Chicken Stir-Fry

 

Awesome as a quick weekday meal, makes excellent left-overs, just kind of a pain depending on the amount of veggie prep that you're doing. If you use some good shortcuts, you can be up and running with a few minutes prep and a few minutes cooking. And its actually kind of healthy!

Donuts

Another one that shocked me in how good they turned out. If it weren't for the fact that it is an enormous pain to put together a frying rig (and fryers are a pain to maintain and clean) I would do these waaaay more often.

Based off of another Good Eats recipe (found here) along with a different recipe for the glaze (found here) - the only wrinkle I added was to make some of my donuts into sticks, and to turn some of those sticks into peanut sticks (per a request).

Meat Sauce

Some forewarning - this is going to take most of a day. The great news is, you can get a good 5 meals out of it, and its pretty hard to actually mess it up. To start, this is all based off of a Good Eats recipe (found here). The only major change is that broth was used instead of wine.

The net result is a very rich, hearty sauce - good enough to eat by itself (when you run out of pasta on your plate), which is unusual (for me, at least). The only drawbacks are the whole 'takes a day' deal (oh, and the giant mess).

Soft Pretzels

This turned out to be one of the best things I've made, the only drawback is it creates a bit of a mess. Still, soooo worth it.

Working off of a Good Eats recipe, found here. Straight-forward dough - water, sugar, flour, butter, yeast, salt (the portions of which are in the link - remember to always weigh your flour, it can vary a ton based on how densely packed it is). It turns out mixing dough is a lot easier to do with a stand-mixer and a dough hook then it is by hand (trust me, I've done a few). Just let that sucker spin for a while, stop it a few times to force everything off of the hook and give it a few kneads by hand (I find that if you just let it mix, the stuff near the top of the hook winds up being a bit drier/stiffer then the rest unless you mix it up a bit).

All-Fruit Smoothie

My typical breakfast vacillates based on my morning schedule. When I had time in the mornings (as in school) it was Eggo waffles more or less every morning (why it's still one of my favorite food). Lacking time in the morning (such as now, with work) I seek out something quick that I can easily eat while I drive. Also for a time I didn't have a toaster handy, so I never got in any bagel habit.

For a while I had the Pancake & Sausage on a stick that Jon Stewart likes to make fun of, until they suddenly disappeared from store shelves (I actually kind of blame Jon for that). Needing a replacement, it became pop-tarts... cold.

Then I saw an episode of Good Eats where Alton made smoothies and thought, 1) that looks hella good, 2) that looks hella easy, and 3) I probably should have some like, fruit, in my diet anyway. So, a new blender, some frozen fruit and some juice, and a portable tumbler with a proper straw later - I had a tasty new breakfast.