I come from a long line of lousy cooks and I suck at cooking myself, but I want to master a few dishes so that when my kids go off to college, they will miss my cooking.
So if you have a family favorite that you are willing to share, please help a fellow Doper out! Bonus points if the recipe is easy. Thanks!
This is a riff off a simplification of a fantastic classic dish from Zuni Cafe. The recipe might seem a bit fussy, but I suggest making it as written at least once, and decide what shortcuts you’d like to make thereafter. It’s been my go-to for dinner guests, as well as regular weeknights too (as long as I remember to salt and dry the chicken the day before.) Who doesn’t love roast chicken?
Smitten Kitchen is usually reliable for baked stuff, but I’ve found her savoury things to be a bit blah for my liking. This is one exception.
Another delicious, if slightly fussy recipe, this one is for a side dish or appetizer: Ottolenghi’s crushed carrots. You can easily get harissa online if it’s not in your local supermarket.
The best cooking is improvising and not following a recipe, baking excepted (another other chemical stuff like beer and yogurt).
Take mac and cheese. Presumably you can handle the mac. For the cheese, you’ve got a lot of options. A roux and milk, plus any good cheese. Cream cheese and cream (or milk), plus any good cheese. Bingo, mac and cheese. White pepper is a good addition, if you like.
Let’s add some chicken to it. Leftovers, breast, thigh, whatever. Cook it diced, slowly, so it’s tender. Sous vide, simmered, whatever, until you can shred it with a fork. Put it aside. Put some diced onion and diced peppers into some oil and sweat them. Add the chicken. You’ll need salt, and I’d add some cumin. No, I’d add lots of cumin. If everything is too dry, add some water or chicken stock.
Add the chicken to your cheese sauce. Keep some for tacos or enchiladas, if you like. Then add the cheese sauce to the mac. If you want to be fancy, throw it into the oven (roast or broil) to brown. If not, serve immediately.
I never make the same dish twice. I mean, I get close, and it’s always good, but I’m not a restauranteur, so repeatability is trumped by extemporaneity.
I have posted this before, but it is easy and very tasty:
longhair75’s family chocolate cake recipe:
2 ½ cups flour
2 cups sugar
½ cup hershey’s cocoa
2 rounded teaspoons baking soda
1 cup soured milk (add a teaspoon of white vinegar to whole milk and stir. Do not use 1% or 2%. Trust me)
1 cup vegetable oil (Canola oil works well)
½ teaspoon real vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 cup hot water (add this last)
Combine all dry ingredients, then add the liquid ingredients. Pour into a 9x13 floured baking dish and bake in a pre heated 350 degree oven until a toothpick comes out dry, approximately 45 minutes.
This looks amazing. 2 questions:
Do you serve this with a side dish or as a one dish meal. To me it seems like it doesn’t need a side dish, but the link mentioned side dishes.
Being lazy and all, I’m already thinking shortcuts. How do you think this recipe would be if I made it with one of those store bought roasted chickens?
This is my ultimate goal, but you underestimate how inexperienced a cook I am. All my friends who are good cooks learned from mom or grandma, but I’m totally out of my element in the kitchen. Just haven’t had enough experience.
This’ll be dessert! Thanks!!
I would have thought the chicken (and making it their way) is the main point of that dish, but if you want a simpler roast chicken recipe that is just fantastic without the extended salting and drying of the Zuni Cafe version, try Thomas Keller’s recipe for roast chicken. It doesn’t get much simpler than that, and it’s my favorite roast chicken recipe. I don’t even bother with the trussing.
Ok now this recipe is one I can handle. I think araminty (and everyone else in the world) is a much more confident & capable cook than I am. The roast chicken in the Zuni Cafe recipe is a process that took over a day to prepare—although I think it probably looks more intimidating in writing than it would be if someone was teaching you. I think I’ll take her advice and follow the recipe to the letter at least once, then work in the shortcuts. But if I screw up the roast chicken, I’m moving to yours. And if I screw up yours, I’ll use a store bought 
Budget Bytes is a great website for beginning cooks because there’s step by step photos for all the recipes. The recipes are simple too and cover a wide range of cuisines.
Potato Katie’s:
3-4 potatoes
1 onion
1/4 cup flour/matzoh meal (either will work)
2 eggs
Salt (the one dish I make where it’s essential)
Pepper
Vegetable oil
Heat a pan with about 1/4in of oil in the bottom.
Wash the potatos
Using the shredding blade, run the potatoes through a food processor.
Mix with the eggs, flour, salt, and pepper.
Drop by tablespoons or so into the hot oil.
Press down to make a pancake.
Flip over when one side is just turning brown.
Drain of paper towels.
If you’re lucky, these might make it to the table before they’re eaten.
This one is very easy for a novice:
Chicken Cutlets and Orzo (or use another pasta of choice) for two
1 large boneless, skinless chicken breast
Egg wash (1-2 eggs and couple tablespoons of milk, lightly beaten)
Panko bread crumbs
Grated Parmesan cheese
Thyme or other dried herb
Orzo or other pasta
Butter
Oil
Cut the chicken breast in half. Place one piece in a gallon plastic bag. Using either a meat tenderizer or other implement, flatten the chicken to about 1/4 inch thickness. Remove from the bag and place in the egg wash. Repeat with the other piece. You don’t have to use a bag, but it’s just cleaner that way.
Mix the Panko, cheese and herbs together on a plate.
Place the pasta in a pot of water and cook according to instructions. When the pasta starts to boil, do the following:
On medium-medium high, heat a few tablespoons of vegetable oil in a pan large enough to hold both the cutlets. Remove the cutlets from the egg wash and coat well with the Panko/cheese breading, pressing the cutlets into the mix. Place the cutlets in the hot oil and fry until browned. Turn and fry until done, adjusting the heat downward, if necessary. I suggest using a meat thermometer and insure that the inside temperature reaches 165F. Remove from the pan.
Drain the pasta, toss with butter and additional Parmesan. Put the pasta in wide, shallow bowls. Slice the cutlets into manageable pieces and place on top of the pasta.
I’m going to share one that is memorable, but not exotic or difficult to make. This is a baked macaroni and cheese.
Boil a small package of spaghettit. Yes, spaghetti. Standard, normal, cheap spaghetti.
Boil to just short of al dente. Drain and return to pot.
Add a tablespoon of butter and toss. Add salt, if desired. (I don’t. There’s enough salt in the cheese.) Add about a teaspoon of ground pepper.
Sprinkle on some grated parmesan and toss. I use about two tablespoons.
Mix in some grated cheese. I use a mixture of cheddar, Monterey Jack, and whatever else I have sitting around. A mixed bag of pre-grated cheese from the local mart is fine. I probably use about two cups, but this is the fun part where you adjust to family tastes. Add it slowly, as it will want to lump. Adding cream cheese is also fine.
Transfer to a covered casserole dish. Level it. Pour in a mixture of two eggs beaten into milk. You want to get the milk right up to the top of the spaghetti, but not higher. This may take about two cups. Cover the top thickly with grated or sliced cheese.
Bake covered in a 375 degree oven until the top is slightly browned and the milk mixture has been bubbling for at least 15 minutes. Remove and let cool for about five minutes before serving. You can spoon it out or slice it into pieces. Every batch turns out slightly different, depending on the type of cheese and the amounts.
It’s simple and VERY cheesy (not creamy). What makes it a fave is that it uses spaghetti, not elbow macaroni or some other pasta. My mother did this because spaghetti was dirt cheap and on hand. I swear that I was 14 years old before I found out that mac and cheese was usually made with elbow macaroni. I still make this at least once a month as a comfort food, and I’m well into my sixties. It was the one thing I asked for when I would come home from college.
Maria Hazan’s very simple tomato and butter pasta sauce. Just three ingredients: tomato, butter, onion. (Oh, and a little salt.) Use good canned tomatoes for this. If you don’t go the San Marzano route, I would suggest Muir Glen. Also, since it’s so simple, using a more flavorful butter like Kerrygold or Lurpak is always nice.
Now, if you demand your spaghetti sauce be full of herbs and spices, this is not the recipe for you, but I do strongly encourage you to try it. So far, everyone loves it.
Your link is to a shopping site.
Another easy and tasty spaghetti dish:
1 Large can of diced tomatoes
1/4 cup olive oil
1 medium onion, sliced thin
1/4 pound or so of bacon, sliced crosswise into about 1/4" strips
Spaghetti
Fresh basil, julienne (sliced into thin strips)
Fresh ground pepper
Grated pecorino cheese
Heat olive oil in a pan. Fry the bacon until the fat renders and it’s not quite crisp, remove from pan.
Add the onions and sweat in the fat on medium-low until translucent. Add the bacon back into the pan and the large can of tomatoes. Stir to mix. Cover and simmer for about an hour. Serve over spaghetti and garnish with basil, ground pepper and cheese.
Weird. Let’s try it again.
Goddammit. It just changes the link. It’s the correct link in the post.
Maybe cut & paste this?
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015178-marcella-hazans-tomato-sauce
Or try this tinyurl link to the site. (OK that one does work.)
Homemade hamburger helper.
There’s no need to buy it. The box stuff is full of chemicals. We’ve made our own for 25 years.
This recipe is very similar to ours. We always serve with a teaspoon of sour cream.
My wife and I make a half recipe since the kids left for college. Perfect for 2.
Be sure to include a good veggie with the hamburger helper.
We buy Green Giant steamers. Love their broccoli with cheese sauce. They have an entire selection of veg to choose from. Takes 5 to 6 min in the microwave.
Easiest and best tasting roast chicken. Mix together about 3 tablespoons paprika and a half a tablespoon of salt (you can also throw in whatever else you’d think would taste good. Sometimes I put in cayenne pepper for spicy or dried herbs for herby).
Rub the chicken with (olive) oil inside and out. Sprinkle mix inside and out (put more out than in). Put it in the oven at 350-- now comes the hard part: after a half an hour or so the skin should be nice and dark and crunchy. Cover the chicken with foil and then put it back in the oven until done. Of course it matters the size of the chicken but usually another hour/ hour and a quarter.
I just spotted the link to the NYT at the bottom of the ad page. Thanks.
Well spotted! Even I missed that.
The comments for that recipe are surprisingly sane and not missing the point. Usually, I’m used to seeing a recipe like this just tortured by people adding this and that and completely changing the author’s intent, but most of those comments are “don’t change a thing!”