Easy
Cuban-style black beans and rice
Canned black beans cooked down with a quick sofrito of onion, pepper and garlic, over white rice. A cheap weeknight pot with no meat that still feeds four.
50 min · 4 servings
An Air Force veteran who became a chef.
Easy meals, hard meals, and a few I made up.
I served in the Air Force and went to work in kitchens when I got out. I'll walk you through the weeknight dinners and the Saturday projects, and show you how I build the dishes I make up.
Cooking
Pick a track. Both give you honest times and safe temperatures, and both tell you where it goes wrong.
- Easy mealsWeeknight food. One pan or one pot, a short grocery list, and nothing that needs a special trip.
- Hard mealsWeekend projects. Long braises, fried things and dishes with a technique to learn, with the places they go wrong written down.
- Made upDishes I invented. They are marked as mine because nobody handed them down.
Newest recipes
Hard
Buttermilk fried chicken
Bone-in chicken soaked in salted buttermilk, dredged, and fried in a Dutch oven with the oil kept in range. Where it goes wrong is written down step by step.
1 h 25 min · 4 servings (8 pieces)
HardMade up
Dashi and sofrito braised pork shoulder
Pork shoulder marinated in sour orange mojo, braised in sofrito and dashi until it falls apart, then served over rice with a quick chow-chow to cut the fat.
4 h 15 min · 6 servings, with leftovers that reheat well
EasyMade up
Miso ground pork and collards over rice
Ground pork browned hard, collard greens cut thin enough to cook in minutes, and miso stirred in at the end. A one-skillet weeknight bowl I made up.
40 min · 4 servings
Easy
Sheet-pan chicken thighs and potatoes
Bone-in chicken thighs and potatoes on one sheet pan. A short grocery list, one pan to wash, and the USDA safe temperature so you know when it is done.
1 h 10 min · 4 servings
Coffee
I'm on my second cup before the onions hit the pan. Here are the guides, the gear that makes a good cup at a fair price, and the grind and ratio numbers worth knowing.
Budget shopping
Feeding people without wrecking the grocery bill: what to buy, what to skip, and which cuts and cans do the most for the money.
Cookware and kitchen gear
A short list of pans, knives and tools. You can cook almost everything here with a skillet, a sheet pan and one good knife.
The letter
A letter from my kitchen: a recipe, a coffee note and a gear pick when I have one worth sending.