National Fried Chicken Day - Recipes & Reviews

As far as I'm concerned, every day is Fried Chicken Day!
I know Fried Chicken, so keep on reading for all my recipes and eatery reviews on this auspicious day, today. And click on any highlighted recipe name to see my original blog post for the recipe with all the yummy photos and delish recipe text. Mark July 6th on your calendar and my recipes in your internet bookmark folder.

Let's cut to the chase, here's my recipe for Fried Chicken. The recipe is for boneless dark meat, that goes into a sandwich. And you can use my seasoned flour coating mix for whole chicken pieces, too. So check it out:



Yum, that is a tasty Fried Chicken Sandwich, you should soon try.

Not every purveyor of poultry hits it out of the ballpark. World famous Top Chef Ludo Lefebvre stepped into the food truck trend with his Ludo Truck. I tried it a few years ago and was disappointed. Maybe he has tweaked the recipe since then. If he has I would give it another try.

Well, see for yourself below, and if you try it sometime let me know what you think.



If you want Fried Chicken done right, go no further and Popeye's and KFC.

I turned my neighbor, Nuno, on to Popeye's Fried Chicken one Tuesday - when they have a 2 piece special. I like it spicy. In my video below, Nuno and I try it out in my backyard patio.



Los Angeles has a slew of soul food-style Fried Chicken joints. One is favored by rappers, actors, football and basketball players, who come from all over, to visit Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles in Hollywood. I can recommend it too. I shot the place for one of my arty Restaurant Nocturne subjects. It is just too good of a place not to include in any top fried poultry listing in town. You get a feel for the place as the  maître d' describes his fave meal.



When I want a quick fix, I hit up KFC's drive thru for a Fried Chicken Snacker that's so good it can cause a freeway pileup. Well, watch my cautionary Public Service Announcement video to see what I mean!



My local favorite is Dinah's Family Restaurant. The chicken is lightly breaded and so juicy.

It comes with a side of macaroni salad or coleslaw, and a boring dinner roll. It's a simple and humble meal I always enjoy.

Mmmm...Fried Chicken Tenders. Click here to see my recipe. Your kiddies will like them served at their next neighborhood birthday party!

My Chicken Parmesan recipe is built around a breaded and fried chicken fillet. I don't pound the hell out of my fillet, as most recipes recommend - it can dry out too easily. But, pound away if you are a purist.

I'll leave you with a sour taste in my mouth, Trump Orange Chicken. I don't get political very often, but our Troll-in-Chief is just too good of a target to pass up. This sickly sweet recipe has a fat fried nugget covered in an orange (fake tan) sauce, just like the President!

Bon Appétit !

National Fried Chicken Day - Recipes & Reviews

As far as I'm concerned, every day is Fried Chicken Day!
I know Fried Chicken, so keep on reading for all my recipes and eatery reviews on this auspicious day, today. And click on any highlighted recipe name to see my original blogpost for the recipe with all the yummy photos and delish recipe text. Mark July 6th on your calendar and my recipes in your internet bookmark folder.

Let's cut to the chase, here's my recipe for Fried Chicken. The recipe is for boneless dark meat, that goes into a sandwich. And you can use my seasoned flour coating mix for whole chicken pieces, too. So check it out:



Yum, that is a tasty Fried Chicken Sandwich, you should soon try.

Not every purveyor of poultry hits it out of the ballpark. World famous Top Chef Ludo Lefebvre stepped into the food truck trend with his Ludo Truck. I tried it a few years ago and was disappointed. Maybe he has tweaked the recipe since then. If he has I would give it another try.

Well, see for yourself below, and if you try it sometime let me know what you think.



If you want Fried Chicken done right, go no further and Popeye's and KFC.

I turned my neighbor, Nuno, on to Popeye's Fried Chicken one Tuesday - when they have a 2 piece special. I like it spicy. In my video below, Nuno and I try it out in my backyard patio.



Los Angeles has a slew of soul food-style Fried Chicken joints. One is favored by rappers, actors, football and basketball players, who come from all over, to visit Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles in Hollywood. I can recommend it too. I shot the place for one of my arty Restaurant Nocturne subjects. It is just too good of a place not to include in any top fried poultry listing in town. You get a feel for the place as the  maître d' describes his fave meal.



When I want a quick fix, I hit up KFC's drive thru for a Fried Chicken Snacker that's so good it can cause a freeway pileup. Well, watch my cautionary Public Service Announcement video to see what I mean!



My local favorite is Dinah's Family Restaurant. The chicken is lightly breaded and so juicy.

It comes with a side of macaroni salad or coleslaw, and a boring dinner roll. It's a simple and humble meal I always enjoy.

Mmmm...Fried Chicken Tenders. Click here to see my recipe. Your kiddies will like them served at their next neighborhood birthday party!

My Chicken Parmesan recipe is built around a breaded and fried chicken fillet. I don't pound the hell out of my fillet, as most recipes recommend - it can dry out too easily. But, pound away if you are a purist.

I'll leave you with a sour taste in my mouth, Trump Orange Chicken. I don't get political very often, but our Troll-in-Chief is just too good of a target to pass up. This sickly sweet recipe has a fat fried nugget covered in an orange (fake tan) sauce, just like the President!

Bon Appétit !

National Sandwich Day - Recipes

It's National Sandwich Day every November 3rd. Well, in the cheapskate chateau, it's Sandwich Day any time of the year - and you've come to the right place to get your fill! So read on and click on any recipe name that meets your fancy, and get the goods right here.

Egg Salad Sandwich

John Montagu, the Earl of Sandwich, is the namesake and is thought to have been one of the first to put some cooked meat between slices of bread while on a gambling binge. I guess they didn't have pizza delivery in England during the 1600s. It started simple, evolving to decadent.

The winter holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas are right around the corner, so bookmark my Ultimate Turkey Sandwich recipe to use up the dinner table leftovers. It's a versatile recipe, so make it your way. I like sliced turkey, stuffing, gravy, and cranberry sauce. What makes this holiday hoagie over the top is the addition of a sauteed slice of crunchy turkey skin - I like to use the whole bird, so don't let your dinner guest leave it on the plate. Check out my recipe video below and click on the name above for all the tasty directions.



Jews know how to make a sandwich, and here in LA, the temple to the open-face is served at Cantor's and Langer's Delicatessens.

Now, the sandwiches are expensive there, but they are so stacked with corned beef, brisket, turkey, tongue, etc. that you can easily get two meals out of one sandwich. But if you have been following my blog posts then you may have seen my cheap$kate recipes for Homemade Corned Beef and Pastrami Sandwiches.

Corned Beef Sandwich

I always buy a few on-sale packages to freeze corned beef during St. Patrick's Day - yep, my recipes are a mashup of Jewish and Irish cultures, so get out your green yarmulke and get to cookin'.

They are not that difficult to make, and if you are on a budget, then do it my way. I take a shortcut and start with already corned beef from the grocery store. For corned beef, you boil the beef brisket until fork-tender, then slice it up. Pastrami is the same, but with a short smoking stage. 

In my Homemade Pastrami recipe video below, I show you how to make corned beef from scratch, but if you can find an already corned beef then go right to the boiling and smoking stage.



For my vegetarian visitors, my sister Denise makes a mean veggie burger made with eggplant. Just watch the video below than also includes a shopping spree in my local 99c only Store for all the ingredients that make up an Eggplant Burger.



For my next sandwich it all in the family, that is my nephew Chef Matt rustles up a Cajun specialty, an Alligator Po'boy.  I suspect not many of you will make this, but the recipe can easily be adjusted by substituting alligator with shrimp or oysters. It is the most outrageous sandwich of the group, and worth a viewing - just for the uniqueness of the bayou reptile ingredient.



A Patty Melt is the most decadent of sandwiches. There is no nutritious lettuce and tomato, just butter, caramelized onions and a slab of fried ground meat. But I do make a less fatty version using ground turkey instead of ground beef.

 Patty Melt Sandwich

You can visit my blog post or just watch the video below to get all the tasty details.



A BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich is one of my favs - it's what we served for our wedding day. I get whole pork shoulder for less than 99 cents per pound at my local Latin market, too! If you have an ethnic market in your neighborhood, do check it out for interesting food ingredients, often cheaper than you can get at a regular market.

Pulled Pork just needs a simple dry rub made with inexpensive dried spices like: cumin, chili powder, paprika, garlic powder, and sweet brown sugar.

A typical Southern Pulled Pork Sandwich is dressed with sliced raw onion, sour pickles, and BBQ sauce. Just check out my recipe video below to see how I do it.



I make Cuban Sandwiches with tender slices of pork from a citrus-marinated slow-roasted pork shoulder, too. The sandwich is uniquely constructed of Cuban roast pork, ham, Swiss Cheese, pickle slices and smeared with mustard, and all between a sliced browned bread roll.

Cuban Roast Pork

Cuban Sandwich

You have to break a few eggs for the next sammies: a simple Egg Salad and Fried Egg Sandwich, plus a Homemade Egg McMuffin.

Egg Sandwich

My Homemade Egg McMuffin recipe will save you trips to McDonalds, and you can slice the ham as thick as you like, plus go ahead and add an extra slice of cheese.

I'll end this blog post with live music and picnic sandwiches. My wife and I caught a great free concert by songbird Aimee Mann in a seaside park at Marina del Rey. I brought along Finger Sandwiches made with Cucumber & Cream Cheese, Salami with Dijon Mustard, and Ham with Butter.

We set out a blanket, opened a bottle of vino, and ate our sandwiches while Amiee Mann serenaded the picnickers. Just check out the video below to join our picnic.



So click on any recipe name above if you have the appetite for one of my delish and cheap$kate sandwiches.

Top 9 Recipes of 2014

Living high on the hog  was dirt cheap this year and here are my Top 9 Recipes of 2014 to prove it! While there were fewer recipes to choose from, my picks this year are still top shelf. (I took off the summer from posting food recipes, and instead posted a video series on my enlightening and entertaining Indian Summer Vacation.) And click on any recipe name to see what I'm talking about.

To start with I made an earthy Vegetarian Mushroom Soup using crimini, white button and portabella mushrooms, that I purchashed from my local 99c only Store. I also bought pungent veggie broth and some cheap white wine to simmer the fungus in. I brought some to my workplace for my vegetarian friends and they raved about it.

I've been making Old School Hash Browns for breakfast all year long. I like to pair them with 2 sunny side up eggs, so the warm yoke soaks and flavors the crisp and tender sauteed potatoes - it's a perfect combination. Some hash browns are chunky; I like mine grated with some added onion, and grilled until a hard crisp shell is formed, but the center is still moist. You definitely want to try my recipe out - it's so simple but so delicious.

Probably some of my craziest recipes are from my Sushi Video Series. Yup, you read right, raw fish. Of course I couldn't have done it without being friends with my neighbor Don the fisherman. Most summers he goes off the coast of Baja, Mexico and brings back slabs of yellowtail and bluefin tuna, that he hands out for free!

Now, I know this is a cheat for cheap$kate ingredients. But I made an exception and went ahead and did a sushi recipe series anyway. If you make friends with a fisherman then you're in luck. But, I have a few inexpensive shortcuts you can use.

It's funny how persnickety and intimidating sushi chefs are. Chat a bit with one and they are really pleasant. As for making sushi, it's not that hard, if you just roll with it. I give you easy GIFs and illustrated photos to get you through the hard parts - believe me it's not that hard to do, and don't worry if the end result is not perfect - it will still taste good. Start with a hand roll, that's easiest to do.

Also, I did include a few cheap$kate ingredients anyone can get, like krab. You definitely want to try out my California Roll that's made with avocado, cucumber and krab (it's fake crab, but I think it's an inexpensive and tasty substitution over the real thing.)



My favorite 2 sushi recipes from the video series are: Spicy Tuna Hand Roll and a California Roll.



My wife picked up some ceramic ramekins this year so I had to make use of them. What I came up with is a luscious Baked Eggs Florentine. So good, just spinach in a cream sauce with a fresh broken egg on top. It's a handsome dish that's made to impress, but still simple to make.

And I close out with the final three recipes using cheap chicken. My wife loves Trader Joe's Curried White Chicken Deli Salad with cashews and raisins, and so do I. Trader Joe's is a great local market here in Los Angeles. They make a lot of prepared food to take home. There curried chicken salad is exceptional, so much so that they run out of it by the time I get off work, so that's why I made my ripoff (I mean homage) recipe. It's wife approved, so I know you will like it too.

Chicken Caccaitore is a one pot meal, easy on the pocketbook and tasty, just the way I like it. Serve it with a little pasta or rice.

And this year I tried my hand at Fried Chicken. Almost everyone has their own favorite recipe, well here's mine. And if you are a newbie at it, then start with this recipe. I made a Fried Chicken Sandwich recipe video that's easy to follow. I use boneless and skinless chicken, but you can use any whole chicken pieces you find on sale. I also throw in a cheap$kate Homemade Buttermilk recipe.



Roasted Chicken with Peaches & Herbs is a great combination - one of my favorite recipes of the year. It's sweet with caramelized fruit and succulent roast chicken, and the herbs take it all to another level. Plus it's another one-pot meal that is so easy to assemble. Just check out my recipe video below to see how it's done.



Well that's it. I had a delicious year of cooking and I hope you did too, especially if you've tried any of my Top 9 Recipes of 2014.