Popcorn Chicken Parmisean/Mozzarella/TexMex
- Bake popcorn chicken at 425° for 36 mins
- Place in large pot and Liberally sprinkle shredded cheese
- Pour in a bunch of marinara and mix thoroughly so the cheese is disperse
- Enjoy! Goes down great with some ice cold Schweppes or Canada Dry ginger ale
If you can find it, Rao’s Marinara is bomb.
Instant polenta* with chicken and store-bought tomato sauce. “Recipe”:
- Cube some chicken and season it with salt, paprika, red peppers, black pepper. Brown it in a pot. Then add the store-bought tomato sauce, and let it boil.
- In the meantime, cook some instant polenta in another pot, with either water+salt or chicken broth.
- Serve the polenta topped with the chicken in sauce, garnished with loads of Parmesan.
That’s it.
*Dunno the English name; in Portuguese we call it “polentina”. It takes 15min to cook, while actual polenta takes way longer.
Cut potatoes into 4-8 pieces each without peeling them.
Add carrots, also cut into big chunks.
Boil them in a pot of salted water.
Drain the water.
Add some butter or olive oil, salt, grated cheese, and hot sauce.I always forget you can literally just cut potatoes in half without lifing a finger to otherwise cook them besides that!
Buldak (for saucy) or Indome (for dry) instant noodles. Add a fried egg and sprinkle furikake. Bonus if there’s leftover protein from yesterday that I can add.
What are those (budak vs Indome)?
They are both instant “ramen” noodles.
What array of easy sauces are in your arsenal?
Ohh that’s a good question. My standard lineup is soy sauce, mirin, sesame oil, fish sauce, and knorr seasoning. You can basically cook up a variety of dishes by mixing and matching those sauces.
Baked potato wedges
- Slice potatoes into 8ths, 12ths or 16ths (depending on the size of the potato.)
- In a large bowl, combine some olive oil with paprika, garlic powder and salt (or whatever spice mix pleases you.)
- Rub the oil + spice mixture onto each wedge and arrange them on a baking tray.
- Bake at 450° for 20 minutes, flip them, then bake at 450° for another 15 minutes.
If done right, they’ll be crispy on the outside, moist and fluffy on the inside, and they’re excellent finger food. Total prep time is about 10 minutes (plus baking time, obviously.)
I’ve got a lot of easy comfort dishes, but I’ll stick with the popcorn chicken theme. I like to make homemade “KFC Famous Bowl”. There’s multiple simultaneous steps but they’re basically just bringing to a boil and/or stirring.
Prepare
- Air fry some Beyond popcorn chicken
- Mix up a batch of instant mashed potatoes
- Heat up a can of corn
- Mix up a packet of brown gravy
Serve
- Put a scoop of mashed potatoes in a serving bowl
- Add a layer of the gravy
- Add a layer of shredded cheese
- Add one or two spoonfuls of corn
- Top with the pop corn chicken
It’s not strictly vegetarian, but neither am I.
