http://www.shortcutchef.com Quick recipes, shortcut solutions, and creative meal ideas for when time and money are at a premium Tue, 23 Feb 2010 03:11:02 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en CONFESSION: I was afraid of making my own stocks for a long time. It was tedious, quite frankly, and I'm all about the shortcuts, right? Well, who knew that spending a little time to make the stocks could be an awesome shortcut? When I made my Shrimp Scampi a couple weeks ... http://www.shortcutchef.com/archives/367 Recently I spotted a new addition to the always interesting ethnic foods section at our local Woodmans. Something South African's bagged sauces caught my attention immediately and I knew I had to try them. I started with the Durban curry, and I'm so glad I did. Earlier in the week I ... http://www.shortcutchef.com/archives/364 The Food4Less near our house has the most amazing seafood section. Almost every time we go they have piles of great seafood that's marked for half-price, and it's always excellent. With our FoodSaver we can stock up! These enormous shrimp were so cheap it was amazing they were still fresh and ... http://www.shortcutchef.com/archives/361 This actually wasn't the plan when I picked up some pork cubed steaks from the discount meat bin, but when I started poking around for recipe ideas for cubed steak I felt silly for never considering it! Also, it's ridiculous how easy this was to make. So easy that I'm ... http://www.shortcutchef.com/archives/357 Bravado? Maybe a bit, but it's true. My meatloaf, even when not in MEATCAKE! form, is the stuff of legend. Back when I made the MEATCAKE! I promised a recipe but failed to deliver. Today I give you my secret (modified from Mark Bittman's recipe in How To Cook Everything). ... http://www.shortcutchef.com/archives/348 Italian restaurants and I have a tricky relationship. It's because I make REALLY good Italian food. I'm better at some cuisines than others, but Italian is easily the one I understand the most completely. Because of this I find a lot of Americanized Italian food bland, often salty, and usually ... http://www.shortcutchef.com/archives/345 CONFESSION: I love cookbooks. Like LOVE cookbooks, even though I rarely use the recipes as described. I like browsing through for fun, getting ideas, learning new techniques I can apply elsewhere. Sure, I use the internet to find recipes on occasion, but my first stop is almost always my shelf ... http://www.shortcutchef.com/archives/351 Perhaps my most successful experimentation ever, this meal was born from the need for something very quick and I had a few off ingredients that I needed to get rid of, and I sort of made this up as I went along. One of my favorite meals that my grandfather ... http://www.shortcutchef.com/archives/340 Admittedly I was skeptical about trying this recipe, but it sounded so, so good. We picked up some smoked salmon for a steal from the discount meat bin at Woodman's and I found the recipe when I was searching for ways to work smoked salmon in with pasta. My shortcut? Vodka ... http://www.shortcutchef.com/archives/338 CONFESSION: My secret to my chili isn't shortcut at all. In fact, it's a gigantic pain, but it makes it so much better. I grind my own very lean meat. From there it's hard to say. My chili's never really the same twice, though I follow the same steps. Brown the ... http://www.shortcutchef.com/archives/331