I was tempted to not post this one at all because I didn't think the picture was very good. However, it did taste really good and when you make this it will look better in real life! I also wanted to post this one because I wanted to stress how much better your food will taste if you use homemade chicken stock versus anything that comes in a can or a box at the store.

After a couple days of meals dominated fast food and convenience food, I always crave something homemade and wholesome. I don't want to go off the deep end and go raw food diet or anything like that but I know that something simple, scratch-made and balanced would hit the spot. I can think of few things better-suited to filling this mission than the venerable meatloaf. To lighten it up a bit, I decided to go with turkey meatloaf. Served up with roasted broccoli, roasted sweet potatoes, and cranberry sauce to round out the meal, it was exactly what I was looking for.

Chicken Piccata always reminds me of the first episode of Top Chef, Season 4, wherein one of the cheftestants did not know what chicken piccata was and made a mess of a dish. You can read about that particular episode here. Chicken piccata, based on the critique from that episode as well as other recipes, is a breaded chicken cutlet accompanied by a sauce that includes white wine, lemon juice, capers, and butter. I'm not a huge fan of the breading process, even though I love to eat breaded food, so I chose to skip that part. Since I am not being judged by the likes of Tom Colicchio and Rocco DiSpirito, I feel ok with not breading my cutlets. If were going to bread the cutlets, I would employ the technique I used in my Chicken Milanese recipe.

I'm sure the first question that crosses your mind when you saw the title of this post is "why would I make my own Sloppy Joes from scratch when I can just open a can of Sloppy Joe sauce?" I think that's a valid question. In fact, I asked myself that. However, sometimes you turn the can around and read the label and you might see words like mono sodium glutamate or high fructose corn syrup and you think, "do I need to add more of that to my diet?" Now, I'm actually not an MSG-hater and HFCS is something I could do without but if it sneaks in here and there, I'm not going to freak out. But the most important reason to make your own Sloppy Joes is to make them taste better, have the texture to your own liking, and choose your own ingredients. 

The weather in Chicago this past Sunday was not quite chili weather yet, but, it was the first Sunday of the NFL season and I had 2 pounds of ground turkey in the freezer. Thus, it was time to make chili! I don't usually follow a recipe for chili, therefore, I never make it the exact same way twice. The one thing that is usually a constant is that I make it with beef. Since I had the ground turkey in the freezer, i decided to go with it. I also figured I'd stick with the healthier theme and add addtional vegetables to it.

So, the nice folks at Blurb gave me a credit so I could make a book to try out their service. Naturally, I chose to make a cookbook. I figured I would use the content from my blog to put a book together quickly. I wanted to see how easy it was, what the quality was like, etc. and I'm happy to report that the experience was pretty great!

I first heard of this crazy method of grilling a chicken about 12 years ago. It sounded funny and looked even funnier. You shove a beer can up the cavity of a chicken, stand it up on the grill grates and let it cook standing up at attention.

The technique is actually pretty ingenious. Standing it up promotes even cooking and browning while the steam created by the evaporating beer keeps the meat juicy and helps cook a bit faster. If you add aromatics, such as garlic, herbs, citrus to the beer, it will also impart some flavor. I have no idea where this technique originated but kudos to the person that came up with this.

What is gnudi? As far as I can tell, gnudi is basically ricotta gnocchi. The word gnudi basically means "naked." So in this case, it refers to the typical filling for ravioli or tortellini without the pasta. So, in essence, it's naked ravioli filling. Perhaps, gnudi has less flour than a typical ricotta gnocchi recipe? I think it's the same thing. However, I think it's much more fun to say the word "gnudi" than it is to say "ricotta gnocchi." So, I'm going with "gnudi." 

When it comes to quick weeknight meals that take advantage of fresh, seasonal products or high-quality pantry ingredients, and prepared in a non-fussy manner, the Italians have it down. An olive-oil based pasta dish seems to be one of the quickest and easiest meals to thrown together. There are many types of "sauce" or condimento, as the Italians would say, that take as much time to cook as it takes for the pasta to cook. Also, there's very little advanced slicing and dicing of ingredients that needs to happen prior to the actual cooking. You just get your pasta water on, a saute pan heated up, and you're good to go!

Golden. Brown. Delicious. GBD for short. We all love food that is golden, brown and delicious. Especially, if it's been breaded and pan or deep fried. Admittedly, the process of breading and frying is not my favorite. The process involves dredging in flour, then in beaten eggs, then in breadcrumbs, and then in the hot oil. This process is also referred to as pané. This process is also a pain. It requires lots of dishes and it's kind of messy and awkward for a Monday night. However, you can't really argue with the results. It's delicious, satisfying and a crowd-pleaser.