During the lively discussion sparked by my post When Bad Food Happens to Good Cooks, commenter annimal proposed the following:
How about the opposite: when good food happens to bad cooks.
Got a fool-proof recipe for those people who can’t boil water, or those who can but are still looking for something yummy and easy? I nominate my BFF’s mom’s bacon-wrapped water chestnuts. She could butcher even the simplest recipes, which led to BFF eating over at my house at least a few times a week. However, the bacon wrapped water chestnuts were the bomb. I never saw the actual recipe, but it must’ve been something like – wrap water chestnuts in bacon, marinate in soy sauce, and bake. on nom nom!
Anything wrapped in bacon will be a success. My beloved BigStepdaddy used to make terrific bacon and other breakfast foods every weekend. He wasn’t so much a bad cook as a cook whose repetoire was limited to brunch (and, occasionally, barbecued chicken on the grill). Being an excellent husband, he made breakfast in bed for MamaSharper nearly every weekend, and he always served her first, leaving me and my sister prowling hungrily around the kitchen asking “Dad? Did you make ours yet?” I have never had French toast as good as BigStepdaddy’s French toast, made with Arnold’s thick-sliced white bread. His buckwheat pancakes were awesome. So were his scrambled eggs and crispy bacon. None of those dishes is difficult (or expensive) to make, and with repeated practice, you can impress everyone by serving up a great breakfast.
So have at it, commenters! Got a favorite good recipe for bad cooks? Or a story about a bad cook who surprised you? Tell us!
MMMMM, French toast is one of my favorite breakfasts! I’ve also been making some killer buckwheat pancakes lately, but since there is actual measuring of ingredients involved I won’t post them here.
Anyway, at the moment my current super easy favorite dish is crockpot salsa chicken.
Take some boneless skinless chicken breasts. Cut into big pieces. Put in crockpot and add 1/2 jar of salsa (I like salsa verde for this). Cook for a few hours until meat is done and tender. Serve with tortillas and/or rice and/or black beans (heat up a can with the remaining salsa).
The beans/salsa combo is also really good served with polenta and cheese.
Perfect appetizer for potlucks – so you don’t have to be the person who brings the Costco veggie tray:
Buy 2 packages of refrigerator biscuit dough, butter, and a tub of crumbled blue cheese – the small tub, 3-5 ounces.
Melt one stick of butter together with the blue cheese. While that melts and mixes together, slice each biscuit into fourths. Place the biscuits into a pie pan (really, anything that’s oven safe with sides will work – use what you have!) or two. Spoon the butter/cheese mixture over the biscuits, making sure to get some butter on top of each. Pour any excess butter into the pan. If you run out, melt more butter in the same bowl/pot – you’ll use the melted butter before the cheese, so you can re-use the cheese.
Bake the biscuits at 475 for 8-12 minutes (depends heavily on your oven) until they’re browned. Remove from pan, place in a bowl, and serve. They can be room temperature, so they travel well.
Totally yummy, requires six minutes of work. If you’re deeply opposed to processed foods, you could make your own biscuits, but honestly there’s something especially satisfying about refrigerator biscuits and butter.
I am sosoSO stealing that biscuits thing!!!!
I almost always mess up soup. Seems hard to do, and yet, I do it.
HOWEVER, I have, by accident, perfected a recipe for chicken stew.
Can be made in a crockpot or on the stove.
Toss all of these things into the pot, and cook until the potatoes are tender:
*1 carton chicken broth (I use the free range stuff)
*about 2 cups chicken (I use part of a roasted grocery store chicken, torn and not even really chopped)
*a bunch of baby red potatoes, unpeeled, chopped into chunks.
*1 large sweet potato (not a yam), peeled and cut into small chunks.
*3/4 t. salt
*2-3 crumbled sage leaves.
The magic happens thus: the chicken breaks apart into shreds, the red potatoes get very soft yet hold their shape, and the sweet potato breaks down into a a creamy textured thick sauce (just stir and smash a little).
This makes the most delectable chicken stew EVAR! And seriously, I am a terrible soup preparer normally.
aanimal… I totally make chicken for mexican meals that way…chicken and salso in the crockpot, then shredded. Makes a great base for any mexican dish.
Now this thread is right up my alley! I have ruined more food than I care to remember. However, I have one recipe that I am extremely proud of – because I made dinner out of what was in the cabinet one night and it was YUMMY, and it’s still good!
Doesn’t have a name, but i usually call it my ground beef-tomato-corn stuff. I’m still working on a name. And the recipe is SUPER easy.
1 lb ground meat of choice (i like beef or lamb)
1 can diced tomatoes, drained
1 small can sweet corn, drained
3/4 cup rice
Cook the rice however you like. I like to do it on the stovetop, not with a cooker.
Brown the meat in a large skillet. When it’s cooked DON’T DRAIN IT (you’ll want the fat, trust me!). Add the corn, mix it up, and let it cook for a couple minutes. Then add the tomatoes. Turn the heat to LOW and when the rice is done (or slightly before it’s done so it can soak up the goodness) add the rice to the skillet and mix it up. Add salt and pepper to taste, let it sit for at least 5 minutes, and presto! Dinner! If you can let it sit for 10-15 minutes it’s even better.
The rice soaks up the fat, the cooked out liquid from the veggies, and adding corn first helps break it down just a little bit more. And it keeps pretty well. 1 lb meat feeds 4 ish, depending on appetite.
I’m going to try some of these out in the kitchen, and I’ll let you know how I go..
I just have a quick question, what is a stick of butter? Where I live it’s always been metric, so I’m not so good on the coversion stuff of imperial to metric.
@Mackey: A stick of butter is 4 oz, which the weights and measures conversion app on my iphone says is 113 g.
Sorry about that Mackey. A stick of butter is one of the absolute standards of food packaging in the United States. Didn’t even occur to me to specify an actual measurement. My inner scientist is a little ashamed now.
I am totally going to make those biscuits soon!
Thanks for that harpies! Otherwise it’s possible I would have used 250 gramme “stick” of butter and then absolutely sealed my fate as so full of fail in the kitchen
@Mackey: Oh, I dunno. They would have just been in a giant pool of melted butter, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing!
Riffing off Av0gadro’s recipe, here’s another quick, easy, and fail-safe party dish:
Pesto baked brie
1 round brie
1 bottle prepared pesto
Put brie round on a cookie sheet or other pan with a lip. Pour pesto sauce over until top and sides of brie are coated. Bake at 350F (177C) for ~30 minutes. Serve with your favorite cracker, pita chip, or bread. I’ve never had leftovers!
Pesto is my favorite topping for baked brie, but there are a million variations, e.g., jam and walnut, fig, roasted red pepper, etc., etc. You can also wrap the brie and toppings in prepared puff pastry dough before baking, though I’ve never tried this.
viajera! I MUST MAKE THAT!
I adore pesto, and cheese, and that sounds like the perfect combination.
I have made the brie in puff pastry, and it was a mega-fail. Part of the pastry was gooey, part of the cheese leaked out, and part of the cheese was cold. Obviously I was doin’ it wrong.
Holy stick of butter, batman! Last night I went to a somewhat expensive fund raiser with nice food and wine.
And they served Av0gadro’s biscuits drowning in butter, except subbing shrimp for cheese. It was the simplest and the tastiest thing on the menu.
I recently made what turned out to be a great easy dinner.
BAKED SPAGHETTI SQUASH
1 spaghetti squash
Salt and pepper
Olive oil
Water
1 package frozen Trader Joe’s turkey bolognese sauce, thawed
4 tablespoons Parmesan cheese
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cut squash in half lengthwise, scoop out seeds and stringy stuff. Place squash halves in a baking dish. Season squash, then drizzle with olive oil. Pour water into baking dish, until it comes about half an inch up sides of squash.
Bake squash 45-50 minutes.
Remove from oven, and divide bolognese sauce between the two halves. Sprinkle with cheese. Return squash to oven, and bake an additional 20 to 30 minutes, or until squash is tender, sauce bubbling and cheese golden.
Serves 2.
I do something similar with squash – halve it, scoop the weird stuff out, put a lump of butter in the ensuing hole, and sprinkle dried thyme all over the flesh. When you eat it, mush the insides all up together with the butter and the thyme.
Another seasonal one is to get a pumpkin, scoop out the seeds, and fill the hole with chopped up leeks, lumps of gruyere cheese (or anything of a similar consistency – a bit stretchy and rubbery) and double cream. Put the lids back on and bake for about an hour. Do a small pumpkin per person because you don’t want to share!