The Recipes

This page contains a whole bunch of recipes. Most of them are just my own personal recipes; a few are borrowed from someone else. Where I've been able to I've added metric measurements for the convenience of those who might not be comfortable with American measurments. If you're looking for recipes from the TV show, they're actually on a separate page or my recipe blog, though I may link them here as well.

The recipes are broken down roughly as they would be in any other cookbook -- appetizers, side dishes, sandwiches, main courses, and so on. The selection is rather light on vegetarian-suitable dishes -- I'm a confirmed carnivore and not likely to give it up any time soon, but I intend to be a decent veggie cook some day :-)

• Appetizers

  • My first sushi -- I made sushi. Pictures to come, eventually.

• Sauces

  • Brian's Marinara Sauce -- I've been making this stuff for years. As good as any you'll find in a jar.
  • All-Day Tomato Sauce -- My own try at making that hybrid spaghetti sauce/pot roast called Sunday Gravy that simmers away on Italian-American stoves. Not an everyday thing, but great for making lasagna or baked ziti if you can't think of any other reason for making it.

• Main Courses and/or Side Dishes

  • Meat-based

    • Arroz con Pollo -- My own version of a recipe that seems to pop up everywhere Spanish is spoken. This has a touch of a Catalan accent.
    • Barbecue Chili -- Super Bowl Sunday in my house featured a twist on the traditional chili. In line with the old tradition of "secret ingredients", I've replaced the usual hamburger with Texas barbecue brisket...
    • Chicken Fran�ois -- named for my dad, this is just a little something I whipped up for him after a recent stay in the hospital.
    • Cinco de Mayo Spaghetti -- I was trying to come up with something appropriate to Cinco de Mayo. It didn't come out even remotely Mexican but it was still worth writing up.
    • Cinnamon Chicken -- I invented this one night to test out a frying pan. Chicken over spaghetti with a cinnamon-and-butter-tinged pomodoro sauce -- very nice.
    • Fajitas, Fast -- Just what it says. When you want fajitas but don't have time to cook, this recipe will get you a pretty good meal pretty damn quick. Bring napkins.
    • Guinness Stew -- Beef Stew with Guinness. For those who don't dig the corned beef and cabbage thing on St. Patrick's Day.
    • Franco-Asian Pork Chops -- A grill glaze that can't quite decide where it came from.
    • Kofta My Way -- The Italians didn't invent the meatball. If you've ever wanted something different to do with ground meat, this is it.
    • Lemon-Pepper Chicken -- twenty things you can do with one chicken breast recipe.
    • Nikujaga -- a slightly Americanized version of the Japanese take on meat and potatoes. Home-cooking, to the point that recipes are ironically hard to come by.
    • Pan-seared Steak -- The steak half of the French classic Steak Frites.
    • Pollo al Ajillo -- A very simple and very tasty chicken and garlic dish from Spain.
    • Pot Roast Snowbound Style -- Pot roast. Not Yankee pot roast, and mostly done on the stovetop, but still pretty damn good.
    • Ragu Bolognese -- Not your father's American Chop Suey. (with optional lamb goodness)
    • "Just Eat It" Ramen Soup -- East-meets-west clean-out-the-cabinet ramen soup.
    • Roast Beef -- Simple, basic roast beef. Very tasty, and the technique applies to anything that doesn't need to be braised.
    • Salmon Pie -- A New England classic with a little different main ingredient...
    • Sausage Joe -- A sausage-based variation on the San Francisco Joe's Special breakfast scramble.
    • Scacchi -- An Italian Jewish matzo lasagna thing.
    • Spark Gap Spaghetti Sauce -- A zingy Louisiana-accented meat sauce for spaghetti. Named for my newly acquired ham radio license.
    • Steak in a Guinness Sauce -- A little different sort of steak in a pan sauce.
    • Turkey Pot Pie -- This is absolutely the last word in Thanksgiving leftovers. Trust me.

  • Fish-Based

    • Sole à la Meuniere -- Straight out of Escoffier, with a little help from (ahem) Alton Brown.
    • Linguine with Mushroom Tonnato Sauce -- or, when the going gets tough, the tough cook Italian. The sauce is vaguely puttanesca-lite, without the capers or olives, and if you've got the ingredients around it's a good clean-out-the-cabinet dinner.

  • Meat-agnostic

    • Baked Ziti -- If you live in New England, this is party food. You don't even have to be Italian.
    • Bruschetta, Bruschetta, Bruschetta -- What bruschetta really is, and a variation from Catalunya.
    • Fettucine Alfredo in 40 words or less -- You know it, you love it.
    • Garlic and Oil Spaghetti -- Sick and tired of regular old spaghetti and meatballs? Your Italian nonna might actually like this...
    • Linguine Pomodoro -- More basic red. You can make it any time of year, but if it's late summer and all your Roma tomatoes are turning red at once...
    • Minestrone Soup -- Better than out of a can, that's for certain.
    • Spaghetti Squash the right way -- Spaghetti squash is a popular novelty vegetable, but I can't think of a good reason to drown it in tomato sauce. This is a better way, a very New England way IMHO :-)
    • Hash Browns -- you don't necessarily need to precook. These are based on IHOP's hashbrowns, with a nod to the Swiss roesti.
    • Spinach alla Giudea -- My own interpretation of an Italian Jewish way of making vegetables.
    • Roasted Red Potatoes #41 and a secret recipe from corporate America...

• Breakfast

  • Neither French nor Toast; Discuss -- Basically stir-fried French Toast. It's a little hard to explain, but it's very good. Bring chopsticks.
  • Jonnycakes and Fried Dough -- When pancakes and eggs get old, try these -- the old school cornmeal cakes that go back to the Native American days and a much better version of the fairground classic that's been in my family at least four generations.
  • Quick Belgian Waffles -- Just, you know, waffles.

• Breads, etc.

  • Chicago Deep Dish Pizza -- As close to Chicago as you can get without going there.
  • Molasses Rye bread -- Derived, oddly enough, from a Weight Watchers recipe, this is a medium-dark rye bread that comes out great in a bread machine.
  • Rye and Indian Bread or Thirded Bread -- An old New England bread, similar to brown bread but baked instead of steamed. Not common anymore; this is my attempt to make it easier to find.

• Desserts

  • Almond Biscotti -- An actual Italian-American once told me these were better than her own mother's. That's got to be saying something.
  • Key Lime Cheesecake -- Actually from Todd Wilbur's Top Secret Recipes books -- it's a clone of a Cheesecake Factory recipe.