Homemade soup. Couldn’t be easier. When you have some chicken bones and some* veggies that are almost off, buy some new veggies and throw the bones and veg in a big pot and simmer for a few hours until reduced to taste. Then strain out the solids and heat with new veggies until done to your liking.
But “a few hours” is a long time.
*non-green. Green veg makes the soup taste weird if used as stock IMO.
Use Yukon Gold potatoes. Leave the peels on.
I’m going to be in Brooklyn in October and I was planning on visiting the Hill Country Food Park to see how it measures up.
Get an instant pot. Cut that time WAY down.
Out here, afaik, there only two good Fried chicken places, Disneyland* and Knotts.
Ok, there’s Roscoe’s chicken and waffles. But yeah, no sit down restaurant chains with decent fried chicken that I know of.
I mean you have a lot of fast food places with chicken strips/fingers, etc, some of which are decent, and of course KFC- which can be Ok.
Yeah, that’s the thing. I’m not the world’s biggest fan of green beans, but I do like them when they are cooked blackened and in Szechuan green beans. You can’t do that with frozen ones. Although I’ll enjoy fall-apart 3-hour slow cooked green beans, too. Those you can get away with frozen, but still much better starting from fresh (I actually like a number of frozen veggies, but green beans don’t usually work for the types of preps I like.)
I never buy frozen green beans, but there’s no reason they wouldn’t work in a pot of Southern String Beans. Put them in a saucepan with a chunk of smoked pork and a chopped onion and some water, and simmer for a few hours. I LOVE this, but the Ukulele Lady wouldn’t ever eat it.
Fresh green beans are best when steamed and dressed with good olive oil, salt, and lemon juice. I also toss them with a little sesame oil and soy sauce and roast them, as part of an East Asian dinner.
That was new to me! Thank you for the tip.
See, I don’t like em plainly steamed. They’ve gotta be charred/blistered/browned for me. I thought I just hated these friggin barely cooked green beans until I had that version. Otherwise, they just taste like grass to me. Or slow cooked style; no meat necessary, but cooked so they transform and all those yucky grassy flavors turn into something more fit for human consumption. 
Gnocchi.
I like making ribs and I enjoy eating them but there is a lot of time that you have to dedicate if you’re going to do it, so I end up only making them a couple times a year. I did make some this past weekend (and now I’m jonesing for some more). I used the crock pot to cook them and then finished them off on the grill. Crock pot is acceptable right? Maybe not in Texas. The rub was very good too, I should have written down the spices that I used.
Green beans with bacon/pork and onions is a Southern thing? How do you barbarians eat them up North?
I’d say barbecue is one of those things that in general is very simple, but a pain in the butt.
Seasoning and rubs are as simple or baroque as you want to make them; in my experience they’re not often the deciding factor as to whether someone’s barbecue is good or bad.
Smoking isn’t tough, but it takes a lot of attention over a long period of time (10-12 hours typically for a brisket) to keep the fire properly going, or to add in new chips once the others have burned up, or to fiddle with the vents to keep the temp in the right range.
That’s why most barbecuers don’t do it casually- they usually load their smoker(s) with as much as they can hold, as the extra effort for the additional meat is trivial compared to just keeping the fire going all night.
Pierogis are definitely that way. I’ve made them with my mother and uncle many times, but one time I had to do them all by myself (the elders were out of town, and nobody else volunteered). It took at least six times as long with one person as with two, mostly just because it’s soul-crushing to do solo.
Simple baked goods such as cookies or cakes, mainly because of the various bowls and messes it makes, at least for me. When it comes time to do the dishes, I’ve got so many dishes to clean. I’m not even talking about ones with extra bells and whistles.
French Fries.
Not particularly difficult to peel potatoes, slice, and fry. But the greasy cleanup afterwards means I rarely make them.
Carrot Cake
I love homemade carrot cake. But, peeling the carrots and gathering the ingredients is a lot of hassle. I usually just settle for one at the bakery.
It’s one of the easier, no fail cakes. Doesn’t fall in the oven. Frosting is a simple mixture of cream cheese, butter & confectioners’ sugar.
Pulykamell & bump:. I am married to a Chicago Greek. The default preparation for ANY green veg is to steam it until barely cooked, then dress with olive oil, salt, and a squeeze of lemon. It tastes good, and it’s healthy.
The Greeks also cook green beans or okra with onion, garlic, tomato, thyme, and olive oil for an hour or two, until soft. I like this a lot.
I have always understood that string beans with bacon and onion is distinctly Southern. I like this a lot, too, but the Ukulele Lady has the typical Modern American Woman fear of fat, and would not partake.
Yes! Love the slow-cooked Greek beans. Of course, after this thread, I got a hankering for green beans, so I had to steam-fry some up, seasoned only with a bit of salt. Those definitely are good; especially when drizzled with aioli (or Stephanie Izard of Girl and the Goat has a great dressing recipe that involves, soy, fish sauce, garlic, lemon, sriracha) but I wasn’t feeling that complicated today with two under five-year-olds running around and my wife out of town.
On our July trip to Maine, I bought an old one-quart bean pot (classic brown and beige, one ear) at an antique shop.
I brought it home, scrubbed it down to the foundation, and put it on the shelf next to my two-quart bean pot (also classic brown and beige, one ear) and my four-quart bean pot (REAL classic Albany Slip, olive/brown, NO ear), also bought as antiques in Maine.
When the weather is more temperate, I am looking forward to making a quart of Maine baked beans — as empty-nesters, the other pots are far too big — I have several pounds of Maine yellow-eye beans, and salt pork, good molasses, black Bermuda rum, and dry mustard.
The only problem with taking many hours to do a proper pot of baked beans? The result is that it tastes pretty much what you get when you open a can.
Agree with the fish. Love fried fish, hate the mess, smell and bother.
My nomination is kabobs. Stick some meat and veggies on a skewer and grill. Sounds so easy but it takes me forever to get everything ready.