Twice Baked Potatoes

Ingredients

• Large russet potatoes (or any other larger potato with a thick skin)
• Sour Cream
• Milk
• Butter
• Chives or green onions, finely chopped
• Shredded cheddar cheese
• Salt & Pepper
• Paprika (optional)

Directions

1. Thoroughly clean the outside of the potatoes.
2. In the oven (or microwave), bake the potatoes until soft in the middle (35-45 minutes, depending on size, or 5-8 minutes in the microwave).
3. Let cool until the potatoes are cool enough to handle with your hands. Cut each potato in half and scoop out the inside into a medium sized bowl, trying not to tear the skin. Place skins aside. Repeat for all the potatoes.
4. In the bowl with the potato insides, add other ingredients (sour cream, milk, cheese, chives and salt and pepper) to taste. Mix thoroughly.
5. Fill each potato skin with the potato mixture that you just made. If they are heaping out a little, it's ok. Sprinkle with paprika and place in a large glass pan.
6. Bake at 350 degrees for 15-30 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and the tops are slightly crispy.

Pork Adobo WITH PICTURES!!!!

LOOK LOOK PICTURES!!!

So this recipe is totally the same as the chicken one, cept I used pork baby back ribs. It smelled really good in the house, like some kind of tasty sausage.

1- very large pack baby back ribs
3/4 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
2 cups water
1 whole head garlic chopped
2 bay leaves
olive oil

In a dutch oven (or large pot) coat bottom with olive oil. Brown ribs on both sides until slightly golden. Add everything else to pot, cover and simmer for about 25 minutes. If you want your ribs softer and falling off the bone continue to boil until

How it looks while boiling in the pot (this is my dutch oven it is a Les Crueset, they are sooo expensive but damn they cook a good meal)

How it looks after husband gets a hold of it (see he pours the juice over the rice)

This is how just the ribs look when they are done. Then he poured the sauce on em, stuck a lid on and took em to go for lunch!

Mmmmm. Chocolate Chip Cookies.

You can't get much easier than these mmmmalicious chocolate chip cookies.


This recipe makes about 6 dozen cookies (depending on how big they are, in my case I get about 4 dozen because I like my cookies big).

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/2 cups butter
• 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
• 1 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 tbsp vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 4 cups all purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 24 oz semisweet chocolate chips (about 4 cups) REMEMBER THE CHOCOLATE RULE: THE BETTER QUALITY CHOCOLATE YOU USE, THE BETTER YOUR RESULTS!

DIRECTIONS

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F.


2. In a large bowl, beat butter, sugars, vanilla and eggs on medium until light and fluffy. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt. The dough will be stiff at this point.


3. Stir in chocolate chips and mix thoroughly.


4. On an ungreased cookie sheet, drop dough by spoonfuls ~2 inches apart.


5. Bake 11-13 minutes, or until light brown but still soft in the middle. Cool for a minute or two and remove from cookie sheet onto cooling rack.
   

For nut lovers, you can add ~2 cups of coarsely chopped nuts in the cookie batter and follow directions above.

Because I can't eat 6 dozen cookies (or even 4 dozen large cookies) I freeze half of the dough in the shape of a log, wrapped in plastic wrap. This makes it easy to cut off a slice or two and bake them up whenever you are in the mood for fresh out of the oven cookies.

Muffalata roll

(The photo doesn't do this justice because I totally forgot to take a pic while it was all pretty and rolled up!)

1- Tri tip roast filleted and flattened (You can have your butcher do this, or simply cut it down the middle and then from the middle cut each half out from center almost to end flattening it more, then put plastic wrap over it and whack it with a can to flatten) basically you want a very flat piece of meat.

1- small white onion diced
8- cloves garlic 3 finely chopped and 5 cracked
1/2 cup italian bread crumbs
1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese
1- egg
28 oz- can diced tomatos
10- slices bacon cut into 1/2 pieces
3- slices turkey
3- slices ham
10- slices salami
4- slices mozzarella cheese
1- cup white wine
2- tbsp olive oil
lots of salt and pepper

In deep dutch oven cook bacon until fat comes out (about 7 minutes) add cracked garlic and onion and saute until soft. While bacon is rendering mix egg, parmesan, finely chopped garlic, bread crumbs, olive oil, salt and pepper. On flattened steak layer turkey, then ham, then salami, cheese and finally bread crumb mix. Allow a half an inch around all edges of steak. Roll the steak up similar to a jelly roll and tie it closed. Remove bacon from pan leaving grease and place steak in pan over medium high heat. Brown on all sides, for about ten mintues. After steak is brown add wine and scrape all the brown off the bottom of the pan. Cook until wine reduces to half. Add bacon, onion, and garlic mix back in and cover with tomatoes. Add a bunch more salt and pepper, stir and cover. Cook for about 30 minutes, less if you like your meat rare. No matter what the outside will be cooked well done! This meal was great. I actually tasted some of the sauce and even some of the meat and I was impressed. My husband especially liked the sauce with the bacon fat in it and loved the salami inside of the steak. He packed it up to take to lunch tomorrow. I served this with some fresh store baked bread for dunking in the sauce.

If you are cooking on a budget you can substitute tri tip for flank steak.

I saw a recipe similar to this in Rachael Ray's magazine but her's was much more high maintenance and hoity toity. I made mine more people friendly and it turned out great.

Chicken Adobo (Filipino style)

Seriously folks, I've never cooked such a quick and easy meal in my life. It is ridiculous how fast this cooks, and apparently if you like meat this shit is pretty good.

1 package chicken bone in skin on (I use thighs)
1 WHOLE head of garlic chopped
3/4 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
2 bay leaves
pepper
2 cups water
2 cups uncooked rice

In a large pot (I use a dutch oven but a deep pot will do) brown chicken over high heat for about 6 minutes. Throw in everything else. Cover. Simmer for about 20 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. Cook rice per instructions and serve chicken with all the juices over the rice. I think it taste a lot like fried rice, my husband says it taste like home, the shit, awesome and sooooo good. He has eaten it like 3 times in the last month and already wants more. It makes amazing left overs and reheats great. Actually we serve it as single portions at my house, so you can reserve some rice for left overs with out it getting soggy over night. Also, you can use the left over chicken the next day shredded to make a great chicken fried rice or even a chicken salad sammy with a bit of an Asian kick. Seriously that chicken with some mayo and pepper on some wonder bread WHOAH!

I will post pics of this next time I make it and my dumb ass remembers the camera!

This whole meal is knock you on your ass good and sooo fucking easy. Your a moron if you don't make it right now! The greatest part is that all of the ingredients are things I have on hand every single night. This means that all I have to do is pull some chicken out of the freezer and I have a quick meal that is ready to go in the amount of time it takes you to chop garlic!

Dinner last night, aka portobello mushrooom cups

This is a great little meal for one in a hurry, although you can easily make it for two or three or ten.

1 Portobello mushroom chopped to about 1 inch pieces
Spreadable garlic and herb cheese (I use Alouette)
Sun flower seeds
Green leaf lettuce
Shredded Parmesan cheese
Olive oil

Chop up mushrooms into bite size pieces

Throw in frying pan with some olive oil and pepper and saute until brown

This is the spreadable cheese I use, garlic and herb

Spread a layer on your green leaf lettuce cups

Top with some sun flower seeds

Once mushrooms are brown you can add the salt, if you add it to soon it will dry them out.

Top lettuce with mushrooms

Then add the Parmesan cheese to top it all off. I roll them slightly like a taco and it makes a terrific little snack or a whole dinner.

Hey you, that new bride over there...before I can help you, there are some things you need to learn

This is important. There is a little known secret about men. THEY WILL NORMALY EAT ANYTHING YOU PUT IN FRONT OF THEM JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE HUNGRY! This Means no matter how much they hate broccoli and chicken breast they will eat it. This also means that even if the loooove onions and you never use them, they will never tell you.

Things you need to ask your husband, along with asking them to give you an honest fucking answer!

1. Do you prefer white or dark meat? This is actually important. The two meats are cooked a lot different. Dark meat can be cooked longer, and it tends to be juicier and work much better in crock pots or braised dishes. Chicken breasts tend to be better for stuffed chicken, although a thigh can be used, it takes a little more expertise to do so! This is also important because if you are serving the meat they like but you screw up the dish they will be more inclined to over look that since you at least got the meat right. I mean if they like dark meat and you served them a screwed up dish along with dry chicken breast, well now your just fucked.
2. What vegetables do you actually like? If they don't like any FINE you can still cook them for yourself, you just need to make sure to make them their own side dish, ie a potato because all men like those right.
3. How do you like your potatoes? My husband will ONLY eat mashed potatoes or fried potatoes (think french fries or breakfast potatoes) however he will only eat his fried potatoes crispy. This means that time I served him some yummy soft breakfast potatoes and he hated them, he still ate them but wasn't satisfied with the meal. Now I simply pull mine out first, turn up the heat and crisp the hell out of his.
4. What foods do you really love? My husband loves loves loves tomatoes. I think he likes them as much as he likes sex. This first of all means, that I should know that every single sandwich I ever make him needs to have at least a whole entire tomato. Same goes with mayo. He loves garlic. This means that he will laugh at my chicken if I put two measly cloves of garlic in it. I may as well just throw in the whole fucking head and call it a day. Even if it is something you hate, you need to find a way to equate it into the meal. I hate shrimp, so when I make pasta I cook the whole dish, saute the shrimp in a second pan and then put his serving of pasta in the pan with the shrimp, toss it around getting it good and fishy and we are both happy!
5. Are there things he cooks that he loves? My husband makes steak. It is his steak. EVERYOTHERSTEAK taste like shit to him. Every marinade I make will not be the same. If this is the case, STOP! DON'T TRY ANY MORE! Make it so one or two nights a week he cooks up his steak, pasta, dish whatever it is, and feels all manly and proud and you cook the sides. Then its a group effort, your doing something together and he gets to walk around strutting his stuff like a peacock because he made you the best damn steak ever!
   
6. Find out what kind of cheese he likes. My husband only eats white cheese and nothing with mold and no feta and for the love of gosh ricotta makes him ill. This means on Mexican food I can only use mozzarella, that if I try and stuff his chicken with Feta I will find the stuffing hidden in his napkin and oh gosh if I serve him pasta with ricotta I had better just run. But now I know, I keep the stuff he likes in the house and I'm like hes personal kitchen champion!
   
7. Find out how he likes his meat cooked. My husband prefers his chicken a little pink. It is good to know this because I prefer it cooked until it hardly resembles chicken. This works nicely so I know that whatever I make, at least I cooked the damn chicken right.
8. Find a few go to quick meal items. My husband is addicted to this sandwich and this quesidilla. They are both quick meals and they are both easy meals to keep the ingredients on hand. I always always always have chicken, onion, tortillas, garlic and green sauce on hand ALWAYS. That means if I wake up and think shit I have no food, I know I can at least make those and he will think he is getting a treat. Same with the sammies. I always have that stuff on hand.
   
9. Keep a journal. I went to target and bought a little notepad about 5-7 and I keep it on my counter. Each time I make him something new I jot down the recipe and his response to it. That means that if I'm ever sitting there stumped one night I can pull out that note pad flip a few pages and find something he likes
10. Be open to criticism. Talk to him right now and tell him, Look I want to make an effort to start cooking for oyu, but you have to promise to be honest with me. At the end of the meal ask him how he liked it. Tell him to be truthful. Was there something he didn't like or something he would like more of? For instance I made some chipotle chicken on night for my husband, the recipe called for carrots and celery. That night when I asked him he said the meal was terrific but he would rather if I left out the carrots next time. So I walked over to my notepad, scratched off the carrots and called it a day. This means you have to learn to take criticism but making him happy is worth a few hurt feelings.
11. Find out about seasoning. My husband loves salt. He also loves garlic salt. He also believes the more pepper the better. In the beginning I seasoned things for my taste and then I realized he found them bland. It was easier for me to adjust to a little more pepper or salt then for him to eat a bland meal or sit there dousing it in pepper at the table crushing my heart as he did that.
12. Get creative. There is nothing wrong with breakfast for dinner, as long as you know how he likes his eggs and if he likes crisp bacon or wiggly bacon. Sometimes changing it up like that is fun.
13. Finally learn to cheat. You can make a lot of really simple meals taste extra good by adding to them. Buying jarred pasta sauce is fine. I always cut up two or three tomatoes and stir those in towards the end of cooking and I always stir in some mushrooms too. If I add beef I make sure to saute the beef with lots of onions, garlic and pepper before I stir it into the sauce. That makes a really simple store bought meal have more of a home cooked feel to it.
    
14. Let him have some input. In the beginning I would sit down with my husband and say here are the things I'm thinking of trying. What do you think? And he would answer me honestly. This is helpful.
    
15. Finally, remember that practice makes perfect. You are going to mess up, but he will appreciate it a thousand times more that you tried to cook and messed up.
    

The last thing you need to remember to do is come here and check out our recipes. While some of them may seem scary we really really try and only post things that are easy to make for people who are just learning. You can even bring him to the site, show him some of the recipes and see what he thinks. Lastly you can ask him all of this, get his responses and come back and tell us and we will help you create meals he will love! Remember marriage is all about communication, even if your just communicating about food!