That's right. It's turkey time.
How are you on turkey at Thanksgiving? I'm very medium. Mostly here for the sides, can manage if it's well cooked and the gravy is on point. It's never my FAVORITE thing, though. And the obvious next thing to say would be...."until now," but honestly still give me all the casseroles.
HOWEVER. This turkey is 1,000% delicious, flavorful, juicy, and just really really simple to make and make well.
My issue is dry turkey, mainly. This is not that.
...Hey, hey!
An update for you today: One of the most popular recipes on my site, Buffalo Chicken Salad Dip, has a facelift and recipe adjustment!
...A summertime recipe for cobb salad that includes grilled chicken AND corn plus caprese salad ingredients with fresh, juicy tomatoes, mozzarella, and a super easy basil pesto salad dressing that is out of this world delish. This is also a great meal prep kale salad!
Oh hello, here's a salad we can SINK OUR TEETH INTO. Finally.
I'm all about a main dish salad. I order them often in restaurants because I want to, not because I'm punishing myself for something or feel like I should. BUT, the salad's gotta be a good one. House made dressings, fun protein choices, crunchy things, etc. If salads on a menu don't look good, I'm heading straight for ordering a dinner entree during brunch because the smothered chicken is just always so legit, right?
...Great news! I've posted this meal two other times on this blog, back in the archives before I wrote real recipes or took pictures that were attractive.
Now things are somewhat more professional around here, but this Argentinean BBQ remains one of our absolute favorite meals. I've been making this for nearly a decade, changing it over the years here and there.
The pillars of this Argentinean BBQ are super simple: a bed of rice with chorizo that is salty and starchy to cradle everything, then grilled chicken and veggies heavily seasoned with salt and paprika. The whole thing is topped with the chimichurri we've already made this summer, and the flavors come together to SING, let me tell you.
...Here's our favorite summery weeknight dinner right here! Easy basil sauce (dairy free pesto without nuts, basically) and lemony broiled chicken with NO marinating time means a 30 minute dinner that is low carb, gluten free, dairy free, and filled with summery flavor thanks to fresh basil.
Oh hi, summer.
My basil plant is doing GREAT this year, in a new sunny spot from years past, so prepare yourself for a gazillion "but it's seasonal" basil-using recipes. You'll get no apologies from me on that one.
I've been playing around with how to broil chicken breasts, and after a few tries I'm definitely liking the method for a few reasons: It's super quick and doesn't smell up the house OR require walking outside to get to the grill. This particular broiled lemon chicken is broiled on just one side because the pieces of chicken are super thin. If you don't feel like cutting the chicken pieces in half (or buying thin-cut chicken) you don't have to, just flip the chicken and broil on the second side.
This entire meal is done in half an hour or even less if you make the basil sauce another day as part of meal prep. Let's do it!
...I almost called these Superfood Meatballs, but Mark Bittman says (and I agree) that there are no superfoods, so I'm trying to take that word out of my vocabulary.
Are Gluten Free Meatballs just as exciting? I have no idea. I wanted to make a meatball that was full of good things but also yummy, and to me that's what these are. I also wanted a chicken meatball that didn't inherently feel like it had to be paired with a marinara sauce. These chicken kale meatballs would be great with tomato sauce, for sure, but I paired them with a light brown gravy that was silky and savory and SO good.
...Crispy Korean chicken with a super delicious sweet soy sauce! These easy rice bowls are the perfect kid-friendly weeknight meal.
Today! Another (not planned this way) bowl inspired by one of my favorite bloggers - this time Jessica @ How Sweet Eats. I got her new cookbook around Christmastime last year, and have loved so many recipes that I've tried so far. The one that I've made over and over and over and OVER again is the Korean Beef Bowls. They are SO good, but since we tend to not eat a ton of beef I wanted to try a chicken version instead.
If anything, the chicken version is better than the original. That's because of the cooking method. The chicken gets sliced before cooking, then tossed in flour and verrrrry gently fried quickly in some not-too-hot oil. The chicken gets golden brown, we toss it with a super simple Korean-inspired sauce. Done!
...I'm SUPER into curry.
When I was in high school in Tokyo there was a chain of Indian restaurants called Samrat. They had a lunch special that high schoolers could afford, and it was SUCH a treat to be able to go there and try some curries with rice and naan. It was the first time I had much experience with curry outside of curry chicken salad or similar southern foods, and one of my favorite memories of high school - of all things to fixate on in Japan.
Now, one million years later, I spend some weekends making curries with tons of spices, simmered for hours that stink up the house in the best possible way. Or I make this: a chicken curry with just seven ingredients that comes together in under an hour - way less if you happen to have leftover shredded chicken on hand.
Curry in under an hour is mainly my jam with two kids and a bunch of jobs and dogs that eat through walls. Slow-simmering things aren't as common in my kitchen as I'd like them to be, unfortunately.
...Super yummy chicken spaghetti casserole that is a perfect make ahead weeknight dinner! Creamy cheesy sauce, noodles, and veggies chopped up with tender chicken for an all-in-one casserole meal. Add an extra veggie with my favorite lemon kale salad, if you'd like!
Have you watched Ugly Delicious?
This is kind of that. It's the food we're supposed to turn our noses up at, food of a different era, the dirty little secret of food. It's a casserole with cream of mushroom AND cream of chicken soup, it's not particularly attractive, and it's utterly delicious.
I've made this off and on for the last ten or so years, usually pulling it out for family vacations or special events that call for easy comfort food. Specifically, I froze a batch of this when I was pregnant with both of my kids, and we had it on our first night home (the day they both were born) with each of them. So, to say that this casserole holds some meaning to me is an understatement.
...Oh good, the first Monday after Christmas break and there's a big football game tonight and honestly WHY ARE WE EVEN HERE?
I know it's not this way everywhere, but people around here are pretty dang excited for the National Championship tonight. I don't give a hoot, but Jay and I both went to Clemson and our neighbors are Alabama fans BUT we are adults so they're coming over for Korean beef bowls made with fake beef.
Naturally.
And in case you need some fun-but-healthy food to keep your resolutions in check tonight or for any upcoming snacky events, I give you this: buffalo chicken lettuce wraps, seasoned with ranch flavors, super flavorful and spicy, with minimal-but-necessary butter to keep everything together. I use ground chicken to make things go quickly, so less than 30 minutes to your new favorite bar food!
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Hot buffalo chicken dip with homemade ranch seasoning. One skillet, a few simple ingredients, and TONS of flavor. This gets gobbled up every time we make it! Very delicious with crunchy veggies and pizza dough focaccia for dunking, just throwing that out there.
Look at all the vegetables we're eating this season with our butter and cheese! Balance, you know.
Now that it's December, I'm all about snacky foods, parties, and salads in between to keep things under control. I love all things Buffalo and, while maybe not the fanciest type of food, everyone else usually does too.
Plus also football all the time that never ends, you know. Buffalo + Football = Math.
...The best Thanksgiving alternative, I love just cooking a roasted turkey breast (bone in) for Thanksgiving nostalgia in about half the time. This recipe includes my favorite easy homemade gravy recipe that comes out perfectly every time. Plan for just under an hour for this oven roasted turkey breast recipe.
HAPPY NOVEMBER. How. Is. It. Here.
Since Thanksgiving is just three weeks away (how.is.it.here.), we have to start prepping our menu ASAP! Our plans are pretty up in the air this year due to newborn status (basically, if anyone has so much as a sniffle we aren't going), but our tentative plan is to have a day with Jay's family and a day with mine and the rest of the weekend for rest.
To simplify, I love making a roast turkey breast instead of a whole roast turkey - it's so simple and takes WAY less time than cooking a whole bird. This method is the only one I use and it's totally foolproof: no brining or mess, just simple, delicious roasted turkey that is NEVER dry.
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We are making chips for dinner a thing. Because we survived the hurricane!
Kidding. The rain did zilch here, which of course is a good thing, and it definitely did some huge damage elsewhere. And honestly even if you aren't in hurricane-land chips for dinner just sounds like a perfect idea, right? You know it does, admit it.
Chilaquiles is a generic Mexican dish that varies from region to region and household to household. It mostly involves sauce and fried tortillas. In this case we're using leftover chips, the few handfuls at the bottom of the bag, the leftovers from takeout, you get it. This version is super simple: you can make your own chicken OR use leftovers, and the sauce comes from a can. I love all things verde, but red enchilada sauce would be delicious here as well. The result is a 30-ish minute meal that includes chicken, veggies, and chips, so a well-rounded meal with tons of flavor and precious little effort.
We win Monday!
...Today we are going to be talking about fried chicken. 
Not fried chicken that you have to heat up a vat of oil for, though. Easy weeknight fried chicken that you make right on the stovetop, that doesn't make a huge mess or tons of oil stink, and that is perfectly crispy and delicious every single time. Perfect for a Monday, practically a health food, that sort of thing.
I know fried chicken on a weeknight isn't something we do a ton (it's super rare for us, although I wish it weren't so), but once you have the method down it really doesn't take a ton of extra time or effort, and the results are SO rewarding. This particular chicken cutlet is wonderful on its own with a side dish or two, but is also yummy sliced over a salad or doused with some marinara for a quick chicken-parm type of meal. Or OR! You could put it on a sandwich and that wouldn't be a bad thing at all.
A note on portioning here: Once you pound a chicken breast (which is really a half breast, but the regular cut from the grocery store, boneless and skinless) to a thin thickness and bread it, it can seem pretty huge. If you have big appetites you could certainly make one chicken breast per person, but I find that one chicken breast is more than enough for two servings, especially with other things on the plate. Of course, you can also make ten of these at a time and have leftovers. Make ten for sure.
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I'm on a very annoying and very necessary mission. 
The mission is to reduce waste, and you're joining me today. I HATE food waste. I hate all waste, really, but I also know that it's a part of life (don't even get me started on the unnecessary packaging that is involved in having children), and since I'm not yet ready to go full no-waste (have you seen documentaries about those people? It's inspiring and also seems hard), food waste is really where I focus my efforts, mainly because it's easily avoidable compared to other things. A little bit of thought and creativity can go a long way, and today we're tackling condiments. Specifically, salsa! I was rummaging around the fridge a few weeks ago and realized we had four types of salsa. Some in little ramekins from takeout (you can use that stuff you know...) and a few jars with an inch or two of salsa. Not quite enough to put out for chips and dip, but not bad or old at all.
By the way, expiration dates literally have nothing to do with food going bad or being unsafe, even with meat and dairy. Literally nothing. They are dates used for the producer to "talk" to the grocer and to give the consumer (you) some information about when the food might not be perfect anymore. Imperfect food is not unsafe to eat, and usually doesn't even taste different. This is not my opinion, this is a fact. Food is bad when it has a strange smell, grows mold or something else, or has a physical sign that it is bad. You of course are in charge of when you throw things out, but throwing things out because they have passed an arbitrary date is willful waste, so keep that in mind when doing purges and cleaning out. If nothing else, it's a money saver to not constantly throw away things you purchase.
SO WITH THAT, I had all of this salsa and no plan for it. And I had chicken, and I always have rice. So I made this super duper quick seared chicken, reduced the salsa together into a sauce, and served it over rice in half an hour. I've made this several times since with other salsa, and the fun thing about this is that it tastes different but familiar each time. Salsa usually involves a base of onions and garlic which add tons of flavor without any chopping on your part. I've also chopped up extra onions, peppers, and random veggies (see: no waste!) and simmered them in the sauce, and they turn out delicious as well with zero effort. This is all about use-what-you-have, with delicious results. It feels GREAT to get a few items out of the fridge without throwing them straight in the trash.
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Monday food/gift food/make-ahead food, YES. 
Also tastes like salsa verde that you made yourself so double YES.
Hi! How was your weekend? We had a whirlwind of moving some furniture OUT, which made room for my brain to create new projects for us in the next 17 weeks (omg), and next on the list is paint Beck's new room, secure a toddler bed, and move her next door so we can organize the baby room. I'm not quite sure she understands what's happening with all of that, but there are currently no fewer than 7 pillows on the floor of the empty room so she enjoys the rolling-around-without-getting-in-trouble aspect of the space so far. Also please feel free to educate me on kids room Ikea hacks that are easy and cheap. Like...really easy.
So this dinner. It's the perfect been-working-on-the-house meal because it can be made in advance OR doesn't take long at all to make fresh. I made this last week while Beck napped and it was all I could do to not eat a massive second lunch right on the spot. I took half of this to friends of mine who just had twins, and saved the other half for dinners while Jay has been gone for work. Chicken seared in tons of spices, shredded to absorb sauce. Roasted tomatillos and veggies blended super quickly to make a hugely flavorful sauce without any chopping. Fresh cilantro + lime + garlic, jasmine rice to balance the whole thing.
I kind of had in my mind at first to make this more decadent, like an enchiladas suiza or similar with sour cream or some kind of melty cheese all up in this. That would be DELICIOUS, but the mom that was receiving this is off dairy because one of her babies has a milk allergy (just one of them, weird huh), so I kept this super light and dairy free which I think I loved even more.
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Juicy, crispy, easy fried chicken with buttermilk is the best summertime dish! This is a simple recipe for fried chicken that is totally foolproof and comes out perfectly every time. I love this hot, cold, or at room temperature!
FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY OBVIOUSLY BECAUSE PATRIOTISM.
Gag. About that first phrase, not the chicken. I do very much like Hamilton and the thought of the founding fathers, flawed as they may be, so maybe that's our patriotism for the summer patriotic holidays. You decide!
Either way, summer is so much fun and such a great excuse to have parties, eat picnic/potluck food, and be generally sweaty and tipsy in public in a manner that is completely acceptable.
...I adore this, is what you should know first. Everyone else adores this, is a very close second. 
A million years ago when I started to like cooking but didn't have a huge skillset yet, I watched A LOT of Food Network, which morphed into me watching Rachael Ray nearly daily, which was probably a strange thing to do at age 23 or something. I learned a ton, though, and often mimicked recipes I saw on her and other's shows. This chicken chili was inspired by a talk show, is what you should know.
In the last ten years or so (why. how.), I've made versions of this chili over and over again, to great results and very few leftovers each time. The concept is simple: some kind of peppers that you roast yourself, chicken/garlic/onion, white beans, canned green chiles, stock, done. Sometimes I add lots of different types of peppers, sometimes an extra jalapeno or two. Sometimes I use leftover shredded chicken, sometimes I use ground, sometimes I poach and shred my own and use the poaching liquid instead of stock.
The end result is hugely flavorful each time, and the balance of flavors + nutrition is so satisfying here. Toppings are a must, as with any Mexican-inspired dish, and this should probably definitely be included in your weekend - this weekend if it's cold, or in two weeks for Cinco de Mayo! OR OR OR you make a double batch now and freeze half for Cinco. Meal prep.
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Braised chicken thighs with leeks in lemon garlic butter sauce, that is. Hello, favorite skillet chicken recipes!
Here's your new favorite quick dinner method!
If you aren't already making something like this all the time, obviously. I see easy recipes for chicken thighs all the time, and for good reason: they're somewhat more affordable than chicken breasts, they have tons of flavor, and the possibilities for cooking them are just endless.
I have on occasion found boneless, skin-ON chicken thighs, and that to me is the mother lode of all chicken cuts, hands down. This is mainly because we still eat dinner every single night on the couch (because Beck goes down before we eat, we're only rotting OUR brains, don't worry) and chicken bones are tough to navigate with one hand.
This method for cooking chicken thighs is so foolproof I can't even waste too much time talking about it. The key is to be patient with searing the chicken skin so most of the fat renders out and the skin gets super crispy. Then we cook leeks and whole garlic cloves in the chicken drippings, add the chicken BACK in with some chicken stock and lemon, roast the whole thing, and done. Couldn't be easier, and the leek + lemon garlic butter sauce combo is just unreal.
...Over/under on another version of chicken parm that doesn't involve tons of frying and ingredients and steps? I'm WAY over on this one, and think we should have a variation of any kind of parmesan meal every single week, but what do I know? Welcome to the best one skillet quick and easy chicken parmesan recipe you'll find.
I know that everyone likes chicken parmesan, that's what I know. This version was a quick dinner solution last week, and we gobbled it up. It's healthier than most chicken parmesan recipes but doesn't sacrifice anything in terms of flavor, and it's super quick because it's all created in one cast iron skillet. We build a tomato sauce right around seared chicken cubes, then bake the whole thing with cheese and a few breadcrumbs just for a few minutes to melt the cheese and cook the chicken all the way through.
I will say this is definitely not the prettiest thing I've ever made, but the flavors more than make up for it. Tangy tomatoes, tender chicken, creamy cheese, crispy topping: like I said, I'm way over.
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