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Quarantine Cookbook

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What happens when a musician can’t gig? Lots of cooking. Here’s some stuff I’ve been making

BREAKFAST

Quarantined Waffles

These are just like normal waffles, but they aren’t allowed to leave the house either – so at least you have someone (thing) to talk to while you eat. Waffles are surprisingly good listeners and are really sweet

INGREDIENTS

OPTIONAL STUFF

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Take waffle iron that you forgot you own out of the back of the cupboard and clean it.

2. Remind yourself that when you were a kid and you had waffles, things were okay.

3. Get a bowl and beat those eggs till they are fluffy.

4. Add all the other things in. If you’re making fancy waffles, add the fancy stuff in now. Mix it all up

5. When mixed, fill up the waffle iron as needed and cook it up until you convince yourself that things are okay (or the waffles are done)

6. That’s it.
Optional Toppings

Basic Eggs

While I love making complicated things, sometimes basic is best.

INGREDIENTS

2 eggs
Bunch of herbs (I use rosemary, thyme, basil, and/or oregano)
Slice of bread (if it’s not sourdough, why bother – am I right?)
Cheese – Provolone works best because it’s stretchy, but any cheesy goodness will do
Salt and pepper

INSTRUCTIONS

Put a slice of sourdough in the toaster and cut up some provolone for later. If you’re using different bread or cheese – just leave. Do this first.

Heat a cast iron pan with some oil. If you don’t have a cast iron pan, you should be questioning your life decisions up till now. Seriously what are you doing with your life?

When the pan and oil are hot, crack the eggs (on the pan – in case that’s not clear). Chop up the herbs and put them on the eggs. Throw some salt and pepper on for good measure.

When the toast has been toasted, cut the slice in half and put cheese on both sides. If you have a toaster oven (and again, if you don’t, life decisions need to be questioned), put the bread with cheese in for a couple minutes to melt the cheese. If you don’t have a toaster over, IDK – use a hair dryer?

When both the eggs and the cheesy toast are done, put the toast on a plate (always a good start) then eggs. You can try the other way, but it doesn’t work as well.

I HIGHLY recommend adding some Carrot Habanero Hot Sauce on this. It’s a good idea. Life will be better.

Sourdough Bagels

Bagels are my new favorite thing to make. They are easy for the most part and, outside of NY, I never could find a decent bagel. Given that I still have no gigs and there’s little travel to take up the weekends, making bagels is an easy way to kill a night. Before starting, just know that this is an overnight recipe. It takes about 4 or 5 hours the night before to make so I would suggest starting the process around 3 or 4pm the night before you want bagels. From experience, starting at 7pm is a bad idea (you’ll be done around 1am). Bagel making day however is super short – just enough time to heat the oven and cook the bagels basically. Call it an hour all in.

Also, I usually double up this recipe and get ~20 – 24 bagels depending on the size. It scales nicely.

Also, I started using a digital scale to weigh the ingredients. Now that I’m super fancy, I’ve included the weight and rough equivalents for you lesser people without scales.

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Make the starter a few days before at least. I usually start feeding mine about 3 days before I want to make bagels – feeding it 2x a day leading up to bagel day and just once (the morning) for bagel day. If you want it more sour-er, then feed it less. Maybe just 1x a day then not at all for 2 days.
  2. Make the sponge. Add the starter, 272 grams (~2 cups) of flour, the starter, and water to a bowl. Mix it well, then cover and let sit for 30 minutes. This basically proofs the yeast – I think.
  3. Add the barley malt / maple syrup and salt to the sponge and mix. Then add the remaining flour while mixing. I do this by hand so I can feel superior but you could use an electric mixer I guess.
  4. Knead that Dough. Once everything is combined, turn it over on a floured surface and knead it for 5 minutes at least. This is actually a pretty important step – don’t skimp on the time. I’d err on the side of more kneading than less.
  5. Hurry up and wait. Form the dough into a ball. Lightly oil a bowl, then put the dough ball in and turn to cover it with oil. Cover the bowl for 30 minutes.
  6. After 30 minutes, stretch / fold the dough. Basically pull one side and fold it over to the other side, rotate the bowl about 1/4 turn, and do it again. I thought this was a complicated step when I first saw it. It’s not. Just fold it over and pres. Once you’ve folded all sides, make sure it’s ball shaped again and cover again for 30 minutes.
  7. After 30 minutes, do the same thing and then cover again for 60 minutes.
  8. After 60 minutes, do the same thing again (again?) and cover for another 60 minutes.
  9. After 60 minutes, it’s finally time to shape the bagels. Karate chop the dough into equal parts. Since I can’t get the exact same amount of dough each time, I find it best to weigh the dough then divide that by the amount of bagels you want to have. Generally, about 120 grams of dough per bagel will yield about 12 bagels with this recipe. Small bagels are fun to experiment with (especially if you want to do weird flavors) – for those I usually do about 70-90 grams per bagel. Figure out your size, but make them all the same size so baking them isn’t more complicated.
  10. If you want to add something to the inside of the bagel like sundried tomatoes, rosemary, basil, cinnamon raisin, chocolate chips (btw, fuck yes chocolate chip bagels are good. I wasn’t a fan, now I am. Do it.) etc – you’d want to mix that in at this stage. Toppings that sit on the outside of the bagel go on later – so do not add those now. That’d be bad.
    1. Side note, make a sundried tomato with rosemary bagel. You’ll thank me.
      1. Side side note, use non-oiled sundried tomatoes because the oil makes it really annoying to reseal the bagels
        1. Side side side note, make sure you completely cover whatever you put in the bagels so they stay inside during the boil. If you have things on the outside, they will fall out during the boil. So don’t do that.
  11. Once the bagels are shaped, put them on a tray with parchment paper or silicone mat (I highly recommend the mat – less waste, super easy clean up) and let them sit for about 30 minutes uncovered. Optional to throw some corn meal on the tray first to help the bagels not stick and get an interesting bottom texture.
  12. After 30 minutes, cover the bagels with plastic and throw them in the fridge. They only need to sit for about 6 hours – but go with 12 if you can. The flavors are different and waiting longer is better. Some people say you don’t need to wait. To those people I say, you’re wrong.
  13. The next morning, take the bagels out of the fridge and uncover them so they come up to room temp (about 30 minutes).
  14. Heat the oven to 450 degrees. When the oven is almost preheated, fill a decent size pot with water and mix in the sugar and baking soda. Boil that up.
  15. Once the oven is preheated and the water boiled, gently put the bagels in the water and boil about 30 seconds per side. Don’t overcrowd the pot by the way. That can get annoying. I hear tale of folks boiling the bagels for longer for chewier bagels – I’ve tried boiling for 1 minute per side and didn’t see any real difference.
    1. Side note, I’d start boiling plain bagels that have nothing inside first then move to bagels with stuff inside – usually starting with the least flavorful things – since some of the inside stuff will come out during the boil.
  16. Remove the bagels from the pot and place on the tray with parchment paper / silicone mat.
  17. In a bowl, mix up the egg white. If you’re not sure how to do this, google it. I’m not your monkey. Use a brush (I seriously just use a painters brush, but you can buy a more expensive cooking one if that’s your jam) and brush the tops of the bagels with egg white and immediately add whatever toppings (everything seasoning, poppy seeds etc). BTW, the everything seasoning from Trader Joe’s is fantastic for this.
  18. Put those bagels in the oven and cook for about 20 – 23 minutes per batch. I like doughy bagels, so I’m usually closer to 20 minutes. Whenever they are golden brown though, that’s pretty much when they are done.
  19. Put the bagels on a cooling rack for a bit, then.. .you know… eat them.

That’s really it. You can freeze bagels if you don’t want to eat them all. You can also eat them all. Or give some to friends so they owe you favors down the road (you know who you are).

Sourdough Buttermilk Biscuits

~60 minutes give or take

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 450
  2. Get two bowls – one large for flour and one medium-ish for the wet stuff
  3. In the large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt with a whisk
  4. Use a cheese grater to grate the butter into the flour mixture. Frozen butter is key – don’t try that soft stuff here.
    1. If you’re adding dry stuff to the dough like grated cheese, chives, bacon bits, etc, add it here.
  5. In the medium-ish bowl, mix the sourdough starter and buttermilk together – then combine the wet stuff with the flour in the larger bowl. Mix that up real good. I use a spatula because it’s easier to scrape the sides, but whatever.
  6. Once it’s al mixed up, lightly flour up a surface and knead the dough a couple times (2 maybe 3 – maybe 4 if you’re frisky – but no more than that) until the dough is solid. It’s important NOT to over knead the dough (no one likes people that are kneady right? oh puns).
  7. Use a rolling pin to flatten the mound of dough flat but still thicc (oh boi). Should be ~1 to 1.5 inches thick give or take. Making a round shape is easier IMO because the biscuit cutter is round – but do you.
  8. Once you’ve flattened it out, you need to fold it over to get the flakes. Each complete fold is really 4 folds (folding the top to the bottom, the left side to right, the bottom to top, and right to left). Once you’ve folded it, flatten it out again to roughly the same shape. Repeat a few times. I typically make 2 or 3 complete folds. I’ve never gone over 3 folds because I’m fairly sure the universe would end.
  9. Once it’s flat, thick, and folded – cut it in to biscuit shapes. You can be fancy and use a biscuit cutter – or be cheap and resourceful like me and use a mason jar lid. Whatever you use – just don’t twist the dough. You want to put the cutter on and just press straight down. If you twist, you’ll seal the dough and it won’t rise right.
  10. Get a cookie sheet and line with parchment paper or a silicon mat (I use silicon mats – they are awesome – use those) and bake in at 450 for ~15 minutes or till brown and etc
    1. Before you throw them in the oven, you could do a quick egg wash on top (whisk an egg white for the wash, then brush on to each). That gives it a nice dark color.
  11. Serve right away.

Sourdough Bread – Easy

This is just a basic recipe – nothing too fancy, but a good staple IMO. Be prepared though, like most sourdough recipes, this is a long one. Start at 7pm the day before you want bread. The next morning, you can bake it at 8am and be eating it by 10am. So, like 13 or so hours. Grab a drink (or a bottle) and some flour.

Ingredients

  1. 150g (~2/3 cup) sourdough starter
  2. 250g (~1 cup) warm (~100F) water
  3. 25g (~2 tbsp) Olive oil
  4. 500 – 550g (~4 – 4 1/3 cups) Bread Flour
  5. 10g (~1 3/4 tsp) salt
  6. About a handful of cornmeal, rice flour, or similar for dusting the bread pre-bake

RECIPE
Remember – this is an overnight recipe. I suggest starting this between 4p – 7p if you want bread for the morning.

1. Get a large bowl, put it on the scale and tare it (so scale should read 0 with the bowl on it). I know you’d rather use cups as measurements – but trust me, so much easier and more accurate. Stop complaining, get a scale.
2. Put in the starter, water, and olive oil and mix together well with a whisk (while drinking a whiskey). It’ll be a murky mess.
3. Add salt and flour. Once you’ve added all the flour, mix with your hands (not the whisk, trust me – but still, whiskey) until the dough is dry and shaggy. You’re not really kneading it, just putting it together in a ball.
4. Leave the ball o’ dough in the bowl and cover with a damp towel. Let it rest somewhere for 30 – 60 minutes.
5. Whiskey?
6. Roll that dough ball up in to a nicer ball quickly (again, not kneading – just perfecting the inner ball shape).
7. Put the dough back in the bowl, cover with a damp towel (again) and put it in a warm spot for a while.
8. After about 30 – 45 minutes, stretch and fold the dough. Basically pickup the top side of the dough and fold it over to the bottom, then turn the bowl 90 degrees and do the same thing. Then do it again. And again. Now you’ve gone in a circle. Yay. Have a drink.
9. Enjoy that drink (or two) while you wait for another 30 – 45 minutes, then repeat step 8.
10. If you’re frisky (or not drunk enough), do another stretch and fold 30 – 45 minutes after – but this isn’t hugely necessary.
11. After stretching / folding (and drinking), it’s time to let the dough rest. Like overnight. It may take test time if it’s warm out, more time if it’s cold – but overnight is generally long enough. Basically it should double in size which will take ~8 hours give or take.

The next Day
12. Decision time. If you want two small loafs, cut the dough in half. If you want one, leave it be. More recently, I’ve been cutting the dough in 2 – 4 equal parts and making baguettes – they are great! These are the choices my friend.
13. Stretch / fold again, then flip the dough upside down (so the seam is on the bottom), then shape the dough so you like how it looks. For sandwich type bread, go round and flatish. For baguettes, roll and stretch them out so them are a good size. I try to flatten the tops a little as I like wider bread as opposed to taller bread (mainly because flatter is better for the toaster).
14. For the round / sandwich bread. Get your dutch oven out and throw some cornmeal or whatever in it. Then put that beautiful dough ball into the cornmealed dutch oven. For baguettes, just put them on a cookie sheet with a towel on the bottom to help hold the shape or a baguette pan (more ideal). Either way, let it sit again for 30 more minutes covered (with the dutch oven top for the round or damp towel for the baguettes). Joy.
15. Towards the end of that, preheat the oven to 450F. If you’re going to baguettes, then put another pan in the oven while it heats. Not needed for the round.
16. Once the dough has risen (amen), slice that sucker like it ratted you out for sliver. But seriously, just put a couple slashes in the dough – make it pretty if you want. This helps with baking. I swear.
16a. You could also make funky designs on the bread now, if you’re into that sorta thing.
17. Once the oven is preheated:
For the Round: put the dutch oven in with the cover on and drop the temp to 400F. Leave it for 20ish minutes.
For baguettes: pour some cold water in the pan that was in the oven. This will create steam (yay science!) which is good. Shut the oven and let that sit for a minute or two, then put the baguettes in the oven – but don’t forget to take the towel off. Shut the door quickly to keep the steam in.
18. For the Round: After 20 minutes with the cover on, take the cover off and let it bake for 40ish minutes until it’s nice and brown.
For Baguettes, you just cook them for 30 – 35 minutes total.
19. For the Round: Take it out of the oven and put it on a cooling rack. Resist all the urges that make you wanna go out and slice the bread. Wait for at least an hour you animal.
For Baguettes, you can crack the oven door and leave them in the oven to cool for crispier crust, or put them on a wire rack for a softer crust. Either way, these take way less time to cool – maybe 10 minutes at most.
20. Take pictures, post on IG.

Sourdough Baguettes

I’ve been getting more into making bread because quarantine. With all the time I have on my hands, I’ve really started to play with the basic recipe and I think it’s a lot better. I’ve also been making baguettes more because they are easier to manage IMO – so that’s what this one is. You can still make a round if you want though. The main differences between this recipe and the Easy one are 1) Higher hydration levels (the Easy is ~23%, the Not As Easy is ~65%), 2) more dough (mainly because I’ve been making baguettes and I wanted to have three 400 gram baguettes), 3) eliminating the olive oil (figured I’d go more pure) and 4) letting the sourdough starter starve a little so it’s more sour (usually not feeding it for 2 days before.
Everyone gets sour without food right?!). While the ingredients change, the process of making the bread is basically the same. Normally I use King Arthur bread flour, but I used Bob’s Artisan Flour recently and really liked it. There’s a mild difference in the protein levels (KA has ~12% while Bob’s ranges apparently from 12% – 15%) which I thin may have something to do with it. The higher hydration should give more “crumb” (holes inside the bread, like swiss cheese – but in bread), a thinner crust, and more bragging rights.

Ingredients

  1. 150g (~2/3 cup) sourdough starter
  2. 400g (~1.5 cups) warm (~100F) water
  3. 650g (~5 1/4 cups) Bread Flour
  4. 13g (~2 1/4 tsp) salt

RECIPE
1. In a large mixing bowl, weigh out the starter and water and mix it up. This will be a murky mess – like your life – but that’s okay. I use a whisk. I would not suggest whiskers though. Your cat won’t like it.
2. Add all the flour and salt and mix it up. Be a man (or woman) and use your hand. Trust me – spoons or whisks are annoying for this part. Just mix it until everything is together. I usually do this Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom style – start saying “Kali Ma” over and over, grab the dough with my right hand, and squeeze it through my fingers over and over until it’s mixed or I summon a demon. Either way, good times ahead.
3. After it’s mixed, form it into a rough ball. It’ll be wet-ish, but that’s okay. Remember, high hydration.
4. Put that ball in a bowl, cover it with a damp / warm towel, and let it sit for ~60 minutes
5. After 60 minutes, stretch / fold the dough 4 times. Basically, stretch the dough out from the top, fold it to the bottom, rotate the bowl 90 degrees and repeat until 3 more times. The dough should be sticky but not crazy glue sticky. I wet my hands a bit before doing this and that seems to make things easier. Once done, form a ball again, wet the towel with warm water so it’s damp (not dripping, just damp), and cover for another 30 – 45 minutes. I honestly don’t know if more time is better yet – so do your thing.
6. Repeat that stretch / fold process at least 2 or 3 times. I suggest 3 because that’s what I normally do and this is my website. So there.
7. After the last stretch / fold, cover the dough and let it sit out in a warm-ish spot overnight. It doesn’t have to be really warm, just not cold (i.e. no fridge – I tried that and it sucked). The dough should weigh ~1200 grams by the way.
The Next Day
8. Stretch / fold the dough again, but be careful not to kill the bubbles that have formed. Be gentle man. Let sit for ~30 minutes more.
9. After 30 minutes, divide the dough up in to three 400 gram rounds and gently shape them into baguettes. I usually use a small handful of all purpose flour to coat the outside of the bread so it’s not overly sticky. Let gravity help with the shaping and hold the dough by one end perpendicular to the floor, and gently stretch it down. Then flip the dough around and repeat that process. When you’ve shaped all three, likely you’ll want to go back and re-shape them because the dough bounced back a bit. Repeat until the dough keeps the shape.
10. If you have a baguette pan, put the dough in the pan. If not, you can do this on a cookie sheet with parchment paper – but the bottoms will be flatter. Cover the dough and leave for ~30 – 45 minutes.
11. In the oven, have one tray at the lowest placement and another right above that. On the lowest tray, place a cookie sheet. Preheat the oven to 450 with the cookie sheet in.
12. Once the oven is hot, put the bread in uncovered. Take cold water and pour on the cookie sheet to create steam – you’ll want enough water to cover the bottom of the sheet. Shut the door quickly and reduce heat to 400 degrees. Cook for about 30 – 40 minutes or until golden brown on top.
13. Let the bread sit for a few minutes. I prefer to cool out of the oven as it makes the crust crunchier – but if you want softer, keep it in the oven (turning the over off of course) and keep the oven door cracked open.
14. Eat one loaf right away – because that’s why you made three. The other two will stay for a few days (I’ve managed to keep them for a max of 5 days before I’ve eaten all the bread – not sure if it’ll stay longer).

LUNCH

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DINNER

Shepherd’s pie

If you’re like me, you’re partly empty on the inside from lack of actual human contact (unless dogs count, do dogs count? they should). A good Shepard’s Pie will fill that void right up and make you think of happier times – like not being an actual Shepard. It’s a two part recipe – mashed potatoes and the filling.

INGREDIENTS

Before you start, preheat the over to 400

Mashed Potato Recipe

1. Cut up potatoes and put in a pot

2. Drink a beer

3. Fill with water to just cover potatoes (about an inch over) and boil until tender.

4. Drink a beer

5. Save a cup of the water but strain the rest out.

6. Mash up potatoes, add salt / pepper, and pour the water in (if you want creamy add milk too) and mix till good consistency

7. Set mashed potatoes aside – like all your current life goals and desires for actual human contact

8. Drink a beer

Filling

1. Heat a pan with oil. When hot, add carrots broccoli and onion and Cook for 2 min (or till veggies are tender)

2. Drink a beer

3. Add celery peas and corn and garlic. Cook 2 min.

4. Add meat (or beyond meat), Worcestershire sauce and broth. Cook till the meat (or whatever) is done
Put it together

  1. Put that mix in a pan, potatoes on top, and put in the oven at 400 for 30 min.
  2. While that’s cooking, cut up cheese in a funny way. After the pie has cooked for about 30 minutes, put the cheese on top of awesome pie and cook for 2 min. Take it out of the oven and cool (or don’t if you’re into melting your mouth or too drunk to know the difference)
  3. Have a beer, listen to John Prine and ugly cry into your food wondering why any god would takeaway such an amazing singer / songwriter at the time he’s most needed. Added side of that, you probably won’t need more salt.

Chicken Fajitas

Super easy to make and delicious. Maybe 20 minutes prep, 20 minutes cooking, and 30 minutes to 2 hours for the marinade. I’ve always eye-balled this, so the recipe is somewhat fluid – but it’s nearly impossible to mess up. Marinade chicken, cut veggies up, cook all in a pan, and serve – I challenge you to mess this up.

INGREDIENTS

1. In a zip lock bag, dump in the sliced chicken, then add all the marinade ingredients. You can put the marinade in first, but that’s really annoying because it sticks to the bag and you have to make sure it mixes well which means more time to think about how you wish there was something better to do than mix ingredients in a bag and starting thinking “man I should have just added the chicken in first”
2. Don’t seal the bag yet – just move the chicken and marinade around to coat the chicken. Yes, I just went on a diatribe about how mixing the bag sucks but I swear, it’s easier once the chicken is in first. Stop second guessing me.
3. Push all the chicken and marinade to the bottom of the bag, seal the bag, and throw in the fridge for 30 minutes to 2 hours. Go longer if you can. And don’t really throw the bag, it’d probably explode.
4. Get a pint glass and mixer, fill the mixer with the Tequila, Cointreau, lime juice, and ice. Shake it well and pour in a glass. Now you have a margarita – which is an essential part of waiting for the chicken to marinade.
5. Make another margarita. I’m sure you went through the first too fast and the chicken still probably has to marinade more. Just do it.
6. While you’re drinking, cut up the veggies.
7. When the chicken is marinated, take it out of the fridge and let it come to room temp
8. Pre-heat a pan on medium-ish heat. I use cast iron pans because they are awesome and it makes me feel manly. You can use another type of pan, but I’ll judge you.
8.5. Let the pan heat. Seriously. Get another drink if you need to. Don’t use a cold pan.
9. Once the pan is hot, add some oil to it (maybe 2 tsps – enough to cover the pan nicely).
10. Once the oil is also hot, dump the chicken in the pan. Cook that for a bit before adding the veggies in. Maybe 5 minutes or so.
11. After the chicken & veggies are thoroughly cooked, turn the heat off, and let them cool a little in the pan. Note, in a cast iron especially things will keep cooking in the pan. Just FYI.
12. Heat up the tortillas. Put the cheese on the tortilla directly. It’s awesome. If you really wanna get crazy, after the tortillas somewhat cooked, put cheese on top and flip it so the cheese cooks on the pan. Yeah – it’s good!
13. Put chicken / veggies in a tortilla, add whatever toppings you want, and eat.

This works great with the carrot habanero hot sauce by the way.

Lemon Pepper Chicken

This is one of those super easy dishes that seems harder than it is sometimes. It takes all of about 20 – 30 minutes to make which is great.  The sauce is amazing too – I’ll often put the leftover sauce on eggs in the morning – it’s great!

INGREDIENTS

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Brine the chicken.  This is optional, but not really.  It makes the chicken so much better.
    1. Fill a bowl with cold water and mix in about 1 tablespoon salt.
    2. Put chicken in to the bowl and place in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes to about 2 hours.  I usually shoot for about an hour give or take
    3. When the time is up, wash the chicken in cold water to remove the salt.
    4. Pat chicken dry and put aside.  The dryer the better here.
  2. Mix the flour with the lemon pepper spice.
    1. Sometimes I feel this doesn’t always get all the lemon pepper spice on the chicken – so I like to have some extra lemon pepper spice I don’t mix in to the flour to add directly to the chicken.
    2. Before you coat the chicken, remove about 2 tablespoons of the flour mix and set it aside for the sauce.
  3. Coat the chicken.
    1. Put the chicken directly into the flour mix making sure to cover it completely.
    2. If you pulled some lemon pepper spice out before, now is the time to put it directly on the chicken.  If you do, press it in the chicken a bit.
  4. Heat your skillet up – medium high heat
    1. I recommend using a cast iron pan here cause they’re awesome (and you can broil them directly if you wanna get fancy).
    2. Once the pan is hot, add the oil heat until it’s hot (not smoking though)
  5. Add Chicken
    1. Place the chickens in and let em cook up.  About 4 – 5 minutes per side.  It should be golden brown and close to 165 degrees.  It’s going to get cook again, so if it’s not 165, don’t worry.
    2. When ready, remove the chicken from the pan and set a side
  6. Make the sauce
    1. Add the garlic and butter to the same pan and cook for about 1 minute.  Don’t burn the garlic!
    2. Add the chicken stock, stir it in, and let that heat up a bit.  Don’t boil though.
    3. Add the reserved flour.  The amount you add is up to you – if you want thicker sauce, add it all.  If you want thinner sauce, add less – or even none.  I like adding the full amount.
    4. Add the lemon juice and stir consistently.  Bring that to a simmer and let it cook for a bit until it reduces – maybe 5 minutes or so, but use your judgement. Or find someone with better judgement with you and ask them instead.
    5. Taste it and make adjustments as needed (more lemon, salt, pepper, beer for you etc)
  7. Cook the chicken part duex
    1. Add the chicken back to the pan with the sauce
    2. Spoon that glorious sauce all over the chicken.
    3. Do it again
    4. And again
    5. Just keep doing it for about 2 – 4 minutes or until the chicken is at 165 degrees
  8. Rest
    1. Take the chicken out of the pan, put a plate or something over it, and let it rest for a few minutes.  DO NOT CUT IT WITHOUT LETTING IT REST!
  9. Plate the Chicken and coat it with sauce
    1. If you wanted rice or pasta with this, you probably should have read through this first and started that already.
  10. Optional – if you want a darker look on the chicken, pour the sauce out of the pan, turn your broiler on high, and throw that chick sans-sauce under there for a minute (maybe 2 – but don’t push it).

Orange Chicken or Tofu Stir fry

One of my favorite simple dishes that can easily be made with meat or veggie (even vegan) – so easy to work with. The ingredients below are fairly loose – especially with what veggies you use etc. Go crazy man.

INGREDIENTS

Stir fry recipe

Sauce Recipe

Chicken Teriyaki with Pineapple

What do you do when you have a pineapple that’s going bad?  Make some Chicken Teriyaki of course.  This is a pretty simple / quick dish – nothing to it 🙂

Ingredients

Directions

  1. About 30 – 60 minutes prior to cooking, brine the chicken.  You can brine it for longer – but I find that after about 60 minutes there’s no noticeable difference.  This is simply putting the chicken in to a salt water bath (~1 tbsp of salt) and letting it sit.  After you’ve brined the chicken, make sure you wash it with cold water and pat it dry with a paper towel.  Let the chicken sit for about 15 – 30 minutes to come to room temp as well
  2. Preheat oven to 400.
  3. Whisk cornstarch and water together in your saucepan.  This milky gold will thicken the sauce up – so don’t skip this.
  4. Combine brown sugar, honey, soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, ginger, and black pepper together in the small saucepan with the cornstarch mix over low heat. Bring to a boil while whisking pretty consistently so it doesn’t burn and boil for about 1 – 2 minutes. Turn off the heat and set aside for at least 10 minutes.  Note, you need to let it cool to thicken up.
  5. Arrange chicken and pineapple slices in a baking dish.  I like slicing the pineapples somewhat thinner so they really get soaked with the sauce – but play around with what you like. 
  6. Pour sauce on top of the chicken and make sure you get everything coated.  You may want to pick up the chicken to make sure the sauce gets on the bottom too.
  7. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the chicken is completely cooked through (~165 degrees).
  8. Remove the chicken from the oven and rest for at least 5 – 10 minutes.  This helps distribute the chicken juices inside as well as thickens up the sauce a bit more.  Down skip this!
  9. Serve with rice and veggies.
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