There’s nothing much easier to cook up as a side dish than these scalloped potatoes. Perfect for any special occasion, or just to compliment an ordinary dinner, scalloped potatoes is a dish you can make with staple items found in your kitchen. Make sure you have potatoes, cheddar cheese, flour, and half-and-half, and you’re good to go.
Living in an RV doesn’t mean that you can’t cook meals for yourself and your family. It just means you must make do with conventions – for this reason, high-speed blenders, instant pots, and crock-pots are the kitchen tools of choice for preparing meals in a limited space. The same goes for my family and I; six people in a small RV makes meal prep slightly different than those in houses with full sized kitchens.
In this recipe, for example, we’ll be making an extremely easy and quick to make soup with butternut squash, onions, garlic, and a few other healthy and basic ingredients. The soup will be piping hot and silky smooth, and all we’ll be using is a pan to saute and boil, and a Vitamix for pulsing everything into a smooth concoction.
If you prefer Chinese or Japanese cuisine such as spring rolls or Chow Mein, you probably enjoy the Teriyaki sauce that is common, especially in Japanese foods, and consists essentially of Soy Sauce, sake (or mirin), and sugar.
In North America, this sauce has been used in multiple ways, and any sauce resembling traditional Teriyaki is called “teriyaki” even though it may not have sake or mirin, or if garlic is added (which is not typical in Japanese cuisine).
Merry belated Christmas! Christmas baking is done for this year, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves – New Year’s is just a few days away, and more cooking must be done. An amazingly cheap and fast dinner that the whole family can enjoy is Gnocchi, in all of it’s related recipes.
This particular Garlic Mushroom Gnocchi is extremely time-and-cost efficient, healthy, and full of flavor. Gnocchi takes only 3 minutes to boil, and don’t cook it too long otherwise it will get chewy and harder to consume.
Especially on a cold day, potato soup goes a long way. Serve with my Garlic Spiral Rolls for a complete meal.
These rolls are quick and easy to throw together, and turn out amazingly! They rise quickly, are soft and fluffy, taste great with a bit of butter (and maybe some jam) and make an awesome side to any meal.
Check out the new RECIPE VIDEO on YouTube!
This easy chicken recipe can also be referred to as one-pot chicken, it’s that simple! It has a delicious and thick balsamic sauce with pungent smell mixed with garlic. Enjoy with a side of brussel sprouts, green beans, or other vegetable side of your choice!
The chicken I decided to use for this recipe was chicken thighs, not only because I personally like dark meat over white, since it is darker, it is usually moister, and boneless thighs are usually thinner than boneless chicken breast.
I also am going to start posting a poem per post from now on, so here’s the next one: (if you hate poetry, skip to recipe below)
This poem is actually food related in some sense, as it is an unrealistic and humorous account of the ‘danger’ of microwaves:
Microwaves Are Harmful POEM
By Michael Metzler Jr.
.
Microwaves are harmful,
Don’t let anyone fool you,
They are full of electricity,
And worst of all; the flu
.
But more than anything else
Microwaves are inactive
In good consumer reports
And also radioactive
.
So if you dare put food
In this hazardous box of metal
You may as well try something different
Perhaps munch on a rose petal
.
For if you use this thing
And from it hot food eat,
You are as good as dead
As an unused brown golf cleat.
.
So if you own a microwave
If you bought it from a store
Please just throw it away at once
And we won’t bug you more.
.
So for your information,
In case you want to clap,
Please try our new product:
A brand new Food-o-Zap!
End.
Recipe below:
So this is my first entree in a while–a quite easy one, too. If you’ve ever been to Rubio’s, you may have had one of their fish tacos, perhaps a Blackened Fish Taco? Gradually spicy but satisfying, these Blackened fish are simple to make, and have the potential of feeding a larger group, depending on how much fish you have.
Basically, blackening your fish involves heating butter or other fat on a (cast iron) pan on high heat, then putting your fish on, just a minute or so, in order to sear each side, which will previously be coated in a particular spice mix.
Next comes the familiar part, which is assembling the tacos. You can do this any way you want of course, which makes this meal more custom than not.
I use Tilapia, and it works very well with this recipe, but you can use any white fish, and it should work just fine.
This Sweet & Thick Teriyaki Sauce is a great Asian sauce that works with almost any Asian food.
It works well as a baste for grilling things, and even a marinade.
It also works good on fish, making a plain fish (like mahi-mahi or salmon) more flavorful.
INGREDIENTS:
⅓ cup soy sauce
⅓ cup water
⅓ cup brown sugar
¼ cup avocado oil
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
DIRECTIONS:
In a small bowl, thoroughly mix all ingredients (except for cornstarch) together.
Pour mixture into a medium/small skillet over medium heat, and bring to a boil.
Put cornstarch into a small bowl. Pour a bit of the boiling mixture into the cornstarch bowl, and mix until homogeneous.
Pour the resulting substance back into the skillet, and stir until all combined. Boil a bit more, and then turn to low, and continue to cook, while stirring until the mixture becomes thick like syrup.
Remove from heat and use as a baste, and/or a sauce for your fish (salmon, mahi-mahi, etc.)
This dinner rolls are a perfect side to any meal. The dough is rolled around softened butter much like cinnamon rolls, and then baked in muffin tins.
Ingredients: (makes 12 rolls)
INGREDIENTS:
¾ cup milk
¼ cup butter
3 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 1/4 cups flour
2 tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 egg yolk
¼ cup water
Filling:
⅓ cup butter, softened
DIRECTIONS:
Heat butter with milk in a microwave until butter is melted, stirring in between.
In a large bowl of a stand mixer, combine 2 cups flour, yeast, sugar, and salt.
Pour water, egg yolk, and milk-butter mixture into the flour mixture. Make sure that the milk mixture is very warm. Stir into flour mix until sticky and wet.
Replace mixer with a dough hook. Add the remaining 1/4 cup of flour carefully, kneading with dough hook constantly until the dough is wet but doesn’t stick to your hand. It should take all the flour. If it is still sticky, add more flour. Once dough is done, take the dough out of the bowl and hand knead it. Then grease the large bowl, and put the dough back in. Let rise in a warm place for 10 minutes.
Roll dough out on a large flour surface into a 12×9 inch rectangle.
Spread softened butter over rolled out dough evenly.
Roll dough up, starting at the 12 inch side, until it is a long log. This is very similar to cinnamon rolls. Cut out 12 even rolls from this long log. Place each roll in a greased muffin tin.
Cover and let rest for 30 minutes. After ten minutes of rising, preheat oven to 375 degrees; then continue with the other 20 minutes rising.
After rise time is up, bake the rolls in the pan in the oven for 20 minutes, or until golden. Serve warm.
See my original post of this recipe on instructables.
Drunken chicken is a perfect dinner to make if you have limited time to make dinner. It is easy to make, and very flavorful.
Cook time: 1:15 hrs. Serves: 4
Ingredients:
1 (2lb) package drumsticks (or other dark meat chicken)
1/2 white onion
8 ounces of mushrooms (more or less depending on preference)
Salt, pepper
3 cloves garlic
3/4 cup white wine
DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Roughly cut onion, and place on the bottom of a 9×13 baking dish.
Pour in pre cut mushrooms.
Mince garlic and set aside.
Rinse raw chicken in the sink, then place on top of onions and mushrooms in the baking dish.
Sprinkle minced garlic over chicken, and salt and pepper them.
Then pour white wine evenly over the chicken.
Cover with foil and bake in preheated oven for 1 hour, then raise temperature to 400, and take foil off, and cook for another 15 minutes, until chicken is brown.
Serve with white rice.
This One Pot Burrito Bowl is not only delicious, it’s also fantastically fast to make; If you get your act up, you can make this burrito bowl in one pot in less than half an hour.
And, in one pot, in less than half an hour, you can make enough dinner to serve a considerably large family.
And, if you don’t have enough people to serve this to, it makes perfect leftovers for the next day.
INGREDIENTS:
1 pound ground beef
½ cup salsa
1 can black beans, or re fried beans, or a mixture of both
2 tablespoons taco seasoning
1 cup long grain rice, cooked ahead of time
1 large onion
1 cup monterey jack, shredded
1 can diced tomatoes
1 tablespoon oil
1 yellow bell pepper
¼ teaspoon chili powder
Garnish
chopped fresh tomatoes
sour cream
DIRECTIONS:
Mince both onion and bell pepper finely.
Heat oil in a large deep pan until hot.
Add in the onion and bell pepper to pan, and saute until very brown. Remove from pan to a small bowl.
Add the ground beef to the same pan that you had the vegetables in, and stir and break up with a spatula until meat is cooked and brown. Drain the meat juices that are shown above.
Before you add everything, if you don’t want super chunky tomatoes from the can, you can easily use an immersion blender to blend it up some. (mine basically became tomato sauce).
Then add canned tomatoes, black beans, salsa, taco seasoning, and chili powder, and previously cooked rice.
(for how to cook rice, see here: How to Cook Rice)
Stir all the ingredients until well combined.
You are now sort of done with it. Just one more thing:
For Garnishes, you can cut up some cilantro, and sprinkle that with a generous helping of your shredded cheese over the steaming top of your Burrito Bowl.
Enjoy!
Be sure to check out my recipe on instructables, as well.
Michael's Test Kitchen 