Had a bunch of broccoli in the fridge and wanted to figure out how to make it taste good with tacos, so I threw this together. It’s pretty good, i liked it, and it was very broccoli forward. My wife said it would be better without the broccoli. Try it like that too, why not. Either way, nice light side. I like it with the broccoli.

Do you have an extra hour to cook some mushroom stock before you make your steak tonight? You should probably get an extra hour cause this shit will impress the hell out of whoever you’re cooking it for (even yourself!). Even if you don’t do the gravy, this makes the rice crazy good. This would work well with just chicken too (just use chicken broth instead of water). Making stock is way easier than you think it is. Plus you get the extra satisfaction of making something and using it in a bunch of different stuff. Pretend you’re on Top Chef in a mushroom challenge or something. Take the extra time and make a good ass steak dinner.

I don’t really like sweet and savory flavors together. Unpopular opinion but it’s my cross to bear. Through trying various recipes for rubs for my pork tenderloins, chicken breasts, and eventually some pulled pork on the smoker, I settled on this combination of spices. It’s got some good savoriness to it, no sweet (cause again, fuck that. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat till I die). As the title says, goes great on chicken and pork. Goes well when adding lime or orange juice to the rubbed meat. Would probably go great with some more spiciness to it. Try it out, let me know.

I know, shocking concept, putting something that’s not in a bowl into a bowl. Not breaking any ground here, but i got some imitation crab meat at the store the other week and started to play around with this. Turned out my kids liked it so I kept going with it. Turns out if you put “Kid Friendly” in your recipes they get more hits too. This is really a super easy weeknight dinner to throw together, and it lets you practice your knife skills. You can make it as nice looking as you want, and then just stir all that shit together so it doesn’t matter anymore. Or just stir it all together at the start. The world is your bowl of stuff you throw together and eat on a Tuesday.

I don’t know why I’ve never heard of hummus on a hot dog before. It’s really good. Add some crunch and some spice and you got yourself a hot dog baby. Anyway, I made a video on this one too since people told me to start making videos. It’s on tiktok. Follow, like, subscribe, etc, etc.

I watch a lot of Top Chef, and they always have the one episode where they make food thats personal to them, they cry, etc, then judges rip their food apart. This is what I’d probably bring to that episode. Growing up, fried chicken was my favorite thing that my mom would make, jalapeno chips were one of the pinnacle snacks my dad got me into, and recently i started going to Popeye’s for their chicken sandwich because its pretty good. This is a combination of all of those things. Shit works. It’s super crunchy, has a nice subtle heat (more if you can actually get some spicy jalapenos, better leave those seeds in), and the ranch is a great condiment that brings it all together. Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Dad. Thanks, recent trend of fast food restaurants making good fried chicken sandwiches.

I’ve been working on this meatball recipe for a while. Turns out the trick to a good meatball is to just keep adding more decadent shit like cheese and garlic confit. Really not much else to say. These will be pretty good if you just cook them in the oven or a pan, but you really should simmer them in some sauce. Everything in them makes a sauce better. Take a day. Pretend you’re an old italian grandma. Put these in sauce for a few hours. Eat. Drink some wine.

Had some green beans lying around and wanted something close to what I remember having at Chinese restaurants. Threw some sauces together i had in my fridge and pantry. Had some garlic too. Made these. They’re good.

Stuffing (Yes, stuffing. Dressing is a dumb name.) is my favorite side at Thanksgiving, and it’s something I had never actually made until this year. Due to a crazy turn of events this year, all of the family had Thanskgiving at home this year, so I managed to snag my Moms’s stuffing recipe, tweak it a little, and here it is. I prefer my stuffing a little less soggy, so I don’t want to add any egg or stick it in the turkey or anything like that. Going for something that soaks up gravy and has a bit of a crunch to it, which you get with both the bread and the browned sausage in here. Smash it up with leftover mashed potatoes the next day and shove it in a waffle iron for my bonus leftovers recipe.

I’ve entered this chili in a few work chili cookoffs. It’s always pretty good but never a winner, so here’s my second place chili (2018 second place CDG security chili cookoff, open category, thank you very much). The goal here is just to have a very savory chili. I don’t like anything sweet in my chili. Ideally very spicy as well, but I have to tone down the heat cause of my damn kids, or eat a whole crock pot of chili by myself. This pairs well with a shit ton of grated cheddar cheese. Works great on a hot dog (also with a shit ton of grated cheddar cheese). Enjoy the chili that’s pretty good.

In the last 8 months, the pork roast has been one of my dishes with the highest easy to making you look like a bad ass chef ratios. Seriously you can put in pretty minimal effort and come out with a dinner that people are very impressed with. It’s also incredibly cheap for the flavor you get out of it. Buying tip: find one at the meat counter with as much fat on top as possible. You’re aiming to get a nice crispy layer on every slice, so don’t cut that shit off. The secret, just like with most any roast, is dry brining overnight and using the reverse sear technique. Basically, having a lot of time to hang out with some meat. With us all stuck in our homes during this year of 2020, you probably have time. Make some pork. Bonus points if you use the pork stock recipe to make gravy for this.

Manhattans are my favorite drink, and I’ve been iterating on my recipe for a while. This is what I’ve settled on for now, but it may change later. It usually does when I find a new vermouth i really like. It’s extra big (why not just bump up the bourbon amount to make measuring the rest of it easier on the ratios?) and I think it’s well balanced. Intentionally no bitters in this one since the Carpano adds enough bitterness in my opinion. If you like more bitter, add some bitters. Also spring for the luxardos, they’re really good. Also if you’re somehow just hitting this recipe and none of the rest of the blog, Jeff is me.

The sauce here is the base of a few different dishes I make, and its so good for how easy it is. Once you get the basics of just throwing some garlic and rosemary in some butter or oil, then adding milk or cream to make a super fast white sauce, you can look smooth as hell and impress everyone. Maybe even start a blog that a handful of people read. Remove the mushrooms and marsala, use butter instead of oil, add flour, and breakfast sausage, you have my breakfast gravy recipe. Remove the rosemary and add more garlic, butter, cheese and some white wine, you’ve got an easy seafood pasta sauce. You get the drift. —- Onto the chicken. —- The secret to making better boneless, skinless chicken is to dry brine it. It’s super simple, but takes planning. Get a wire rack and a sheet pan if you don’t have one in your kitchen already. I’ll wait here. Now that you’ve got your rack, the night before you want to cook (here’s the planning part), pat that chicken dry, season with kosher salt on both sides, and place on the wire rack. Put it in the fridge, uncovered, overnight. Sorry I forgot to mention part of the planning is having fridge space. Once you start doing this regularly (works for steaks and roasts too) you’re going to want to buy dedicated meat fridge anyway, so use that. When you’re ready to cook, take the chicken out of the fridge, rub olive oil all over it and season how you like. You’re going to notice the firmer texture of the meat, and its going to give you a much better sear, and better flavor. I prefer cast iron if it’s rainy out, or grilling it. Just always make your chicken like this so boneless skinless chicken doesn’t completely suck.

This is exactly what I’m looking for in my burger. Spicy, cheesy, thin patties, grilled bun. This will probably get improved upon gradually as I go, but this is my burger. If I had a food truck or restaurant or whatever, this is what I’d give you. If you want this burger hit me up and I’ll give you this burger. It’s better on the cast iron than the grill.

This is one I wasn’t really going to post originally, since I just use everyone else’s recipes for it, but after trying it a few times, I had trouble getting it to be warm when I served it. After searching a few times for how to keep everything warm, I just figured the steps out here. Used a lot of eggs and butter. This is way easier than it sounds, and the flavor is super good. You’ll look pretty bad ass when you pull this one off.