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This almost isn’t even a recipe, but it tastes great and we use it all the time. Good on its own, and fantastic as a sandwich. They key is to cook it so once the chicken is done, pull it off. Overcooked, dried chicken would kill this easy recipe.

Note, we’re cooking for 2 these days, so volume can be expanded as needed.

Future Note on volume

Since we’re cooking for 2, and the origin of this site was to carry on some of our favorite recipes to our children, it actually  makes sense that this new round of recipes would apply to college students cooking for themselves and not a big group. So we now have a new focus and energy for these postings. While both girls are currently in dorms, in the near future they may find some recipes that will apply more directly to their needs. So hopefully, they will still be able to cook up a huge pot of spaghetti sauce like we did for years, or crank out a sandwich for lunch.

Ingredients

1 chicken breast, cut horizontal so two, flat pieces are made.

Olive oil or grill

Montreal Grill Chicken GRINDER

Sliced Colby/Jack cheese. We buy sandwich slices, but you can buy it in chunks.

Directions

In a skillet over medium high heat, bring olive oil to temp, toss in sliced chicken breast and season one side with the grinder. Cook 3 to 4 minutes and flip. Cook 3 to 4 more minutes. Place slice of Colby/Jack on top until it begins to melt.

On a grill, just toss it on, season and flip. Then hit it with the cheese in the last minute.

The key here is the Montreal seasoning. It contains a perfect blend of herbs and spices. We used the regular chicken grill ’shaker’ for years, and it’s good, but the new grinder version does make a fresh difference. It’s the only ingredient other than the cheese, and it’ll make you look like a master chef.

Just DON’T over cook the chicken.

Serve with a veggie.

Sandwich suggestions

Don has put this on everything from a fresh Italian sub roll, to two slices of 5-grain, and even a hamburger bun. Better than any fast food restaurant by far. Add a little mayo and romaine lettuce to bring it home.

Seasoning note:

The Montreal grill seasonings are great. But, they do have a fair amount of salt in them. And over time Don has found that the salt and the herbs separate…the salt being heavier. So before applying, he shakes the grinder or shaker on it’s side to distribute the ingredients. Doing this every time keeps things mixed up.

Don started cooking this this after the kids head off to college, mostly because he usually has some chicken breasts around and always has some sort of parmesan cheese. It’s an easy meal to make for one or two. The Kraft grated stuff is expensive at Publix, but is pretty good for most of our recipes. Just don’t try it with that yucky dried stuff we all grew up on.

This is the worlds’ easiest great tasting chicken, quick, involves 4 ingredients and tastes great. We will just cook this up and serve it with some steamed broccoli for dinner.

You can use a whole, skinless breast, or you can plop the breast down on a cutting board, and with a sharp knife, cut it in half horizontally. This cooks faster and is actually all the protein we probably need. Or you can just cook one breast for each person.

A great meal in 15 minutes.

Ingredients

Two skinless, boneless chicken breasts (or one breast cut in half)

1 TB Olive oil

Fresh ground black pepper (we like the peppercorn medley grinder)

Parm Cheese

Directions

Begin heating a skillet and put in the olive oil. For whole breasts, heat to medium, for sliced, medium high.

Put some parm cheese on a plate. Put the chicken down on the cheese. Grind on some peppercorn. Sprinkle some more parm on top and take some waxed paper and place it on top of the chicken. Press down hard and move the chicken and add more parm so that the chicken has a lot of parm pressed into it. If you don’t have waxed paper, just press it in by hand.

When the skillet is at temp (and NOT BEFORE) toss in the breasts. A breast cut in half may be finished after about 4 minutes on each side. You want a nice golden brown. Whole breasts may need about 7 minutes on each side. Check to make sure they are cooked through.

That’s it. A parm chicken sliced in half also makes a great sandwich, a little mayo, 5 grain bread and a little romaine lettuce and you have a winner.

We had a hankering for clams today, so Don worked up this off-the-cuff recipe and it was a feast! Some of the ingredients were just things we had around and could be dropped out if needed. Less than half an hour from start to finish. You can prep stuff while the first items go into the skillet and then keep it moving.

This will work with little necks, top necks and mussels as well. We just like middle necks for cooking.

While it was a fantastic dish, Don’s only thought was that he wished he had some red bell pepper in here, some nice long slices for flavor, color and contrast. They would have gone in with the sausage.

Key thing to make this work is remember, it’s all about the clams. Once they go in… you have 7 minutes and all your pasta and sauces have to be ready to plate. Do not overcook the clams. And do not serve any clam that did not open.

Ingredients:

1 TB Minced Garlic

1 bunch of green onions, shallots would be OK, sliced thin

1 TB Olive Oil

1 TB margerine

2 or 3 TB chopped up sundried tomatoes

Fresh ground peppercorn, we like the peppercorn medly grinders.

1 package of Shitake mushrooms (portabello or oyster would be fine)

2 cups of white wine…nothing too sweet. The dryer the better. But use a good wine, nothing cheap.

1 link of cooked andouille sausage (we like cajun style). Sliced thin and chopped up.

2 dozen middle neck clams (or use little neck, top neck or mussels). Put them into a bowl of water (filtered if possible) and let them ‘breath’ for 10 to 20 minutes.

Handful of cilantro

1 package of rice sticks. Linquine or angel hair pasta would be fine too.

Directions

Heat olive oil and melt margarine in a large skillet. Put in garlic and onions and cook for a minute or two over medium heat. Add diced sun dried tomatoes and cook for another minute. Put in mushrooms, sliced to desired size or left whole, cook for another minute or two. Toss in the sausage. We slice it real thin so it’s almost more of a seasoning than something to sink your teeth into. Grind in some fresh peppercorn. Cook for another minute. Pour in the white wine and bring to a boil. Put in the clams. Toss in cilantro.

The clams will take about 7 minutes. You want to pull the skillet off the heat and be ready to serve after they’ve opened up. Scoop up and stir every couple minutes to make sure the clams are heated equally.  Some won’t open, expect waste, so 8 or so may not open out of a couple dozen. Do not serve these. Noodles take about 7 minutes, so have them timed to be ready when the clams are done…over cooked clams, even by a minute, begin to get rubbery.

Put out a bed of rice noodles/pasta and scoop up the mix from the skillet and place on top.

THREE VARIATIONS

Clear.

Just use the above recipe. If all your ingredients had time to meld before putting in the clams, you should have a great base. You can always serve the white sauce on the side if you like.

Red Sauce

If you like a red sauce, before putting in the clams, pour in a can of tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes and cook for a minute.

White Sauce

This is our favorite. Not the healthiest option, but darned good. Heat up a pint of cream, but save a small amount, melt a couple tablespoons of margarine. As it heats, mix a little of the reserved, cool cream with about a teaspoon of corn starch. Take the heated cream off the burner and stir in the corn starch until smooth. Add about 1/4 cup of fresh grated parm cheese (never the dried stuff!!!!). Pour on top of the plated clams. Wow.

We love the Gyro Burgers ( pronounced “your-row-burgers”).

This may help you safe face some day, but don’t enter a Greek restaurant and ask for a “Gee-Ey-Roe.”

They will cook you one. Because they know what you mean.

It’s pronounced  “YOUR-ROW”

Anyway, we love gyro’s. But we don’t cook a lot of lamb. So with the help of Rachael Ray, we found this recipe and altered it a bit. We love the flavor and grill it up about once a month.

Ingredients

Olive oil

Onion (we like sweet onion or Videalia) minced.

box of frozen spinach or fresh, if available

oregano

1/4 lb of crumbled feta cheese

1 package of ground chicken or turkey (we like chicken better)

1 tbs grill seasoning, we like McCormic’s Chicken

1/3 cucumber, sliced

Sour cream…non needed, but if you have some, work it into your cucumbers for a topping.

handful of Kalamata olives

Buns (we like potato buns, anything works)

Sliced roasted bell peppers. We use jarred bell peppers.

Instructions

In a medium mixing bowl and put in the spinach,  (if it is frozen, defrost it and drain it) onion, garlic and oregano. Add the crumbled feta, chicken and seasoning and mix it up by hand. Pour in a drizzle of olive oil, and keep mixing it.

Heat up your grill and spray some PAM  Grill on the surface, or cover each burger with some olive oil. Drop the grill temp to medium and form burgers. You should make six of them.

Form six burners by hand (olive oil your hands) and toss them on the grill. The heat should be medium by now.  Cook about 7 minutes each side. This is raw chicken, no less than 7 minutes a side should be good on a medium heat. If you have no flare-ups, and you’re worried about under-cooking, you might be able to go with 10 minutes a side.  But only if your heat is low.

For toppings (this is the rest of the ingredients) and you should have done this while the burgers are cooking) slice up the cucumber, olives and red bell pepper. We like mixing the cucumbers in a little sour cream…not much.

When the burgers are done, top with the cucumber mix, olives and red bell peppers.

This is a family regular. We divide the work, so it’s not as much effort as it seams.

And we have leftovers for a couple great lunches!

This is pretty much a meal onto itself because the mushroom tends to be pretty ‘meaty’ on its own. We eat a lot of fish, so this is a good companion dish with a nice chunk of grouper, mahi or cobia. Thanks to Food Network’s robin Miller, who’s recipe this is based on.

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, we used minced jarred garlic, so about a tablespoon of that.
• Handful of minced onion (we like Videllias)
• Pint container of shitake mushrooms, cleaned, stems removed and sliced
• 1 tsp died thyme
• 2 cups Arboria rice, cooked (this is important…cook your rice first!)
• 1 cup low sodium beef broth
• 2 cups or so of chopped fresh asparagus spears…frozen if you can’t find fresh. I use about 2 or 3 inches of the tops.
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan…we use the Craft grated parm in the dairy section
• Ground pepper to taste

Instructions

Cook the rice as per instruction that came with the rice.

In a 2 quart sauce pan, heat the olive oil, add the onion and garlic and cook till the onion is transparent. Add the mushrooms and saute 5 minutes. Add the thyme and cook an additional minute.

Add the cooked rice, broth and asparagus tops and bring to a simmer for about 5 minutes. Stir in the Parmesan cheese and some fresh ground pepper.

Key is to not overcook the risotto while you’re doing other stuff (like cooking fish) so it turns mushy. You can use other types of mushrooms, like portobellos or oysters…but shitakes are great.

Easy recipe, great flavor. people will think you’re a great cook. Just nod your head.

This is loosely based off something I caught while watching Rachael Ray the other day. I cooked up my version today and it was fantastic. I’ve tried Monte Cristo’s before, but haven’t been happy with the results.

This recipe rocks. We generally have all these ingredients around the house, so it’s not a stretch to make it. When it comes to the ‘amount’ of the ingredients, I’m not going to get to particular, so in this case, amount of some of the ingredients will be covered in the instructions.

Ingredients

• Dijon mustard
• Black pepper
• Butter
• Flour
• Milk
• Bread (we like Italian 5-grain)
• Cheese slices (we like colby-jack, swiss is good, Rachael uses Gruyere)…anything but American
• Sandwich sliced ham (we like tavern ham, virtinia ham or any baked ham is good)
• Eggs

Instructions

Begin heating a skillet (we use a non-stick skillet) with a couple tablespoons of butter or margarine, we like Earth Balance.

First thing to do is to make the Croque sauce, which is amazingly simple. For a few sandwiches melt about 3 tablespoons of butter in a small sauce pan, put about 1 tablespoon of flour into it and cook over a low heat, when the flour is blended, pour in about 1/4 cup milk and stir until it thickens. Plop in 1 or 2 tablespoons of Dijon mustard. Grind in some fresh pepper. Stir and set aside. It should be thick enough to spread with a knife.

While this was going on, make the sandwiches. On a cutting board, put a slice of bread, schmeer on some of the sauce, put on a slice of cheese, a couple slices of ham, another slice of cheese and then another slice of bread.

Cut into quarters.

Whip up the eggs in a bowl.

Take the quarters, and quickly dip the top and bottom of the quartered piece in the whipped eggs and toss onto the hot skillet. Cook on a medium heat for about 3 minutes each side. Don’t cook it too hot, you want the heat to work it’s way through the sandwich. Flip and cook the other side. You’re looking for a golden brown.

Bingo. It may sound like a lot of work, but it’s really about 10 minutes from the beginning to when the first quarters first coming off the grill and about 15 minutes for a finished lunch for a few people.

And, they’re great.

Lots of substitutions can be done here. Different cheeses, different meats…I think this could be great with deli chicken or turkey slices too.

LATER SIDE NOTE: I’ve had the hankering for these, but to speed things up, I didn’t make the sauce, I just put a little mayo and some Dijon mustard on a slice of bread…and it works pretty good. Calorie-wise, it’s probably about the same. You don’t need too much to get the flavor, though.

Sunrise, Easter morning.

We traditionally join the Catholic Mass on Cocoa Beach.

Then our family, and our extended family joins us at our house.

Menu:

Toasted bagels

Cream cheese

Thin sliced lox (smoked salmon)

Onion (diced bermuda)

Minced egg

Capers

And whatever else anyone brings. The goal is to toast the bagel, put on some cream cheese, top it off with the salmon and your topping of choice. To get it right, you really need everything.

We then sit around our deck and pool and chat…and drink coffee until we are awake, then everyone goes home to get some sleep. It’s a great tradition.

OK, normally this would be “A Cuban”

But Don’s ‘take’ on the Cuban is so far off mark, it needs to be called something else. So, of course, it needed to be something left of a Cuban (1950s) , and that would be Fidel.

While we love Cuban sandwiches, Don is not big on the hard, pressed cuban bread. No sandwich should physically hurt to eat it. Thus the he created the “Fidel”. The recipe below is not based on volume. Just what you need for a single sandwich. We usually cook two sandwiches at a time in a large skillet. Two sandwiches takes about 10 minutes.

Ingredients

2 pieces of Italian 5 grain bread. This is a sturdy five grain bread with texture and taste. You could pull this off with a whole grain bread as well. But don’t try this with an Italian or French bread.

1 slice of quality ham. We use Publix Tavern ham, Boar’s Head  is good too.

1 handful of pulled pork (more on this later)

4 thin slices of Monterey jack or Swiss cheese. We like Jalapeno Jack too.

2 slices of kosher dill sandwich pickles

Mustard

Some margarine / butter

Instructions

Heat up a small skillet and melt a small amount of margarine (we like Earth Balance) or butter. Put down your two slices of bread to heat them up.

Heat up your pulled pork in the microwave to warm, just 30 seconds for a sandwich worth. Again pulled pork recipe to follow. We love it when we can pull it right off the cooker.

With a plate on the side, pull off one slice of bread, toss a slice of ham into the pan to heat up.

If your pickle is cold, take two slices and toss them into the pan.

At this point you should be looking at a pan with a slice of bread, two pickle slices and a slice of ham.

With the microwave beeping to warm the pulled pork, open it and dump the handful of pork on the slice of bread. Lay on the cheese. Squirt on some mustard. Lay the heated pickles on top. Lay the slice of ham. Put the other slice of bread on top.

Press with spatchula. Cook for a minute. Flip the whole thing and press again. Look for a golden brown on both sides. We try to only flip it once. Sometimes we’ll cover the first heating with a large sauce pan top, but if you keep the heat low, you won’t need to.

The goal here is to have both halves dry and cooked solid. Otherwise your sandwich is falling apart. If you’re crisp on both sides, and the cheese is melted, you’re good. Serve right off the pan.

Place sandwich on plate and cut in half.

Enjoy the best sandwich you’ve had this year.

If you cooked your own pulled pork..that is.

…………..

Worth the effort?

This may seem nuts for a sandwich, and it is.

BUT, we tend to have everything we need for this laying around except the pulled pork. So, when we cook pulled pork, we have cubans for several days, and we freeze what we don’t eat, so when we de-thaw a pile of pork…yup, it’s Fidel Time again.

——-

Pulled Pork

Pulled pork? We’ve covered this with our Orion Cooker. It’s simple, a rub with garlic salt, pepper, a little Lowreys and ground pepper. Cook a Boston Butt for 2 hours and bingo…pulled pork. Once the cook is done, we package most of it and freeze.

So, when we have a pile of pulled pork from either a fresh cook, or de-thawing some frozen, we almost always have the ingredients for a Fidel around…and that means GOOD EATS for several lunches.

This is our basic hot wing recipe. We spent years of messing around trying to make the perfect wings, but never really quite nailed it. Then we discovered Frank’s Wing Sauce, and with a little tweaking, made this very simple recipe. You can fry them if you like, but we avoid the wheat and oil this way, so it’s a ‘bit’ healthier.

Ingredients

1 stick up butter

1 bottle of Franks Hot Wing sauce

1/2 bottle of Chululu hot sauce, regular, Tabasco or other hot sauce would be OK

1/2 cup chopped jalapenos (we used mild, jarred, pre-sliced)

1 tsp fresh ground pepper

1 tsp paprika

1 large package of chicken wings, or 2 or 3 small packages. This makes a good amount of sauce, so you might even be able to stretch it and do 2 large packs of chicken wings.

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350. Cut up the chicken wings and trash the tips. They’re easy to cut, with a sharp knife, stand the wings up so they form a “V” cut right down the middle. Place the wings in a large baking dish or tray. We use an aluminum foil covered roasting tray. The high sides keep the splatter down. We also coat it with a little Pam. Stir often. Cook for around 35 to 45 minutes until done. You want a golden wing, not dried, but cooked enough so the meat will easily come off the bone. All the cooking is done in this step, the next is just for flavoring, so make sure they’re cooked completely.

While they cook, melt the butter in a large skillet. Add all the other ingredients once the butter is melted and stir to mix completely. Put on a low heat so the flavors meld, but not so it cooks too much and mellows out the heat. Leave out stuff if you don’t like hot wings. You can just leave it to the butter and the Franks if you like basic ‘mild’ wings. Use fresh jalapenos if you like REALLY hot wings. The jarred stuff is pretty mild and mostly for flavor.

When the wings are done cooking, put a skillet full into the pan with the sauce and stir them around for a few minutes. The longer you keep them in, the hotter they’ll be. If some folks like them really hot, just leave the last batch in for 20 minutes or so while you enjoy the first batch.

Serve with celery, baby carrots and ranch dressing. Tonight, we’re having ours with Brie and french bread as well.

One of our holiday traditions is cooking a standing rib roast on Christmas day. This year’s was an original, instead of following a recipe, Don improvised the rub and cooking time based on previous experience. The amounts below are guestimated, we just ground stuff into a small mixing bowl. Just go with what feel right, but these amounts should be close.

WARNING: Cooking and prep time is 5 hours, plan accordingly.

Ingredients:

Sanding Rib Roast, we buy around 8 lbs.

Rub ingredients:

1 tsp fresh ground sea salt

1 tsp paparika

1 tsp fresh ground black pepper

1/2 tsp fresh ground white peppercorn

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp onion powder

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp dried parsley

1 tsp dried basil

Instructions:

Take the rib roast out of the fridge at least an hour before you cook it to bring it to room temperature. Apply the rub to it and let it stand. Some people put the rub on the night before, but the meat is so good, I wouldn’t want to overwhelm the flavor. Preheat the oven to 425°.

Put the rib roast on a rack, if possible. Rib side down. Put it into the oven for 30 to 40 minutes, don’t open the door, but look through the window so you can see if the roast is braised. You really want it looking like ‘the final product’ on the outside. It shouldn’t take more than 45 minutes. Keeping the door shut, drop the temperature to 250° and let it cook for two hours.

Check the temperature in the center of the roast, if it’s at 120°, you’re at the ‘blood red’ center mode. If you’re like us, you’re shooting for ‘medium’ which means a pink center but a fair amount of well cooked meat on the outside.

At this point we tent the roast with aluminum foil and bring the temperature of the oven back up to 350 and check the temperature every 20 minutes or so until we just hit 140°. This should happen somewhere around 3:30 to 4:00 into the whole cooking process. If you don’t want too much red meat, shoot for 150°.

Let it stand for 20 to 30 minutes before slicking. Enjoy!

We serve ours with twice baked potatoes and green beans.