Good Eats is to put the seasoning under the meat, not mixed in with the flour.  That way, it’ll be protected from falling off, or not being flavorful enough.  In the episode, he outlines a salt, garlic powder, and paprika mixture that works amazing for this, so follow that to the letter.

Frying seems mysterious at first, but Alton Brown does a pretty good job of explaining it in his book, and in various Good Eats episodes.  Oil needs to be hot enough to get a good fry going and vaporize the water in the food, otherwise, your food ends up soggy rather than crispy.  I got a thermometer that was passable, but the one he uses in the show is best.  The chicken turned out pretty well, the second side was a little overdone, because I turned the heat up as per the instruction, then forgot to turn it back down.  The salt and paprika worked really well with the natural flavor of the dark meat chicken.  The only warning I’d have regarding this recipe is that a large piece of chicken will take 10-12 minutes per side, so if you’re cooking for a large group, multiple batches will take time.  For 2-3 people, or cooking a bunch to serve cold at a picnic, or for a meal later, it’s perfect.

Alton Brown’s Fried Chicken Recipe

What to do with the leftover buttermilk?  Make buttermilk biscuits.

Easy beer bread:

3 cups all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons sugar (4 might be necessary for a very bitter beer)

1 tablespoon salt

1 bottle beer (I use Kirin Ichiban, because I usually have it on hand)

Mix dry ingredients thoroghly with a spoon or fork in a mixing bowl.  Pour in all the beer, and stir until you don’t see any flour, and it’s all a consistent mixture.  It will be more of a batter than a dough, so don’t worry about that.  Put in a greased loaf pan in a 350 degree oven for about an hour.  Halfway through, take a slice of butter, and brush it over the top of the bread to help brown the surface.  This bread is very forgiving in terms of overcooking.  The finished product will depend on the flavor of the beer, yeast content, and so on.  Goes really well with some beef stew, or pot roast with gravy, or chicken too.

• 1 fresh, large steak, ribeye or ny strip
• 6 shiitake mushrooms, sliced thinly
• 1/3 cup cognac (I like Remy Martin VS because it’s cheap and has a very bold flavor)
• 1-1.5 cups half and half (easy mode: heavy cream, hard mode: milk)
• Black pepper grinder

I don’t exactly follow either Julia Child’s or Alton Brown’s recipe, but I’ve made this a lot and settled on one I like.  Cut the steak in half with a sharp knife.  Grind peppercorns onto a dinner plate, and press the steaks down so the peppercorns stick.  Flip over and repeat so that it’s pretty evenly coated on both sides.  You can lightly salt the steaks as well, but some recipes don’t even call for that.  Put a tablespoon of olive oil in a saute pan on medium to medium-high heat.  This recipe will involve deglazing, so a metal pan will work better than non-stick, but I’ve even used a teflon coated wok, so don’t sweat it.  Once the oil barely starts to smoke, put the steaks in, with enough space between them, and give them 4 minutes a side.  Use a timer, and whatever you do, don’t touch the steaks. If you mess with them at all, they won’t brown properly.  Flip over at the 4-minute mark, and take them out to a plate a little before the second timer can go off for a medium steak.  When you take them out to the plate, the steaks will be rare, but it’s important to remember that hot food will continue to cook, so by the time the sauce is done and you start eating, the steaks will be medium.

If there’s a ton of grease and drippings in the pan, pour some of it off.  Let the pan cool a little bit.  Also, turn off the burner for the stove.  Pour the cognac into a separate cup, and pour the cognac into the pan, away from the heat.  This next part involves flames that can get a few feet high, so no loose clothing, long hair, flammable materials hanging from your ceiling, etc.  Put the pan onto the heat and turn on the burner, holding the pan firmly by the handle.  If you have a gas stove, tilt the pan slightly until it ignites (the fumes are what ignite it, so it shouldn’t take much).  If not, use a long kitchen lighter.  It’ll look pretty impressive, but if you have the pan at arm’s length, you’ll be fine.  Once the flames die down, scrape the pan with the browned cognac/steak juices stuck to the pan and get that flavor into your sauce base.  Pour in the milk or half-and-half, and stir until it’s consistent.  Put in the mushrooms, and turn the heat to medium-high.  You’ll want to stir to coat the mushrooms and make sure they cook, and keep the sauce bubbling and reducing for a few minutes.  The litmus test for sauce is generally enough viscosity to coat the back of a spoon, so just turn off the heat once it’s that thick and the mushrooms are cooked.  Pour over the steaks and serve.  I usually have it with some  rice to soak up the excess sauce and juices, and some green vegetable like baby bok choy or peas for contrast.  Easy difficulty is butter instead of olive oil and cream instead of half-and-half.  If you go the olive oil and milk route, and don’t eat the lumps of fat around the edges of the cut, it’s a pretty lean dish that’s low in fat and high in protein.

1. Healthy
2. Cheap
3. Delicious
4. Fast

Roughly in that order of importance.  Most of the recipes I’ll post here will meet those criteria.

Pilaf is a general term for a class of dishes where uncooked rice is browned in oil, and then cooked in broth, like biryani, paella, risotto, or jambalaya.  It’s what I call this dish, which is sort of an easy weekday dinner recipe.

• 1 pound sausage, ideally uncured kielbasa for a mild, slightly sweet dish, or andouille for a spicier version
• 1 medium white, yellow or vidalia onion, diced
• 2 fistfuls of peas
• 1.5 cups of rice (I used Kokuho short grain rice)
• 2 cups chicken broth

For this recipe, I use a cast iron skillet, but you can use anything that will fit all the ingredients together, with enough

Cut the sausage into slices with a slight bias to give it more surface area, and saute it with a few tablespoons of olive oil under medium heat to get some of the fat and juices from the meat out into the pan.  For extra flavor, you could add a tablespoon of butter with the olive oil… If you’re a pussy.

So saute the sausage, stirring infrequently, until it’s browned on both sides.  Remove the sausage from the pan into a bowl, leaving the oil, and then put in the onions, and let them cook until they’re translucent.  If you have some garlic cloves, crush them and put them in with the onions as well.  Now, mix the rice in, stirring to coat the raw rice evenly with the oil and moisture in the pan.  Put the sausage back in, and mix it until you’re confident it’s all together, then put in the broth.  Once it’s boiling, cover it, set the heat to medium-low, and let it simmer for about 25 minutes.  You’ll want to stir every 10 minutes or so, to make sure the rice on top cooks properly.  The moisture will almost be gone by the end, but don’t panic.  Put in another 1/4 cup of broth if you need to.  Stir in the frozen peas at the end, and cover again.  After 5 minutes, it’s all done.  The rice at the bottom should be slightly charred and crunchy, and the top should be moist and fluffy.  Makes a main dish for 4 people.

Hard mode: No butter, no seasonings other than those present in the sausage, broth, garlic, and onion.

I really like uncured kielbasa because of the fresh, slightly sweet taste matching the sweet flavor of the peas.  I try not to use butter partly because of the saturated fat, partly because I think it’s a crutch.  Using spicy sausage helps keep the dish from being bland, but if it’s too plain for you, serve it with a more savory side dish (I had potatoes au gratin from a box) or slather it with sriracha hot sauce, you fucking philistine.