I know what you're thinking and no, I did not count the cloves of garlic. This recipe would probably be more accurately called chicken with a whole heckuvalotta garlic. Regardless of what the recipe is called, it's very tasty, easy to prepare, and basically, a one-pot recipe. This is just the type of recipe that I love!

I hope that everyone had a great St. Patrick's Day weekend! It was an amazing weekend here in Chicago, weather-wise. It felt like summer! I felt like grilling more than simmering a big hunk of corned beef but it had to be done. I didn't grow up eating a traditional corned beef and cabbage dinner so I thought I'd take a few liberties with this meal. I'm probably one of the few people who actually enjoys boiled cabbage but my family definitely does not. So I decided to come up with a way to make the cabbage more appetizing to my family. What if I make it creamy and cheesy? Cabbage gratin!

First, and foremost, I want to say that this recipe is inspired by Thai cuisine rather than being an authentic recreation of a Thai dish. Thai food is something I love to eat but I know little about cooking. I know some but hardly enough to feel comfortable blogging about an authentic Thai dish. For authentic Thai cooking blog, you should check out SheSimmers and Mananya Cooks. That's where you'll find the good stuff!

This recipe was, more or less, an improvisation. I was planning to make a basic stir-fry with these ingredients. However, that just seemed so uninteresting for this particular evening.

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.