What’s for Dinner? [recipes]

[Kurth]

My wife has been away and is returning tonight. Forgetting that I had a large backlog Clone Wars episodes and some roads to build in Death Stranding, I volunteered to make something good for dinner. Suggestions?

I’m thinking something not too complicated that might involve chicken and lemons that isn’t chicken piccata. Thoughts?

[LawBeefaroni]

Chicken-lemon soup? Throw together a salad and/or pasta for the side. Or pita and hummus.

My wife is vegetarian so I always just make beef stew when she's out of town.

[Kurth]

Chicken-lemon soup? Throw together a salad and/or pasta for the side. Or pita and hummus.

My wife is vegetarian so I always just make beef stew when she's out of town.

Bingo. That’s perfect. And I’ll bust out the old Instant Pot, for this, too:

Instant Pot Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup

Thanks!!!

[em2nought]

I tried to emulate my mother's ground hamburger and baked beans the other night. It tasted like being a kid again. Browned ground beef and a chopped up onion, a big can of baked beans, lots of ketchup and mustard mixed in. Simmered and reduced until it's really thick so a spoon can stand straight up in your dish. I left out the brown sugar as it's really sweet enough already, and I added some crushed red peppers to spice it up a little bit to my own adult tastes. Must have been at least twenty years since I had this dish last.

In chicken soup, I like to make my aunt's chicken corn soup with chicken, corn, and slices of hard boiled eggs. I'll create my own take by adding pearl barley to make it nice and stew thick. Barley is supposedly good for you too so....

[YellowKing]

Chicken Scarpariello

My wife makes this one a lot and we love it. Served over a bed of orzo. Over the years we've tweaked it to spice it up a bit more.

[Kraken]

I just finished making my favorite lentil soup -- the one with dumplings. Just waiting for them to firm up right now. Dinner in 5 minutes.

Soup isn't real quick, but I'll get 8 servings out of it. After making a french onion pasta bake last night, I won't have to cook again this week.

[Kasey Chang]

In order to get myself weaned off instant noodles, (and an attempt to improve my GI health), I'm trying to cook more myself... except I can barely fry an egg, and I have almost no kitchen stuff.

I've been slowly accumulating kitchen stuff... a Cuisinart SmartStick (a small food processor / immersion blender / power whisk), a personal air fryer, an instant pot (I've yet to use), a full set of kitchen utensils, a 12-inch non-stick pan (Cuisinart) and cover. I have access to 4-burner stove and microwave.

Today I decided to push myself a bit... What sort of **** can I make out of canned stuff I accumulated, such as canned garbanzo beans, salt and pepper, and some stale flour tortillas, and Chinese staples like soy sauce, oyster sauce, and so on?

I managed to food process the chickpeas into some sorta-hummus by adding garlic, soy sauce, and so on, then food sheared the tortillas into "chips" which I then crisped up in my personal air fryer with some oil spray. The "chips" are quite crisp, but as I've never tasted hummus before, I have no idea how close did I get, except it felt really bland.

[Blackhawk]

The hummus would probably have benefited from some lemon juice and tahini.

[Isgrimnur]

[LordMortis]

Panama!

I prepare pretty much everything but rarely make anything from scratch. I try to shop both cheap and relatively healthy. It doesn't take much. This has been challenged as I continue discover cooking in the air fryer, which encourages me to get frozen foods that you wish you could fry if only you had a deep fryer. Lots of frozen breaded foods. Though today I discovered I can bake twice potatoes in half the time of an oven.

[Kraken]

I shared this recipe with raydude a few days ago. Since I already went to the trouble of writing it up I thought I'd put it here, too. It's quite good and not difficult. I didn't have the optional Chinese/Japanese ingredients but intend to track them down before I make it again.

Use a sturdy sheet pan to make this inventive oven-fried rice

Serves 6

An inventive take on the skillet standby, this Sheet Pan ‘Fried’ Rice cooks the dish in a very hot oven, adding the ingredients in steps. It comes from the new book, ‘Hot Sheet: Sweet and Savory Sheet Pan Recipes for Every Day and Celebrations,’ by Olga Massov and Sanae Lemoine, in which you can use a sturdy, workhorse sheet pan to cook everything from breakfast, lunch, and dinner. As with all stir-fries, have everything ready near the oven to use without delay. Besides the rice, the main element here is a 1-pound bag of mixed frozen vegetables (couldn't be easier). The best part is the crispy rice at the edges, and a very nice sauce with soy, honey, and Chinese black vinegar. You can add more flavor with the Japanese seasoning furikake, a mixture of dried seaweed and sesame seed, or chili crisp, a spicy Chinese condiment.

RICE

2½ cups water

1½ cups long-grain white rice

2 tablespoons canola or vegetable oil

1½ tablespoons light soy sauce

¾ teaspoon toasted sesame oil

½ teaspoon salt

1 package (16 ounces) frozen mixed vegetables (peas, carrots, corn, green beans, lima beans), no need to thaw

3 eggs, lightly beaten

1. In a deep saucepan over high heat, bring the water to a boil. Add the rice, lower the heat, and cover the pan. Cook the rice for 15 minutes, or until it is tender and has absorbed the liquid in the pan. If the rice is not tender, let it cook 3 minutes more.

2. With a fork, fluff the rice. You should have 4 generous cups. Spread the rice on a half-sheet pan to cool.

3. Position a rack in the middle of the oven. Place another half-sheet pan in the oven. Set the oven at 450 degrees.

4. In a large bowl that will hold all the rice, combine the canola or vegetable oil, soy sauce, sesame oil, and salt. Add the rice and toss to coat the rice evenly with the oil mixture. It will have some darker clumps where the soy sauce penetrated and white clumps where it did not. That's OK.

5. Remove the sheet pan from the oven and set it on a heatproof surface. Carefully transfer the rice to the pan, spreading it in an even layer. Return the pan to the oven. Cook for 15 minutes, or until the rice starts to crisp up and turn light golden.

6. Remove the pan from the oven. Add the frozen vegetables and carefully (the pan is searing hot) stir them into the rice. Return to the oven and continue cooking for 15 minutes, or until the rice is a rich golden brown and the vegetables are tender.

7. Remove the pan from the oven and push the rice and vegetables to the edges of the pan, creating an empty space in the center. Pour the eggs into the space. Return the pan to the oven and cook for 4 minutes, or until the eggs are cooked through and opaque. (Total cooking time is 34 minutes.) Remove the pan from the oven. With the side of a large kitchen spoon, break up the eggs as you stir them into the rice mixture.

SAUCE AND GARNISH

¼ cup soy sauce

2 tablespoons honey, or more to taste

1 tablespoon Chinkiang vinegar or red wine vinegar or balsamic vinegar

1 piece (1-inch) fresh ginger, grated

1 bunch scallions, thinly sliced (for garnish)

Furikake (optional)

Chili crisp (optional)

1. In a bowl, stir together the soy sauce, honey, vinegar, and ginger.

2. Taste
for seasoning and add more honey or vinegar, if you like. Transfer to a serving bowl.

3. Divide the rice among 6 shallow bowls. Serve with scallions and furikake or chili crisp, if you like.

[Jeff V]

Because there's a billion types of rice all with their own properties and suitability for use, fried rice tends to be best using basmati.

[Kraken]

Fine. I give JeffV dispensation to use basmati, even though I think it would burn in the oven. Just don't sub brown rice in this.

[Carpet_pissr]

. Just don't sub brown rice in this.

Doh!

[Kasey Chang]

"This ain't no mug cake"

----------

Crush 4 Oreo-type creme cookies in a mug (food processor, mallet, however)

Add just enough milk or alt-milk to cover the solids.

Microwave for 90 seconds (assume 1000 or 1100 Watt power)

Then leave alone for at least 90 seconds (in or out of microwave)

The result is half way between chocolate jello and chocolate mud cake, at least when I used oat milk. Which is... an "interesting" texture.

[pr0ner]

I've made this creamy chicken crockpot pasta twice in the last month and it's damn solid. Makes 6 meals for me.

[gilraen]

I've made this creamy chicken crockpot pasta twice in the last month and it's damn solid. Makes 6 meals for me.

Mmm, this sounds really good, I'll have to try it. I've made the Olive Garden chicken pasta a few times (there are tons of variations on this recipe online), so I'm a big fan of the "crockpot + chicken + loads of sauce and cheese + pasta" formula.

[GnomeGlimmer]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXNFtgYhmAI
Feeling Mexican today!

[Blackhawk]

Microwave on high 4 to 4 1/2 minutes.

That was the recipe I made today. I turned out fine.

[Kraken]

I have to make vegetarian dinners for Wife, so please stop posting recipes with meat.

When I make meaty meals for myself, they're on the level of a steak or burger on the grill. Cooking for one doesn't reward much effort unless Wife will be gone long enough to make leftovers desirable. Then, I sometimes make chicken breasts with a wine-based mushroom and rosemary sauce. I don't tire of it because she only goes away 1-2x per year. My repertoire of meat-based dishes is very small. Although I'm grateful to Beyond Meat for letting me bring back a few burger-based things like sloppy joes and chili and slumgullion.

OK, I've decided that I will allow burger-based recipes. Proceed.

[Kasey Chang]

I found that with a food processor and enough spices, you can create "hummus" with canned chickpeas (aka garbonzo beans).

[em2nought]

Fine. I give JeffV dispensation to use basmati, even though I think it would burn in the oven. Just don't sub brown rice in this.

Speaking of "browned" and crushed into powdered RICE, I'd really like to try this "Hot Thai Kitchen" recipe for clone Thai KFC zabb wings, (who knew KFC could still make something really good). https://hot-thai-kitchen.com/wingz-zabb/

[hentzau]

I tried to emulate my mother's ground hamburger and baked beans the other night. It tasted like being a kid again. Browned ground beef and a chopped up onion, a big can of baked beans, lots of ketchup and mustard mixed in. Simmered and reduced until it's really thick so a spoon can stand straight up in your dish. I left out the brown sugar as it's really sweet enough already, and I added some crushed red peppers to spice it up a little bit to my own adult tastes. Must have been at least twenty years since I had this dish last.

This sounds really good. I now really need to make this. And so simple.

I really love baked beans and grilled Spam. I know it's cliche, but it's good.

[em2nought]

I tried to emulate my mother's ground hamburger and baked beans the other night.

This sounds really good. I now really need to make this. And so simple.

I really love baked beans and grilled Spam. I know it's cliche, but it's good.

I should elaborate that I toss the chopped onion in to cook along with the hamburger once I've browned the burger. You talked me into buying another can of beans.