If your family’s like mine, there’s probably a holiday roast in your future. Something big and beefy (or porky) and brilliant, and most likely, fat-tastic. Maybe porchetta, or perhaps prime rib. Either way, you probably need a sauce bright and tangy enough to cut through all that deliciousness.

Enter that darling of every Argentinian table – the multi-purpose, put-it-on-fricking-everything condiment – chimichurri.

Some people will tell you it’s exclusively a steak sauce. Those people are dumb. They’re not wrong, necessarily – it is used, primarily, in its home country, to dress up beef – and God knows the Argentines eat enough of it – but to limit its use to just that is to ignore its shiny, zippy, slightly spicy, herbaceous appeal – with chicken, fish, pork, broiled tofu, cold pasta salads, toasted sandwiches, pizza – it’s so stupidly simple, and delicious.

But where this stuff truly shines is on a good piece of beef. And, unlike some other sauces often paired with holiday roasts (béarnaise comes to mind) chimichurri’s dominant notes of acidity and heat contrast perfectly with that big ol’ rib roast you’ve got going – and, unlike horseradish, lends some vegetal complexity. And, hell, it just looks good on the table.

Chimichurri

Ingredients:

• 5 oz apple cider vinegar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 8 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 jalapeño pepper, seeded and minced
• 1 Serrano pepper, seeded and minced
• 1 shallot, chopped
• 2 small bunches flat-leaf (Italian) parsley, washed, excess water squeezed away
• 1 small bunch cilantro, washed, excess water squeezed away (YES, cilantro. If you don’t like it, use ALL parsley. But it’ll be missing something.)
• 1/3 cup fresh oregano, chopped
• 3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• red pepper flake (optional, but recommended)

1. Get thee a bowl, and put the vinegar, salt, garlic, shallot, peppers (and red pepper flake, if desired) in, and let it sit around for about 15 minutes.
   
2. In the meantime, get the cilantro and parsley and remove the long stems from all the bunches (you should be able to cut through the stems of each bunch all at once, pretty easily.) Remove ALL the thick stems from the oregano. Make sure herbs are dry(ish).
3. Begin chopping herbs finely (or place vinegar mixture and herbs into food processor). Mix chopped herbs in with vinegar mixture (or start food processor) while whisking in (or pouring in) olive oil. If using a food processor, blend until all ingredients are well-integrated.
4. Add salt to taste.

And that’s it. Pretty fricking easy, right? You may find horseradish taking a back seat. All the way back.

Chimi is best served in a bowl, with a small ladle, and a card in front for novices that reads:

NOT-FUCKING-AROUND SAUCE

Your grandmother would approve.

(Covered, this stuff will last for a week in the fridge. If it tastes like it’s losing its oomph, add a splash of apple cider vinegar and some pepper.)

BTW: flat iron steaks are tasty as hell. ESPECIALLY WITH CHIMI.

Look, I love you guys, but I wasn’t about to buy a whole prime rib just so I could show you how to make chimichurri – but I definitely wanted a cut that would showcase the sauce’s versatility. I mentioned this to Jason, one of the meat counter dudes at Whole Foods, and he pointed me directly to the flat iron steak, a hunk of chuck that’s a pain to get to, butchering-wise, which is why it’s not often featured in markets or on menus. But it’s certainly well-marbled AND lean, and packed with flavor. It could use a little marinating, though. A perfect match for chimi, then, which can, and often does, double as a marinade.

So if you decide to do as I do, here, and want to work up some steaks for a casual meal, do this:

1. Go to your local butcher/meat counter and ask for some flat iron steaks. They’ll be thin, and come in somewhere between 1/3 to 2/3 of a pound.

2. Bring them home and cut a cross-hatch pattern into them on both sides with a sharp knife. (Be careful not to cut all the way through, obv.)

3. Toss them into a bowl or plastic bag. Pour on enough chimi to cover. (This recipe will give you enough to cover 4-6 steaks and have plenty left over for sauce.) Make sure all steaks are well-covered with marinade, and refrigerate for at least 45 minutes, not more than 2 hours.)

4. About 15 minutes before you want to begin cooking, set a cast-iron skillet over high, high heat, or preheat skillet in a 500° oven.  Yes, you might get some smoke. Open a window. Yeesh.

5. If your skillet is in the oven, pull it and place it over high heat. Pull steaks from marinade, let some but not all excess drip off, and begin cooking steaks in batches of 2 or 3, depending on the size of your skillet, for about 4 to 4 1/2 minutes a side for medium rare.

6. Take whatever potato dish you were making while the steaks were marinating (and really, this kind of dish is what potatoes are FOR) and sprinkle on some freshly grated cheese, because Parmigiano-Reggiano over freshly mashed or baked or fried potatoes is a winner, carbs be DAMNED.

7. Serve steaks and potatoes alongside a dish of the chimi, and get to slathering that green goodness on everything – potatoes, steak, your napkin, your boots, junk mail. You’ll find it’s all pretty tasty, once the chimi gets on it.

[Note: this method is obviously playing by winter rules. If you want to grill that stuff, go ahead, but you might find the crust built up by the marinade on your skillet is superior to what you can get from your grates. Just thought I’d mention it.]

Happy holidays, everyone. Enjoy!

-Theo

I was not selected.

But it wasn’t a complete, bummery loss. This video, lovingly produced by Michael Gabriele (with lovely theme music from Alana Grelyak and Sara Wolfson) is now available for you to use/enjoy/laugh at.

I hate being on camera, but spending a day filming and making turkey with Michael, Alana and Sara was a blast.

Hope you guys dig it. It’s a pretty foolproof method for your Thanksgiving turkey.

So. I had all these grand plans to make you White Castle stuffing, and bacon-basket potatoes, and vegan sides last week.

And then life just got away from me.

Also: I caught a nasty, nasty cold that makes me sound like someone’s stuffed fiberglass insulation into my sinuses.

But for those of you still in need of some last-minute recipe ideas, I’ve pulled a few from friends who have graciously allowed me to share them with you.

This first one is from my friend Sherrie, whose own skills in the kitchen are nothing to sneeze at. This particular recipe is a subject of great debate at Thanksgiving, as there are, literally, too many cooks in the kitchen.

The Kluesner Women’s Random Modification of a 1940s Carnation Milk Cookbook Cranberry Salad

BY SHERRIE VOSS MATTHEWS

So, my mom was either busy (likely) or hasn’t checked her gmail lately (also likely). So I went on a hunt through my cookbook collection to try and jog my memory.

In one of the many church compilation cookbooks ala fundraisers, I found a similar recipe. (Am I the only one who has tons of these? Midwestern gal, easy Christmas gift? No? Just me, then?)

From my aunt. My mother’s younger sister. Hmmmm.

Suspicious, I dug into the cookbooks I inherited from my grandmother. My maternal grandmother. And on page 38 of a cookbook I no longer own the cover to, I discovered Molded Raw Cranberry Salad.

Ah, the 1940s. They knew how to name dishes, didn’t they?

It is essentially my Grandmother Kluesner’s cranberry recipe, which my mother makes every year, with her own modifications. I help. And modify. Or ruin, depending on your perspective.

What you need:

• 2 c. raw cranberries
• 1 c. cold water
• 1 c. granulated sugar
• Juice of one lemon (hey, this is in the original, and it would make it TONS better)
• 1/2 c. chopped walnuts. (My mom chunks them. I chop them fairly fine. This is a point of contention. My sister generally tries to stay out of it.)
• 1 c. chopped celery (I leave this out. I love celery, but ew. No. This is another point of contention.)
• 1 c. chopped seedless grapes, white (I put this in instead of the celery. My mom adds it as an extra.)
• 1 c. chopped raw apples. I prefer Jonagold if I can get them. My mom doesn’t care. Whatever is on sale. We chop them into 1/4 inch chunks. Not super-fine, but not super-chunky, either. How’s that for technical?
• 2 peeled oranges, chunked, save 1/2 of the peels, chopped fine. (That’s my aunt’s addition. We may have to try the peel thing this year.)

Here’s the land of dispute:

You will need either:

• 1 package orange Jell-O (my aunt) OR
• 1 package cranberry Jell-O (my mother) OR
• 1 package plain gelatine (me)

AND

• 1 c. hot water

And there’s a variation that includes marshmallows. Don’t. Trust me, don’t go there. EW.

1. Dump the cranberries in a food processor or blender and chop to a fine, granular texture. Chop everything else, if you haven’t already.
2. Pour 1 c. of cold water in bowl. Add in whichever gelatine mix you picked into the water, add 1 c. hot water, and stir until dissolved.
3. Aside: I am actually not allowed to make the Jell-O. I am a foodie at heart, I make all sorts of complicated recipes, but I screw up Jell-O every time. This is legendary in my family. And my in-laws’ family.  I truly make a gooey mess, even when I follow the instructions. Jell-O does not like me. My sister or my daughter generally makes the Jell-O part. If I do it, the recipe is doomed. DOOOO-mmmmmeeeddddd.
4. Add lemon juice to Jell-O mix. Set aside.
5. Mix cranberries, walnuts, grapes, apples and oranges and peel. (Hey, lemon peel might be good too. See how it morphs over time?)
6. Stir in the sugar. Mix the fruit/nut/sugar mix into the Jell-O bowl. Stir well.
7. Here’s the 1940s part: “Place salad in individual molds and let congeal in the refrigerator. Serve in lettuce cups.”
8. Here’s reality: We do this the night before, stick it in the downstairs fridge, and we divide into two bowls to let it set better. If we forget to divide it, we have cranberry/nut soup the next day. (This is still good, but a bummer for the people who want gelled cranberries.)

Next, we come to my friend Leslie Dombalis, who’s wonderful and smells like daisies. (Her grandmother is, apparently, not so cool, but her food is fine.)

Swedish Tea Ring

BY LESLIE DOMBALIS

Dough:

• 2 C hot milk
• 12-20 cardamom seeds or 1 T vanilla
• 1 C sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 C butter
• 7 to 8 cups flour
• 2 t salt
• 2 packs dry yeast

Combine milk, sugar, butter and salt. Cool to luke warm. Dissolve the yeast as directed on package in a small amount of warm water. Add to milk mixture. Beat in flavoring and eggs. Stir in enough flour to make a soft dough; put rest on bread board. Turn the dough out and make it your bitch aka knead in enough flour so that the dough is not sticky, but be sure not to add too much. Place in a buttered bowl, cover, and let rise until doubled. Punch down and let rise again. This amount of dough will make 2 tea rings.

Tea Ring:

Take half the dough and roll it into a rectangle. Brush liberally with melted butter and sprinkle with brown or white sugar (be heavy-handed about it), currants, raisins, dried cranberries, whatever you want. (My mother always uses pecans and raisins; I prefer chopped orange peel and cranberries.) Roll up the dough long ways to make a ring, tuck the edges under and seal. Place on well-greased cookie sheet or pizza pan. Make cuts in the dough with scissors, about 1 inch apart, but do not cut all the way through. Lay each layer on its side. Let rise, then bake at 375 roughly 45 min. DO NOT OVER BAKE.

If you’d rather make cinnamon rolls, cut all the way through your ring. Frost if you want.

Ghio Family Cornbread Stuffing/Dressing (transcribed directly from my racist-ass grandmother’s cookery book.)

BY LESLIE DOMBALIS

You will need:

• 1 8×8 pan or so of cornbread, usually made the day before. Use the recipe on the box.
• 1 lb sausage
• 2 med onions chopped fine
• 2 sticks of celery chopped fine
• 6 cups celery leaves chopped fine
• 1 tsp sage
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1 egg
• 1 C chopped pecans
• 1 C oysters

Put a small amount of oil or butter (2 or 3 T) in a skillet with celery, leaves and onions. Cook over low heat until transparent or white looking. Crumble cornbread and mix (using your hands) with raw sausage. Add cooled celery/onion mixture. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix. This can be done the night before, just be sure to refrigerate over night.

I usually put the neck & giblets in a pan of water to cook the night before, covered with a little salt and simmered for a few hours. The next day, when you stuff the bird, you can use a little juice to moisten the dressing. Then when you make the dressing balls, grease the pan you put them in and pour a little of the giblet juice (hehehee) over them. The rest can be used in the gravy along with the cut-up giblets, if you wish. Bake with the bird.

Sweet Potato Casserole

BY LESLIE DOMBALIS

• 2 C sweet potatoes
• 1/2 C white sugar
• 1 C milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp orange extract
• 2 T flour
• 3 eggs
• 1/4 C melted butter
• Salt to taste

Preheat oven to 425. Mix it all together, pour into a 4-6 cup casserole dish, bake until set. Make topping.

Topping:

• 1 C crushed gingersnaps
• 1/4 melted butter
• 1 C brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice (the ratio of spices in the next recipe is perfect)

Mix all this stuff together. Sprinkle over top of COOKED casserole and return to oven to brown for 10-15 minutes.

Good luck over the next few days, guys. And happy Thanksgiving!

-Theo

I’ve limited experience with New England food culture – not counting all of the lobsters and clams and oysters I destroyed – so I was unprepared for the simple, addictive charms of the dessert they served at their reception, the Whoopie Pie.

A favorite in Maine – it’s sugar and egg whites and shortening and vanilla, whipped and pressed between two chocolate cake rounds. Light and fluffy and rich and dangerous. I’m pretty sure I ate at least a half-dozen over the course of the evening. No regrets, save for the lack of them once I returned to Chicago.

The following week, Kendra’s family’s friend Nancy came to my rescue with an email that included a brilliant, easy recipe and these words of comfort and wisdom:

I promised you a recipe for the Whoopie Pie cookie you were in ecstasy over on Sunday night.  This is the Real Deal.  Do not even think about trying the marshmallow fluff substitute recipes that are out there.  These freeze beautifully, and get better after a couple days when the filling develops a kind of crisp exterior that gives when you bite down – a little bit of Maine heaven.

I asked Kendra if she wouldn’t mind putting some together with me for The83k – and she graciously agreed. But then I realized, with all of the tastiness we were making, we’d be leaving someone out. Someone who can’t eat chocolate. Someone very, very important.

This is Chester.

Chester is K&K’s animal friend. Adorable, goofy – and unable to eat any amount of chocolate goodness. Which seemed unfair. I mean, LOOK AT THAT DAMN FACE.

So I asked the internet, and it turns out blogger and cookbook author Hannah Kaminsky already had an answer: dog-friendly carob sandwich cookies with mashed potato filling – what she calls WOOFIE PIES.

So we decided to make both.

First: Nancy Farnum’s Whoopie Pies

In a house full of beautiful stuff, as Kendra and Kapil’s is, it was hard to stop looking at everything and get started on the task at hand. Especially after we started on the booze. But then a certain someone reminded us why I was there in the first place.

So while I creamed some shortening and sugar (you can use a fork – hard – or a hand mixer or stand mixer – easy), Kendra mixed some flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cocoa together.

We added some egg yolks and vanilla to the shortening mixture, then started integrating the dry components along with something called sour milk (which is not the same as buttermilk, apparently.)

A little vinegar, a lot of whole milk. It’s weird. But it WORKS.

Once everything comes together, we dropped tablespoon-sized rounds onto parchment paper and baked those suckers.

RECIPE NOTE: If you’re baking with a friend AND an adorable animal, one of you can start putting together the filling (sugar, egg whites, shortening, salt and vanilla)…

…while the other one takes more pictures of the dog.

You’ll probably need two baking sheets to wind up with about 24 cake rounds. You should probably make yours a little smaller than I did.

Assembly is at once super easy and impossibly difficult, since the urge to start stuffing the filling directly into your face is hard to resist. IT’S WHIPPED SUGAR AND FAT, people.

They turned out okay.

We were going to try to make these Thanksgiving-ish by adding a cranberry reduction to the inside – and you’re welcome to do that if you want to add some sweetness and tartness – but to be honest, these don’t really need anything else but a little care and a lot of people you wanna make happy. Thanks, Nancy!

So. Much. Tastiness.

After we finished with our treats, we stopped torturing Chester with our laughter and our baking smells and got to his:

Second: Hannah Kaminsky’s Woofie Pies.

I detest puns. But I was pretty sure Chester wouldn’t have any problem with them, or the food we were about to make him.

Kendra chopped and boiled some potato (make sure to peel thoroughly and remove ALL green parts – they’re not good for dogs) while I put the dry and wet parts of the carob cookies together. (Flour, baking soda, carob powder, baking powder / carrot juice, pumpkin puree, vinegar and olive oil.)

We dolloped these onto sheets and baked them off – 6 to 9 minutes – and then filled them with the mashed potato.

Someone liked them.

A lot. Chester is a Clean Plate Club PLATINUM MEMBER.

Your friends – both human and furry – will appreciate your efforts in the kitchen, whoopie- and woofie-pie-wise. We had a great time. We hope you will, too. Enjoy getting whooped – and woofed!

– Kendra, Kapil, Chester & Theo

RECIPE: Nancy Farnum’s Whoopie Pies

Yield: 12 large or 24 small whole whoopie pies

For the cakes:

• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 4 tbsp. cocoa
• 1 cup sour milk (add 1 tsp. vinegar to 1 cup milk and stir.)

Cream shortening and sugar.  Add egg yolks and vanilla.  Add sifted dry ingredients alternately with sour milk.  Place by tablespoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet, parchment paper or silpat pad.  Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes.  Cool cookies before filling.

For the filling:

• 2 egg whites
• 3/4 cups shortening
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• Pinch salt

Beat egg whites until light and fluffy.  Cream shortening and sugar until smooth and add to beaten egg whites.  Add vanilla and a pinch of salt.  Fill between 2 cookies, sandwich-fashion.

The Woofie Pies recipe (from Hannah Kaminsky) can be found here. Your pups will gobble it up. Believe it.

I have a complicated relationship with Thanksgiving, mainly because I resent the fact it’s only one day and my stomach isn’t built like a TARDIS.

This year, Jews around the world who observe American Thanksgiving are dealing with a complication that’s actually worth kvetching over – the first day of Hanukkah and Thanksgiving fall on the same day: November 28th. It’s almost never happened before (since Lincoln made Thanksgiving an official holiday in 1863, we’ve seen it once – in 1888) and, according to some calculations, won’t happen again for roughly 70,000 years. And a few Jews are happy about that, unhappy about the day doing double-duty – either savoring Thanksgiving’s secular, unifying Americanness – or sad about sharing the Festival of Lights with Turkhanalia.

However, many, many other Jews – and friends and relations of Jews – are buying extra-special eating pants in anticipation of this most glorious and special of holidays: Thanksgivukkah.

For those of you looking to make a hearty side dish for your non-kosher, superdelicious, chimeric holiday feast: I hope you like lamb and cheese and Brussels sprouts and cumin and fennel and noodles and deliciousness. And adjustable waistband pants.

Note: part of this post was adapted from Heather Cristo’s brilliant pesto recipe. Tasty stuff, no matter what time of year it is.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 pounds ground lamb (you can use just about any ground protein, but lamb is definitely the way to go here)
• 2 tblsp olive oil, plus 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 1 1/2 tsp fennel seed
• salt
• pepper
• 2 cups panko-style breadcrumbs
• 2 cups Brussels sprouts, halved
• 4 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1/4 cup slivered almonds
• juice of 1 large lemon
• 3 Tbs finely grated Parmesan plus more for garnish
• 1 lb egg noodles
• 4 eggs
• 1 lb(ish) ricotta
• 6 oz dried cranberries (optional)
• 4 oz toasted pepitas (optional)
• 1/4 shallot, minced (optional)
• 8 tblsp (4 ounces) unsalted butter, separated
• 1 pomegranate
• mint leaves

1. Preheat your oven to 400°. Open a window and a bottle of malbec. Things are about to get cumin-y and red-wine worthy.
2. Set a large skillet over medium-high heat. Take your cumin and fennel seed and toast your spices briefly, stirring often, until fragrant.
3. Add olive oil to pan and stir, quickly, until spices are mixed in. Add ground lamb, salt and pepper, and, while breaking up meat with wooden spoon, brown lamb 5-8 minutes, stirring often.
4. Remove ground lamb with slotted spoon, and set lamb aside.
5. Add 2 tablespoons butter to hot pan and fat. Stir until melted and combined. Pour in breadcrumbs and toast until golden brown. Set breadcrumbs aside.
6. Set a pot of water to boil, salt it, and while that’s heating up, halve your sprouts. Take any excessively woody ends off, too.
7. Carefully drop your sprouts into the boiling water. Cook for about 2-3 minutes.
8. Pull ’em out with a strainer and rinse them under cold water for a bit. Leave water on a low simmer.
9. Put sprouts into food processor and pulse together with garlic and 1/4 cup of olive oil until a paste is formed.
10. Add in almonds, juice from the lemon and salt until everything is well-combined. Season to taste.
11. Move mixture to a very large bowl and add the Parmesan. Congrats! You’ve made pesto!
    
12. Bring the water back up to a boil and cook egg noodles in same pot, 1-to-1.5 minutes shy of lowest suggested cooking time. Drain, and place hot noodles into large bowl with pesto mixture. Toss to combine.
13. Whisk eggs in separate bowl and combine with ricotta. (Extremely optional step here – reserve half your ricotta and top each serving with a small dollop of fresh cheese to stir in later on.) Pour egg and cheese mixture over noodles, along with lamb (and cranberries, pepitas and shallot, if using.) Fold everything together using a large spoon or spatula.
14. Butter a large casserole dish (one with high walls would be great), and put everything from the big bowl in there. Smush it down a little with a spatula.
15. Cover with foil and bake. After 40 minutes, remove foil and add panko topping, and continue to bake, uncovered, for another 20 minutes, or until topping is golden brown.
16. While kugel is baking, break down your pomegranate and mince your mint.
17. Serve kugel with mint and pomegranate arils.
    

I’ll admit, it’s a bit of a mess. But damn if it doesn’t taste amazing. A worthy dish to accompany your once-in-seventy-millenia Thanksgivukkah turkey, friends. Hope you dig it!

-Theo

You know what you’re getting when you pour that stuff into your microwave-safe bowl. Broth. Salt. Chicken-ish bits. Noodles the texture of steamed wontons that nourish and satisfy, kinda. Post-snowman-building soup. Pre-NyQuil-drinking soup. It is what it is.

But – as anyone who’s made their own will tell you – chicken noodle soup can be so, so much better. And stupidly easy, too, once you get the hang of it.

First, make your stock (if you want, and you should)

Look. I’m not gonna tell you NOT to use store-bought chicken broth. But making and using your own stock pays dividends down the line, beyond the scope of this recipe; you’ll have plenty of leftover cooked chicken and stock ready for other dishes, and, well, homemade stock just tastes better – often, dramatically so. It’s usually richer (and, depending on how you like things, fattier.) It tastes less like old stewed vegetables and chicken elbows and more like an afternoon in your grandmother’s kitchen. And, except for the cooking time, it requires very little work. So if you don’t already have some of this stuff chilling in your fridge or freezer, proceed as follows:

Ingredients:

• 1 4-pound(ish) chicken, cut into pieces (either buy a chicken and cut it up yourself or ask your butcher or grocery store’s meat department to cut it up for you)
• 1 biggish onion, cut into large slices
• 1 large carrot, chunked up
• 1 celery stalk, similarly chunked
• 4 garlic cloves, whole
• 2 bay leaves
• salt and pepper

1. Put all the ingredients into a big pot and add 16 cups of water. Lid that sucker up and bring it to a boil.

2. Once you’ve got a boil going, turn the heat down and remove the lid so you have a quiet, barely burbling simmer – I’d go down to your burner’s lowest setting, for as little as 30 minutes, or as long as 2 hours. Remember – the longer you go, the more of the connective tissue from the chicken will render into the stock, giving you even more velvety goodness.

3. Turn off the burner, and using a slotted spoon or tongs or whatever, pull the chicken and other stuff out and set aside to cool. Separate the chicken from the bones and vegetation, shred the chicken by hand, and save to use in whatever else you can think of (including the rest of this recipe.) Add salt and pepper to stock. Use, or store.

Additional, optional steps to take, if desired:
— pour stock through a fine-mesh sieve. You’ll remove some of the floaty bits and give your stock a cleaner, clearer look.
— cool your stock a bit and skim off some (but not all) of the fat from the top. You want to leave some of that tasty goodness in there, right?

Second: while the stock is going, cook up your noodles (or rice, or farro, or whatever)

What you decide to go with here is entirely up to you – though I’m suggesting you cook your noodles or grains for your soup separately, and not in the soup itself as some would suggest, reducing the cook time just enough to where your pasta or quinoa is just barely underdone. This gives you fully cooked but still firm and toothsome noodles once the soup is all put together – and, if you’re anything like me, provides extra noodles (tossed with a little oil and stored in the fridge) that you can add to another batch of soup that you’ll invariably make, now that you’ve got all that extra broth.

Third: assemble your goodies and MAKE YOUR SOUP.

This is the really fun part.

What else should be floating next to those noodles? Celery and carrots are always a good choice, and I ALWAYS add sliced shiitakes to my chicken soup – you get some deep, low notes in the broth. But really, just about anything goes. Add any, or all of the following, or whatever else works for you:

• a handful of whole garlic cloves
• minced ginger
• sliced jalapeños
• sliced fennel (for some funk and crunch)
• thinly sliced bok choy
• pear or apple slivers
• lemongrass and star anise (yes, lemongrass. IT’S REALLY EASY.)
• chopped broccolini
• pea pods
• cooked, diced potato
• cooked, diced parsnip

You probably have almost everything you need to make a delicious batch of chicken soup in your fridge and pantry right now. And what you don’t have is easily picked up on the way home from work.

And bringing this all together couldn’t be simpler:

1. Bring 1.5 cups of broth for every serving to a near-boil in a large pot. Turn heat all the way down until you get a very low simmer going. Stir in whatever goodies you’ve decided on, and cook for about 15-30 minutes.
2. Stir in however much of the shredded chicken you want (just eyeball it – about a cup for four servings is fine, I guess, but I’d use more) and the noodles/grains (again, eyeball it – a big handful will do) and heat through, about 3 minutes. Add salt and pepper and whatever other seasonings you’d like now. (If you don’t have any precooked chicken, add in some chopped-up raw stuff and extend heating time to 8-12 minutes.)
3. Top with some fresh herbs and serve (if you’ve gone the Asian route with your goodies, you might quarter up a lime and serve it alongside.)

And what you get looks a hell of a lot better than anything that’s ever come out of a can.

Honestly, once you’ve got the stock and the chicken part down, you can just wing it. After a few tries, you’ll be improv-ing in the produce aisle and whipping up magical, chickeny, noodly elixirs like a FRICKING WIZARD.

Do right by yourself, and your family and friends this fall. Leave the red and white can on the shelf. And have some fun.

-Theo.

Which is to say: how about some jam or fig preserves and thinly sliced apple or pear inside the sandwich, to give it a little sweetness and crunch? And then a little ragù alla bolognese (meat sauce!) to spoon onto every bite? With some mushrooms thrown in, maybe?

Give it a try. I think you’ll be pleased with the results.

Why build a meat sauce from scratch just so you can make your grilled cheese a little extra awesome?

First of all – learning how to make a ragù alla bolognese, if you don’t know already, is always a good idea. You’ll wind up with a rich and satisfying pasta sauce that you can use in many other dishes (it goes particularly well with fettuccine.)

Secondly – unless you’re serving ten sandwiches, you’ll have plenty of sauce leftover for those other dishes – this stuff freezes well.

Thirdly – if you make the grilled cheese as suggested here, the contrast of the slight sweetness of the preserves and the apple with the meaty richness of the ragù will cause your tongue to bro-ishly demand hi-fives from all your other organs – even your curmudgeonly gall bladder will grudgingly admit you could have done a lot worse.

Prepare for awesomeness.

Grilled cheese sandwiches with pork-mushroom ragù alla bolognese.

Ingredients:

For the sauce:

• 1 large or two small onions, chopped
• 2 celery stalks, finely chopped
• 1 large carrot, peeled, chopped
• 6 cloves minced garlic (Love garlic? Use more. Don’t like garlic? Use less – but use some, at least – it’ll add a certain somethin’.)
• extra-virgin olive oil
• 4 oz ground pork
• 4 oz ground beef (85% lean)
• 4 oz. bacon, chopped
• 6 oz mushrooms, chopped (fresh shiitake if you can find them) (optional)
• 1/2 cup red wine (something dry)
• 2 3/4 cups chicken stock
• 4 tablespoons tomato paste
• Kosher salt
• pepper
• 1 cup whole milk

For the grilled cheese sandwich:

• 3 tablespoons butter
• 2 slices of sturdy white bread (something big and hearty)
• 1 oz fontina, grated (yes, you’ll probably have to grate it yourself. Make sure it’s cold before you get started – this stuff is soft.)
• 1 oz aged provolone, grated
• a little more than 1 tablespoon fig preserve or any good jam or preserve you have on hand.
• thin slices of your favorite apple or pear (as thin as you can get them; I’d recommend Honeycrisp or Bartlett pear, but any tasty apple or pear will do.)

For yourself, while you’re cooking:

• A glass or two of the red wine
• some of that cheese
• The new Stephen King sequel to “The Shining” or one of the robot-building competition episodes from NOVA or Scientific American on Netflix – because robots and nerds are awesome. Just like grilled cheese sandwiches.

1. Get out a big, wide, heavy sauce pan or pot. Drop about 2-3 tablespoons of oil in and warm it over medium-high heat. When it’s hot, add the onions, celery, carrot and garlic. Sauté for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently.

2. Add the meat and the mushrooms. Crumble the meat in the pan with a wooden spoon and brown it (the mushrooms will simply cook down a little) for about 13 minutes. Watch the pan and stir often.

3. Add the wine and stir; boil for about a minute – scrape up the brown bits from the bottom of the pan.

4. Add the chicken stock and the tomato paste and stir; simmer on the lowest setting for about 1.25 – 1.5 hours.

5. Turn the heat up to medium high and drizzle the milk into the pot a little at a time, stirring after each drizzle, until the milk is fully incorporated, and cook that for an additional 40 minutes, with the lid almost all the way on – you want a little steam and heat to escape, but not too much. Season to taste with salt and pepper. (After this step, your sauce is DONE.)

Now, during step five, you want to be slicing those apples and grating that cheese and separating it out into two-ounce portions, per sandwich. Why 2 ounces? AND WHY CAN’T WE JUST USE AMERICAN SLICES, YOU HIGH-MAINTENANCE FOOD DORK?

Well, you can. You can use any melty kind of cheese you want. And it will be delicious. But if you decide to go the fancy-cheese route, you need to get a somewhat-precise measurement on the cheese – and it’s easier to adjust the weight on grated cheese and get even coverage than breaking off misshapen hunks of whatever you’re putting onto your sandwich.

And I’m saying two ounces because a Kraft Single slice is about an ounce – and two slices makes a perfect grilled cheese sandwich for this application. Add more if you like – but add too much, and there might be uncontrolled, unconstrained ooziness. Possible burnt cheese. And heartbreak.

Okay – back to the recipe.

6. Get your ingredients (cheese, apple slices, preserves) ready to go (mise en place) so you can assemble your sandwiches quickly.

7. Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter over medium-high heat in a pan big enough to hold two slices of bread, tipping the pan so the butter is spread evenly. Place slices in pan and cook for about 2 minutes. Check bread after 1 minute, just in case things are running too hot or too cool.

8. Move toasted bread to a cutting board, buttery sides up. On one side ONLY, add ingredients in this order:

– preserves (spread to the edges in a thin layer – here, the back of a spoon or an offset spatula may be easier than a knife)
– cheese (if using freshly grated cheese, press down and spread cheese out close to, but not all the way to the egde)
– apple slices (you got those suckers thin, right? They don’t have to be transparent, but they should be fairly slim – use a mandoline, if you’ve got one)

Put the second slice on top, buttered side facing inside.

9. Melt 1 tablespoon butter in pan, and cook one side of assembled sandwich for 3-5 minutes, checking the bottom of sandwich after 2 minutes. Occasionally, press down gently with bottom of spatula. After cooking one side, repeat with butter and other side of sandwich.

It’s important to keep the heat high enough to melt the cheese, but low enough to not burn the bread. You’ve done this before – you know how your burners behave. Just keep an eye on things.

And, after all that, as Alton Brown would say – your patience will be rewarded.

Is this more work than a can of Campbell’s? Yes. But you’ll probably get at least 2, if not 3 meals out of this – and a grilled cheese sandwich eating experience you will never forget. I promise.

Enjoy.

-Theo

P.S. You can simplify the sauce prep by working through step four and dumping everything in a slow cooker, set on low, for a few hours. You can either opt out of the milk and get a fantastic meat sauce, or add the milk and keep on going in the slow cooker for a little longer. It’s up to you, friends. 

P.P.S. These recipes are adapted from content via Bon Appetit and Serious Eats. If you’re not already reading their stuff, for God’s sake, step up your game, yo.

Selma here sings Hootie and The Blowfish songs – a little too loudly and off-key – while waiting in line at Starbucks, and never has her order or money ready when she gets to the front. She thinks the nerdy T-shirts your girlfriend wears are tacky and stupid. And she drinks way too much White Zinfandel at family reunions where she hits on distant cousins while making incredibly racist jokes about the Irish and Sri Lankans.

White. Zinfandel.

For God’s sake, let’s make dinner.

The bird.

Roasting a chicken is easy. Roasting a chicken WELL is less so.

You and I know cooking almost any whole bird successfully is all about getting the dark meat and the white to finish cooking simultaneously. The even cooking that comes from roasting pans and V-racks don’t really solve the problem. If you’ve got a pre-heated cast-iron skillet, though, you can get the undercarriage going faster so that everything finishes up pretty much at the same time.

The following recipe is adapted from a classic Mark Bittman method – one of the few I found that solved the dark meat/white meat problem without spatchcocking (butterflying) or piecing up the bird. I’m not usually too fussy about presentation (spam sushi cubes aside) but the sight of a whole roast bird is worth the effort, I think.

And don’t skimp on the chicken. You don’t need a huge one, or one of those heritage breeds that cost thirty bucks (not that I wouldn’t eat one if you offered it to me) but maybe try to find one that was humanely and organically raised, and fed well. You pay a little extra for prime rib and top-notch steaks – why not spend a few extra bucks on your poultry? You can taste the difference, believe me.

Ingredients: 

• 1 whole chicken (3-4 pounds) You’ve pulled the neck and gizzards and whatnot out of there, right?
• 1 medium or large lemon, quartered
• olive oil (at least 3 tablespoons)
• salt
• pepper
• some herb sprigs (I used rosemary, but use what you like)
• a few peeled garlic cloves (I’d use at least 12 big ones, but I’ve also been told I have a garlic problem, and should seek help, so you do what you want. Six sounds less crazy.)
• chicken or vegetable stock, or water
• butter or cream

1. Open your oven, and set one rack on the lowest point in your oven. Pull the other rack out, if necessary. Put a cast-iron skillet or another heavy pan (but buddy, you should have a skillet. They’re cheap and come in handy, especially in cartoon kitchen fights.) on that low rack and preheat to 450°F.

2. Rub the chicken with the olive oil, and season the bird somewhat generously with salt and pepper. Shove some lemon quarters in the chest and neck cavity. Tuck some herb sprigs in where you can.

3. After about 15 minutes, carefully place the chicken, breast side up, into the skillet. Toss some garlic cloves around the bird (you might wanna use a wooden spoon for this – remember, that pan is HOT.)

It’s gonna start to smell awesome, wherever you are. Roast that sucker for at least 40 minutes, maybe 50. You should check after 40 with an instant-read thermometer – the thick part of the thigh should read 155°F.

4. Once it’s finished roasting, tip the pan or lift the bird (using a big wooden spoon or a spatula) so the juices run into the pan – if they’re still red, cook it a little longer. Put that bird on a platter along with the garlic. Pull out the lemon quarters, set aside and tent the chicken loosely with foil. The chicken will continue to cook under there while you’re making a simple pan sauce.

5. Put the skillet over a burner set to high and put about two cups of stock in. Scrape up any bits from the bottom of the pan. Boil that stuff until about half of the liquid is cooked away.

6. Stir in a little butter or cream. Taste it. Is it holy-crap-I-wanna-rub-this-on-my-face good, or could it use a little salt and pepper? Maybe a few squeezes of the lemon you pulled out of the chicken? You decide.

7. Show off the chicken and get the “oh mans” and “hell yeses” you’ve been waiting for, then tell your family/friends to get the table ready and open more wine while you portion up the bird. Serve with the pan sauce on the side.

Three sides: Healthy, healthyish, and something with bacon in it.

Side 1 (Healthy): Kale and Cabbage Salad.

This salad was inspired by one of Honey Butter Fried Chicken‘s amazing sides. I like it with a little cider vinegar and mandarin oranges for sweetness, but you can use grapes or some chopped honeycrisp apples , if you want even more crunch.

Ingredients: 

• 1 bunch Tuscan kale (also called black or Lacinato kale)
• 1 cup shredded Napa cabbage (use the thicker parts of the cabbage, lower down)
• 1 cup regular, non-Greek yogurt (don’t use lowfat here. Come on, man.)
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar, plus more to taste
• salt
• pepper
• 1 small 10-to-11 oz can of mandarin orange segments, segments and liquid reserved separately.
• a willingness to de-rib Tuscan kale.

Ever de-ribbed kale before? I have. And if you don’t know how to do it quickly, it suuuuuuuucks. BELIEVE ME. But once you get good with the knife, it’s pretty easy to get through a bunch.

1. Once all your kale leaves are de-ribbed, chop roughly. Toss together with the cabbage and mandarin segments. Set aside.

2. Stir all remaining ingredients together to make your dressing. You should get hints of saltiness, sweetness from the mandarin juice and tang from the yogurt and the vinegar. Make adjustments as your taste demands.

3. Pour about half the dressing into a large bowl, then add the fruit and vegetation. Use tongs and the walls of the bowl to toss and coat the salad evenly. Add more to taste.

4. Tell your semi-vegan friends to suck it up, they should be happy there’s even kale in the house, and chow down.

I did flash-fry some shallots at the last-minute and toss them in, but they added more flavor than crunch. Do what you like, people. And enjoy.

Side 2 (Healthyish): Roasted Brussels Sprouts with almonds and Parmesan

We’re living in a golden age for Brussels sprouts. This recipe delivers crispy edges and a tender interior, worthy of this glorious time for this once reviled vegetable.

If you don’t use the cheese, these babies are vegan and a perfect side for your chicken. That being said, you should absolutely use cheese, since you’re already eating meat, and cheese is fricking delicious.

(This recipe is adapted from a chow.com recipe, itself adapted from a recipe in “Franny’s: Simple Seasonal Italian.”)

Ingredients: 

• 1/2 cup whole, roasted nuts (yes, you can get the ones already roasted and salted in a can – I’d suggest almonds.)
• 1 1/2 pounds Brussels sprouts (small ones, if you can find them), trimmed and halved through the stem
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• kosher salt
• pepper
• 1/3 grated parmesan (any tangy, aged cheese will do, but Parmigiano-Reggiano is preferred.)
• fresh lemon juice, two to three tablespoons.
• dukkah (optional)

1. Chop up the nuts, coarsely. Set them aside. Preheat the oven to 500°F.

2. Place the sliced sprouts in a big bowl, and toss with the oil and enough salt and pepper to coat. Put the sprouts cut-side down in a single layer on a baking sheet (hold onto that bowl). Roast for about 10 minutes. If you’re using small sprouts, your sprouts should be brown and tender and ready to pull. If you’re using larger sprouts, stir and cook longer, checking every few minutes to make sure they don’t burn.

3. Return the sprouts to the bowl, and let them sit for a few minutes. Toss them with the nuts, cheese and lemon juice. Taste, and add salt and pepper if necessary. Optionally, add dukkah and extra cheese to the top of each portion.

4. High-five everyone at the table, or, if you’re eating alone, show someone your handiwork via Skype. Your tele-diner will most likely demand a virtual fistbump.

Side 3 (OH YES): Mashed potatoes with garlic, scallion and sriracha-glazed bacon

Do I even have to explain myself here?

Ingredients: 

• 2 1/2 pounds russet potatoes, partially peeled, quartered.
• 1 cup regular, non-Greek yogurt
• 4 tablespoons butter (optional)
• 2 heads’ worth of peeled garlic cloves, whole.
• salt
• pepper
• sriracha (just get out the whole damn bottle. You don’t have to use it, but you can.)
• 1/2 pound thick-cut bacon.
• 5 scallions (green onion), white and pale green parts, sliced thinly

1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Boil the potatoes and the garlic for 30 minutes.

2. While potatoes boil, find a microwave-safe plate and cook bacon in microwave on paper towels, about a minute less than instructions direct. Pull bacon from microwave and paint one side of bacon with sriracha. Transfer bacon to foil sheet and finish cooking in 400°F oven for 2-5 minutes – watch carefully to make sure bacon doesn’t burn. Chop bacon, crumble into bowl and set aside. (You can skip the oven-finishing step by simply crumbling still-warm fully cooked bacon in a bowl and tossing with sriracha, but you won’t get any carmelization)

3. Drain potatoes for a few minutes and return to warm pot (leave pot on burner, but leave burner off.) Let residual heat of pot dry drained potatoes for a few minutes.

4. Put yogurt and butter into pot with potatoes and salt and pepper. Use potato masher to bring ingredients together, roughly. Season additionally to taste.

5. Stir in sliced scallions and chopped sriracha bacon. Place in bowl and top with additional sriracha, like this:

6. Serve, then look around and scout out any recliners or comfortable armchairs for a post-meal nap.

Well, I hope that sets you up for at least one nice dinner this fall. Roast chicken is delicious, anytime, but it’s especially wonderful as the weather and the leaves start to turn.

Enjoy.

-Theo

Yes, I realize that there isn’t a sliver of tuna* to be seen above, and that’s on purpose…because it’s pretty clear that many folks out there enjoy eating sushi, but when it comes to handling raw fish and assembling it themselves…they’d rather leave it up to the chef behind the counter with the sharp knife and the bamboo mat.

So. Full-Fridge (read: leftovers, unconventionally topped) sushi. SOOOOOOO easy. All it takes is a little forethought, one or two kitchen things, and the willingness to eat your mistakes and keep on going.

It’s unlikely anyone will be making a documentary about your nigiri after reading this. But it will, hopefully, be delicious.

Ready? Let’s go!

The Rice.

Sushi is, at its heart, seasoned, vinegared rice, topped with, well, whatever. Don’t get hung up on what you’ve had before at your local restaurant or takeaway counter – you can top that rice with barbecued pork or truffled eggs or cauliflower relish and call it whatever you like.

But that rice – you’ve got to make it right, and season it somewhere in the neighborhood of how it’s traditionally prepared. Because it’s that slightly sweet acidity that flavors all the toppings you’ll be adding.

Now, Lord High Food Nerd J. Kenji Lopez-Alt suggests this recipe, which I find to be a solid base, for sure. But given that a lot of toppings you’ll be using are going be less subtly flavored than, say, a creamy slab of yellow tail, I’d use this ingredient rundown instead:

• 3 cups short grain sushi rice (or brown rice, if you’re looking to eat healthier.)
• 3 1/2 cups water (or more if using brown rice)
• 1/2 cup rice vinegar (see note)
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 3 teaspoons kosher salt

1. Rinse the hell out of that rice, using a mesh strainer. You’ve got to get that water clear. Put the rice into a rice cooker with the water and cook, or put the water and rice into a pot and bring to a boil, then turn the burner all the way down and cook for 15 minutes, after which you can take it off the burner and let it sit for another ten. DO NOT REMOVE THE POT LID AT ALL DURING THIS PROCESS.
2. Combine the other three ingredients over medium heat until everything is dissolved.
3. Now, take that rice you’ve got, scoop it – gently – into a big casserole dish. Use a rice paddle or a big wooden spoon and spread it out, gently. Don’t press down on it too much. Let it cool for a few minutes, and then try to find an electric fan, or some sucker in your house willing to wave some newspaper at you. Point your fan/chump at the rice while taking about half of that vinegar mixture and drizzling it over the rice. Cut into the rice with your paddle or spoon, and fold the rice into itself, to mix the vinegar solution into the rice. Be gentle. You don’t want ricey mush, you want whole grains. Keep the fanning going until the rice stops steaming. You want rice that comes together, barely, when you squeeze it into a ball in your palm. Keep your rice tightly covered with plastic wrap (pressed up against the rice, like you’d do with guacamole.)

Now, if that’s more of a production than you’d like, you could just make rice as you’d normally do, with less water, and just add warmed vinegar with some sugar stirred in at the end, and it’ll taste almost as good. I’m not gonna wag fingers at you.

The Toppings.

Now, most sushi you’ve seen looks like this:

Our sushi ain’t gonna look like that. Today, we’re not going to involve nori or fish – although you’re welcome to. We’re just going to focus on leveraging what you’ve got in the fridge – and assembly.

From the top left, clockwise: Spam, cooked shrimp, snap pea, water chestnut, kimchi, bacon, heirloom tomato, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese (NO JUDGMENTAL FACES) and peach.

For the record: I don’t normally eat Spam, but I wasn’t gonna go down this road without making little Spam musubis, yo. DON’T HATE.

The Assembly.

Now, at this point, things get real, real simple. Take a tablespoon-and-a-half or two of rice, bring it together in your palm until you get a squished, elongated egg shape, and place it on your cutting board. Paint it with a little bit of sauce (soy? vinaigrette? sriracha? barbecue? It’s really going to depend on your topping) and then add your piece of fruit, protein or vegetable, trimmed to shape. And you’re done! Voila! Leftover pork-chop-nugget nigiri, anyone?

If you want to make your leftovers a little flashier, you could press your sushi rice into a square baking pan, cut it into slabs, give your sushi a little geometric appeal.

Or you could go full nerd and buy a Rice Cube.**

I honestly don’t know if assembling nigiri one cube at a time with this thing is any easier than making rolls with a bamboo mat, but the final result sure does look cool. PLUS: SQUARE FOOD. EVERYONE LOVES SQUARE FOOD.

Okay, so that one got a little squirrelly, up top.

But the Spam cube looks downright craveworthy – especially with a little hoisin sauce.

Tomato with basil and arugula vinaigrette.  IN YOUR FACE.

Water chestnut with more hoisin. Textural bliss.

Kimchi and rice is pretty classic here.

So is shrimp, with a balsamic reduction.

And I’m including bacon, because, well, bacon.

Dessert sushi? How about making some of that rice a little less vinegary and cubing up some peach?

You spent all that time making delicious chow the first time – the repeat performances of your dishes and leftover ingredients deserve just as much attention – and applause. It just takes a little effort.

Hope you enjoy making it as much as I did. Let me know how it goes.

-Theo

*You shouldn’t be eating bigeye tuna, anyway. Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE the stuff. But there’s hardly any of it left. Hold off for a few years. Let those bad boys and girls get it on, and make more fish. Chances are if we don’t do something drastic, our grandchildren will never know what a meltingly rich piece of fatty tuna tastes like. And it will be our fault.

**I was not paid a dime to say good things about the Rice Cube, and can honestly say it’s one of the few kitchen gadgets that’s really, really fun to use. And yes, your kids will totally love that thing.