This recipe isn’t entirely cheap or healthy, but it is a nice treat, and it’s still a better deal than dropping money on a meal at a restaurant. Oh, and it’s really, really, really good.

We’re basically going to make a casserole with frozen hash browns. Here goes!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 Cup Margarine, melted
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 Cup chopped onion
• 1 can cream of chicken OR cream of celery soup
• 1 pint sour cream (2 Cups, or about 16 ounces)
• 2 Cups cheddar cheese, grated
• 2 lb. frozen hash browns, thawed.

The Process

1. If you haven’t already, defrost the hash browns. They need to be completely thawed.
   
2. Chop the onion.
   
3. Combine all ingredients except the hash browns in a large mixing bowl (cheese, soup, sour cream, salt, pepper, margarine, etc.)
   
   
   
4. Once everything is thoroughly mixed, add the hash browns, and mix them as well.
   
5. Spread the mixture in a 9″x13″ casserole dish.
   
6. Cook at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 minutes.
7. Remove from oven, and serve!

This recipe yields about 8-12 delicious servings. Like we said it isn’t incredibly healthy, what with all the oils and fats in it, but it is absolutely awesome (like, make you want to slap your grandma kind of awesome), and it’s still cheaper than taking the family out for dinner at a restaurant. Go easy on seconds, and you should have leftovers for another meal or two.

Related posts:

1. How to Easily Make Any Enchilada Recipe You Want
2. Easy Chicken Hash
3. For the Grillmaster: Potato-Stuffed Bell Peppers

The other day we wrote about the different ways you can prepare potatoes. Here’s another easy one you can throw together in about an hour: Chicken hash.

Ingredients

• 4-6 potatoes, washed and chopped (realistically, use as many as you want/have)
• 1-2 Cups chopped onion (as much or as little as you like)
• 1 Cup chopped green bell pepper
• One chicken breast, chopped OR One package of tofu, cubed (for vegetarian hash)
• Olive oil
• Garlic, Salt, Pepper, and any other desired seasonings to taste.

The Process

1. Wash and chop all ingredients.
   
2. Heat olive oil over medium high on stove top.
3. Saute ingredients in hot oil. Season with salt, pepper, and garlic. Optionally, you can add some lemon juice and any other desired seasonings (e.g. cumin, red pepper flakes, turmeric, basil, oregano, etc.)
   
4. Continue to cook, stirring regularly, until chicken is thoroughly cooked and potatoes are soft when stabbed with a fork.
5. Serve!

Bonus Tofu Hash Recipe: If you want a good, healthy vegetarian hash (pictured above), just substitute cubed tofu for chicken. The tofu will provide good texture without taking away from the taste.

Altogether, it takes about an hour from the time you put the first potato under running water to the time you sit down to eat, but most of that time is spent waiting for the potatoes to cook. It’s very similar to the stir fry recipe we feature on the site. When you get down to it, the hardest part of this recipe is fighting the temptation to go back for seconds.

Related posts:

1. Sauteed BBQ Chicken and Baked Potatoes
2. Easy Recipe: Chicken Quesadillas
3. Sinful Potatoes

Baked

It doesn’t get much simpler than baked potatoes. You can bake them in the microwave or the oven. It’s up to you.

For instructions on baking potatoes, click here.

Mashed

Mashed potatoes are a childhood favorite. Hot mashed potatoes drizzled with melted butter and a sprinkling of salt and pepper are absolutely awesome! They’re also not hard to make, and taste a lot better than the instant-potato mix they sell in boxes at the grocery store.

For instructions on mashing potatoes, click here.

Fried

Fried potatoes are where it’s at, if you ask me. Personally, I like to deep fry potato spears in a pan of 375 degree oil on the stove top (be careful, if you go this route; oil is HOT), but oven-fried are much better for you, as a rule.

To see how to oven-fry potatoes, just click here.

Bonus

Ever tried baking a potato, mashing it, stuffing that mashed potato into a bell pepper, and then throwing it down on the grill? No? Well, we have, and it’s awesome.

Check out our potato-stuffed bell pepper recipe right here.

While you’re at it, check out a few of our sweet potato recipes here.

Related posts:

1. For the Grillmaster: Potato-Stuffed Bell Peppers
2. In Honor of St. Patrick: The Twice Baked Potato
3. Sweet Potato Enchiladas Recipe

These yeast rolls are based on a recipe I found that was promoted as an imitation of Texas Roadhouse’s yeast rolls. I don’t believe that this recipe and theirs are really the same, but these yeast rolls are definitely delicious and only take about an hour to make.

Ingredients

• 1 – 1 1/3 Cups Water
• 2 Tablespoons melted butter
• 1 Large Egg
• 3 1/2 Cups Flour
• 1/4 Cups of Sugar
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• 3 teaspoons Yeast

The Process

1. Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl.
   
2. Add water and butter, and knead with a spoon.
   
3. Divide the dough into balls, and place on a well greased 9″x13″ pan.
4. Allow to rise for 30 minutes.
5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
6. After the rolls have risen, brush with honey butter (recipe below).
   
7. Bake in oven for 20 – 30 minutes, until the tops of the rolls are brown.
8. Immediately upon removing the rolls from the oven, spread more honey butter on them.
   
9. After the rolls have cooled for a few minutes, serve rolls with additional honey butter on the side!

An hour may seem like a lot of time to spend on bread, but trust me: These rolls are amazing!

Honey Butter Recipe

Mix equal parts honey and softened butter or margarine. For example, 1/2 Cup softened butter and 1/2 honey.

Related posts:

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2. In Honor of St. Patrick: Irish Soda Bread
3. Baked Peaches

If you know everything I’m about to tell you, that is.

Grilled cheese is a great sandwich. However, I think it gets mistreated most of the time. At best, it seems grilled cheese is just a pre-packaged, single slice of American cheese sandwiched between two slices of bread and fried on a skillet. It never realizes its full potential. But that’s okay, because I’m going to show you how to make a decent grilled cheese sandwich that your whole family will enjoy.

Use Good Cheese
Ditch the American cheese. It tastes like paste. Instead, get a block of cheddar cheese and a knife. Peel off slices of cheese about 1/16″ – 1/8″ of an inch thick. You can layer as many slices of cheese on each sandwich as you want, but this is the most crucial part of making a good grilled cheese sandwich.

Consider Condiments
A lot of grilled cheese recipes call for three ingredients: Cheese, bread, and butter. Why not add some spicy mustard (my favorite)? Or some mayonnaise? You can even throw some sliced onion or pickle relish on that sandwich. There’s no rule that says grilled cheese can’t have anything else on it, so don’t feel like you don’t have any other options.

Make it in the Microwave
Think I’m crazy? They call it grilled cheese for a reason, don’t they? Well, you can make it in the microwave.

The first step is to toast the slices of bread. Grilling the sandwich toasts the bread, but since we’re using the microwave, we need to toast the bread first. Next, layer your toasted sandwich bread with condiments and cheese. Finally, put it in the microwave on High for about 15-25 seconds. Around the 25 second mark, my cheese usually turns completely molten, and runs out of my sandwich, so be careful.

All in all, microwave grilled cheese sandwiches take only a fraction of the time that traditional grilled cheese sandwiches do, and they taste every bit as good.

Or Go the Traditional Route
If you don’t feel like making grilled cheese in the microwave, then do this: Spread butter on the sandwich bread you’re going to use. Then layer your cheese and condiments on the sandwich bread, with the buttered sides of the bread facing out.

Finally, throw the sandwich down on a hot griddle that has been previously greased with butter, and let it grill for a few minutes. After a while, flip the sandwich over with a spatula, and let the other side grill for a few minutes.

When you’re done, the bread should be toasty and the cheese should be melted.

A lot of people don’t like grilled cheese sandwiches because the sandwiches are often dry or boring (or grilling them takes too long). Following these few little pointers will let you put together a very cheap, simple sandwich that tastes great. Enjoy!

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I can almost guarantee that this is going to be the tastiest, juiciest chicken you’ve ever eaten–and it’s so easy to make that it’s practically foolproof. Beer can chicken is something you can make without beer. It’s just that beer is typically what a lot of folks use.

It’s an awesome barbecue chicken recipe where the chicken is barbecued whole on the grill, with an open can of beer or some other soft drink inside the chicken, providing moisture and flavor to the chicken as it cooks.

Here’s how to barbecue up some beer can chicken before summer ends.

Preparing the Chicken (Brine)

First, you’ll need a whole chicken. Whole chicken is actually pretty cheap, when you consider how much meat you’re getting.

Next, toss it in a brine to soak over night. Brine, as we’ve said before, tenderizes the meat and brings out more delicious flavor in each bite.

For me, I use a mixture of water, vinegar, salt, and brown sugar (or Dr. Pepper, in this case). You don’t have to measure these ingredients very precisely; you need enough water to cover the chicken, and maybe a 3 or 4 Tablespoons of vinegar. I would suggest another 2 or 3 Tablespoons of salt, for this much chicken, and a quarter-cup of packed brown sugar or a can of Dr. Pepper (or whatever your soft drink of preference is).

Put an ice pack in the the cooler full of brine to keep it all cool, and let it soak overnight.

Cooking the Chicken

We’re going to barbecue this chicken over a good old fashioned bed of charcoal in a Weber kettle grill. So when you’re ready to cook the chicken, be sure to allow yourself plenty of time to get your coals started.

I use a charcoal chimney to speed up the process. Just fill the chimney with charcoal, stuff some newspaper underneath, and light it up! The charcoal is usually ready in about 20-30 minutes, but I don’t use lighter fluid; if you do use lighter fluid, be sure the briquettes are all completely white before you use them for cooking; otherwise, the lighter fluid will taint the flavor of your chicken.

Next, pull the chicken out of the brine, and rinse it under running water, and pat it dry with paper towels. Be sure to remove the neck or package of giblets from the inside of the chicken, if your chicken includes these items (mine did not).

We’re going to apply a dry rub to the chicken. I use a Memphis style rub. A “rub” is basically a mixture of spices (salt, pepper, garlic, paprika, etc.) that is hand-rubbed onto whatever meat is being barbecued. A good rub locks moisture into the meat while imparting flavor and giving the meat a good, smoky crust.

I would suggest mixing together 2 Tablespoons of paprika with 1 Tablespoon of salt, 1 Tablespoon of onion powder, and 2 teaspoons of black pepper in a saucer or small bowl. This is the rub we’re going to apply to our beer can chicken.

Your chicken should look red with spices when you’re done applying the rub to it. Be generous with the seasonings, and be sure you get every inch of the chicken covered.

Now for the fun part! Open up a can of Dr. Pepper (or beer, if you’re using actual beer for your beer can chicken), and drink about 1/4 – 1/2 of it. Punch a couple more holes in the top of the can with a sharp knife, and carefully wedge it into the cavity of the chicken.

Put a drip pan in the bottom of the grill, and fill it with water (I added Dr. Pepper to mine); the drip pan will catch drippings from the chicken while providing a lot of moisture inside the grill, ensuring our chicken will not dry out.

The chicken has a can of Dr. Pepper inside it. Using the chicken’s legs and the can, create a little “tripod” that will hold the body of the chicken upright.

The chicken is cooked using a barbecuing method known as indirect cooking. Indirect cooking means the meat is not directly over the heat source; the heat source is situated to the sides. This allows the chicken to cook more evenly.

Throw a few hickory chips on the charcoal, if you want a smoky flavor (I did), and cover the grill.

The chicken will take about a little over an hour to cook–about 75 – 90 minutes. Cook the chicken until it has an internal temperature of about 180 degrees Fahrenheit (use an instant-read meat thermometer).

You’ll probably have to add some more coals to the grill after about 45 minutes to an hour of cooking, so be prepared to do that.

When the chicken is done cooking, pull it off the grill; carefully remove the drink can from the inside of the chicken (keep in mind it’s full of extremely hot liquid), and let the chicken rest, covered in aluminum foil, for about 15-30-minutes.

Carve and Serve

Carve the chicken by removing the thighs from the rest of the body; sever the thighs from the legs at the joint on the chicken leg.

Next, remove the wings.

Now we’re going to carve the chicken breasts. Drive your knife directly into the center of the chicken breast until you hit the breastbone. Slide the knife to the side, along the breastbone, removing one half of the breast from the carcass. Remove the other half of the breast the same way.

Finally, slice each chicken breast into four or five pieces–whatever size you’re comfortable serving–and pile all the meat on a platter.

One chicken barbecued this way ought to yield about 6-8 servings. Serve it up with your favorite cole slaw and barbecue sauce on the side, and enjoy!

Concluding Thoughts

• Poultry has a tendency to dry out. The drip pan and can of Dr. Pepper or beer are intended to prevent this. Follow the directions above, and you’re sure to have a juicy chicken right at your fingertips.
• This recipe is almost foolproof, provided you follow these basic steps: Don’t use glass or plastic beer bottles. They will melt or break. Use metal cans. Don’t put an unopened can inside the chicken. It will explode. Open the can, remove some of the liquid from it, and punch a few holes in the top of the can. This allows vapors from the can to escape and coat the inside of the chicken. Don’t cook the chicken too quickly. Keep the grill temperature somewhere in the 325-350 degree range. If it’s too hot, the outside of the chicken will become tough and the chicken could dry out.

This recipe is a great way for barbecue novices to cut their teeth making some serious barbecue, and it’s guaranteed to get a good reaction from your friends. If you’re looking for one last summertime bash with your friends or family, be sure to make this chicken your main course.

Related posts:

1. Sauteed BBQ Chicken and Baked Potatoes
2. Homemade Root Beer Experiment Part 1: The Concept
3. The Value of the Brine

That’s right: Turkey breakfast sausage. Turkey sausage is a little cheaper than pork sausage, and it should be healthier. The only real trade off is that the texture isn’t quite the same, but it tastes so good I bet you’ll hardly notice.

At its heart, sausage is just ground meat that has been seasoned. You can cure it with salts and smoke, but for a simple recipe that will speed up your mornings during the week, consider cooking up a pound or two of sausage, and just reheating a couple of leftover sausages in the microwave each morning before you head out to work.

Ingredients

• 1 lb. ground turkey or pork ~ $2.50
• 1 teaspoon dried sage
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon dried marjoram
• A pinch of salt
• Butter (to grease the frying pan)

The Process

1. In a large bowl, combine ground turkey (or pork) with seasonings.
2. Pat out the seasoned meat into 6-8 small patties. Try not to make them more than a half-inch thick.
3. Grill the sausage patties on a greased pan or griddle over medium high heat for about 5 minutes on each side, or until the sausage patties are cooked all the way through.
4. Serve.

This recipe does not make a particularly hot or spicy sausage. If your idea of sausage involves it setting your throat on fire as you eat it, add some crushed red pepper flakes to the spices you use in seasoning the meat.

These sausages are great leftover. Just heat them up in the microwave for a few seconds, and voila! Instant sausage that tastes great. Cooked sausage will keep in the refrigerator for about a week, but I’m pretty sure you’ll eat them before then.

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