Cook Like Chuck

We’re cooking a lot more during the quarantine since we can’t go out, and we’ve been cooking with a limited set of ingredients since popping out to the store for a missing ingredient is not something you want to do. It has made us more creative, and I think some of the list below will makes its way into our regular repertoire once this is all over.

We pretty much never followed any of these linked recipes 100%. I followed the spirit of the recipes, making substitutions where needed.

We also made a lot of these multiple times.

A few general tips:

1. Sauces are important and make bland things better. I currently have a yogurt sauce, a chipotle sauce, a stir fry sauce, and aioli in the fridge. We pull them out and put them on everything.
2. Marinades make old meat from the back of the freezer taste better.
3. Save lots of vegetable and meat scraps and make stock with them for other meals.
4. Kefir substitutes pretty well for buttermilk in baking recipes.
5. Juice that is about to expire can be frozen into ice cube trays for use in cooking or blender cocktails later.
6. Commercial yeast can be kept going just like you do a sourdough. Don’t fret if you are on your last packet!
7. Check with local food distribution companies, whose main clients (restaurants) aren’t ordering as much. Many in the NY area have started delivering to homes, which is awesome. My parents found one in Ohio that is doing pick ups.
8. You can regrow scallions in a glass of water.

Entrees

• Coconut Chickpea Stew with rice and flatbread
• Chicken tikka masala with rice and flatbread
• Smash burgers with homemade buns
• Breakfast sandwiches with homemade buns
• Fried chicken sandwiches with homemade buns
• Pizza, with both regular yeast and sourdough and no-cook sauce
• Green curry with rice. Sometimes with chicken, sometimes just random frozen veggies.
• Red curry with rice. Sometimes with chicken, sometimes just random frozen veggies. Always with green beans.
• Japanese curry – Chicken, potato, carrot, onion, mushroom is our favorite
• Black bean soup
• Beans & Greens over bread or couscous
• Chicken and steak fajitas with homemade tortillas
• Taco salads, over greens when we have them, or over yellow rice when we don’t
• Lentil soup
• Various grilled meat + veggie combos. Honestly whatever we have on hand.
• Lots of roasted vegetables. Here is my guide on how to roast common vegetables.
• Chicken kathi rolls (ish) – We marinated the chicken in yogurt, fake lemon juice, garlic, cumin, and cayenne pepper. We used this flatbread recipe for the wraps.
• Instant pot yogurt with milk that was getting past its prime – We’ve been using this yogurt in a lot of recipes and also eating it for breakfast
• Baked pasta with mushrooms and mozzarrella
• Sheet-Pan Chicken with Chickpeas, Cumin and Turmeric
• Tacos Arabes with homemade pita
• Breakfast tacos with homemade tortillas
• Breakfast skillets
• Fondue with all of our random bits of Vermont cheeses in the fridge, served with bread and asparagus.
• Pasta e fagioli with homemade pasta
• Fried rice with chicken, carrots, onions, ginger, eggs, and peas. Kind of a fridge clean out.
• Haluski

Baked Goods

• Cinnamon Rolls
• Banana Oatmeal Bread
• Strawberry Cake
• Chocolate Chip Cookies – this is the best recipe we’ve found. Christina Tosi!
• Burger Buns
• Flatbread
• No-knead bread with both regular yeast and sourdough
• Sourdough Crackers

A few things that missed the mark

• Some hand-made pasta that was okay, but we are searching for better recipes.
• Gnocchi with bacon, broccoli and a quasai cream sauce based on sourcream. Not bad, but wouldn’t make it again
• My early breads didn’t rise. Turns out I forgot to flatten them down and get the air out before the second rise
• We tried to use mini cast iron skillets and make individual serve mac and cheese from some boxed stuff we had that we put more cheese and bread crumbs over then baked. Make it special, you know? It was terrible, though. Dry, overcooked, and crunchy. Not having milk didn’t help the situation…

Upcoming

• We have plans to make tamales since we have masa
• We’d like to make pierogies
• Testing more pasta recipes. I made Amanda a malloreddus board!

Here is a random mishmash gallery of photos from my photo roll. No real order, and not everything listed above is represented here.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

What are your go-tos right now? Any recommendations? Drop them in the comments!