lazymanfood.com - recipes, gadget reviews and tips for lazy men (women too)

Thoughts Mike | 05 Aug 2007

what is man food?

So I noticed that a lot of the people that find this site are searching on google for man food. This website comes up on the second page of google results for man food. When I was creating this site, I was focused on the “Lazy Man” portion of Lazymanfood. I was trying to create a site geared towards lazy men. But actually, when I think about it, the “Man Food” part is pretty appealing too.

What is man food exactly? It’s hard to pin it down exactly, but certain foods definitely come to mind when we hear the words “man food.” We usually think of foods like burgers and corn dogs, or foods like stews and chili. Barbecue also comes to mind when we think of man food. What true man doesn’t salivate when he thinks of barbecued ribs with tangy barbecue sauce or perfectly grilled steaks seasoned with the perfect dry rub? Or what about a nice hearty bowl of stew? They all sound really good.

Tips Mike | 08 Jul 2007

lazy man pro grill tips

Man, it’s been a while since I’ve written up anything for the site. I have been really busy lately, and by that I mean I’ve been really lazy lately.

I hope everyone had a great fourth of July– I had a great time just grilling and chilling. Over the years I have barbecued so many times, that I’ve learned a few tricks to make things turn out well every time. Here’s a few that will hopefully make you look like a grilling pro to all your friends…

You look like an idiot if you can’t light the grill on the first try… So here’s a little trick to get them lit perfectly every time. Buy one small bag of match light charcoals, then a bag of regular charcoals and lighter fluid. Before anyone shows up, lay some of the match light charcoals down in your grill. Then when your friends show up, make a big show of putting in the charcoals and the lighter fluid. Let them soak up for a few minutes then light em up. The match light ones on the bottom should hold the flame really well and help the regular charcoals stay lit. Of course if you were truly a lazy man, you’d have a gas grill which you can light perfectly every time by pressing a button or turning a knob…
You’ll look like a grilling pro if you can cook ribs with meat that falls off the bone every time. To do this, you can cheat and prepare a day ahead of time. You can either do this in the oven or in a pot on the stove. I usually use the pot. I buy a 40 ounce of the cheapest beer I can find, then toss it into a big stock pot, along with about 2 bottles full of water (or enough so that your ribs will be just barely covered). Add salt, pepper, minced garlic, and half an onion if you have it. Boil the water then add the ribs to the pot, and simmer for at least an hour. Toss it in the fridge. On the day of your barbecue, toss them on the grill and coat them with barbecue sauce. You don’t really need to cook them long. All you are looking for is the ribs to be heated through, the ribs to gain some smoky flavor, and the sauce to be a little bit browned.
Try to learn to flip your burgers only once. First of all, it’s less work that way… second of all, I think they come out less dry that way. The way I do it is I wait until the blood shows up, wait about 7 seconds, then flip.
In general, chicken is difficult to cook on a charcoal grill. Drumsticks are especially hard because the skin burns easily and they’re thick and irregularly shaped. Instead of drumsticks, boneless skinless thighs are much easier to cook, and taste just as good. And I find that most people peel the skin off anyways. If you use a good marinade, they come out really great, and cook quickly since they’re relatively thin.
If you’re into kabobs, invest in some flat kabob skewers. They make life easier because the food doesn’t rotate on them, so it’s easier to flip them and make sure the food cooks evenly. If you’re really really into kabobs, they might even save you money in the long run since they’re reusable.
A great side dish to grill is pineapples. They’re a nice sweet compliment to all the salty meat, plus they’re really really easy to prepare. Pop open a can of pineapple rings, then toss em on the grill. They look great with the grill marks, and taste great with chicken or pork. Use the juice for mixing into drinks or marinades. (see below for a great easy marinade using the juice).
When you’re all done at the end of your barbecue, toss the ice and water from your cooler onto the grill along… you need to empty the cooler anyways, might as well use it to extinguish the coals.

That’s all I can think of for now. I hope everyone can use these tips for a great summer barbecue. I’ll finish off with a really simple marinade. I like to use it with boneless chicken thighs, I think it has a great combination of sweet, savory and tangy that goes great with chicken.

what you will need:

a bottle of teriyaki sauce
a can of pineapple rings
a bottle of minced garlic, or fresh garlic if you’re unlazy
some kind of meat
a freezer bag

what do do with this stuff:

Toss some teriyaki sauce in a freezer bag– use a little bit less than what you need for marinading the meat you have.
Pour some of the juice from the can of pineapples into the teriyaki sauce, I use about half as much pineapple juice as teriyaki sauce, but you can experiment to find out how much is right for you.
Add a tablespoon of minced garlic to the bag.
Toss in the meat.
Close the bag, then shake it around until all the meat is coated well. Put the bag in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, preferably overnight.

Deals Mike | 04 May 2007

amazon.com groceries manager’s specials

If you haven’t checked out the amazon.com grocery store, now is a good time. They have a manager’s specials section where everything is at least 50% off, and almost all of them are eligible for free shipping. What could be lazier than having your groceries delivered to your door, while actually being cheaper than heading to the local supermarket?

Link to Amazon groceries manager’s specials
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Recipes Mike | 13 Apr 2007

“pesto” chicken

Today I’m going to write about a simple chicken recipe that goes well with the white pasta we had the other day. Pesto chicken sounds fancy and hard to make, but our lazy man version, with fake “pesto” makes it much easier.

The main ingredients of a classic pesto are basil, garlic, olive oil and pine nuts. It was traditionally ground together into a paste using a mortar and pestle. That sounds like a lot of work. On tv, most chefs use a food processor. Since I don’t have a food processor, we’re going to cheat and use some dried pesto. While it doesn’t make a nice creamy pesto sauce that goes well on pasta, it works well for flavoring chicken.

Our secret ingredient today is freeze dried basil. I’ve found that dry basil also works, but freeze dried basil works a little better because it almost becomes like fresh pesto when the olive oil hits it.

The tools we need are:

A bowl for mixing.
A spoon.
A frying pan.
A cookie sheet or oven safe plate lined w/ foil (for easy cleanup).
Clean hands.

The ingredients:

Freeze dried basil.
Minced garlic.
Grated parmesan cheese.
Olive oil.
Salt and pepper.
Chicken thighs with skin on.

The procedure:

First, add some freeze dried basil to the bowl, followed by the parmesan cheese and garlic. The ratio doesn’t matter that much, just whatever you feel will taste good. I usually add about a third or fourth as much garlic and cheese as I do basil. Add salt and pepper to taste. Then add just enough olive oil to hydrate the basil. Mix well. If it feels a little dry still, you can add a little more oil. But if you add too much oil, it gets a little too runny for this recipe.

Here comes the messy part. With our “pesto” finished, we need to stuff this good stuff into our chicken. Make a little pocket by peeling away some of the skin in the middle, then stuff a spoonful of our pesto in there. It looks something like this:

Then slather a bit of the sauce on the outside of the chicken. When we have all our chicken thighs ready, preheat the oven to about 350. Put a little olive oil into the frying pan, and heat it to high. Brown the outside of the chicken thighs and set them onto the cookie sheet or oven safe plate. By now it should smell incredible. Bake the chicken on high until it’s cooked through, by my count it’s about 35 minutes. In the end it should look something like this:

Enjoy!

Deals Mike | 12 Apr 2007

Best of Barbecue Tool Set

Amazon.com is currently having a sale on Steven Raichlen’s best of Barbecue Tool set. This set comes with everything you need for your next barbecue, including grill brush, tongs, spatula and six skewers. The retail price is an insane $59.95, but at $14.99 it’s much more reasonable. It’s almost worth it just for the skewers.

Recipes Mike | 11 Apr 2007

chicken cream pasta

We’ll start the recipe section with one that got me through college. I used to eat this pretty often in college, because it’s easy to make and easy to clean up afterwards, but still somewhat healthy. The beauty of this recipe comes from the fact that the only things you need to clean up are the pot and the fork you use to cook and eat. Rachel Ray calls these recipes one pot wonders, but this one goes one step further because you don’t even have a cutting board or knife to clean up.

The tools you need:

A pot
A fork

The essential ingredients are:

Your favorite pasta- I use rotini cause it tends to hold sauce better.
Cream of ____ soup. Your favorite cream soup, I usually use cream of mushroom because I like the flavor.
Canned chicken breast.
Your favorite frozen vegetable– In this case I used chopped broccoli. Chopped spinach or corn works well too.

Optional ingredients– If you have these on hand, it will make the sauce taste better.

Minced or granulated garlic- I love garlic, I always have this on hand and always add it to everything.
Your favorite herbs- I use italian seasoning.
A bit of milk. If you like a thinner sauce, you can use milk or water to thin it a bit.
A pat of butter– makes for a creamier tasting sauce.

The directions

First things first, you need to cook the pasta. Basically follow the directions on the box, except shorten the cook time by about a minute or minute and half– we want the pasta a little undercooked, because we will finish cooking it with the sauce.

Then we need to drain the pasta while keeping it in the pot. Using your fork to hold back the pasta, tip the pot to drain out the water. If you lose a few that’s cool, you can feed your garbage disposal.

Then, return the pot to the stove and toss in the rest of the ingredients. You’ll want to drain the chicken can before you add it, you can use the same method that we used to drain the pasta. Heat on low - medium, stirring every once in a while to prevent the pasta at the bottom from burning. Cook until your vegetables are cooked through. Voila! You’re done. That wasn’t too bad right? If you’re lazy like me, you’ll eat it right out of the pot.

Thoughts Mike | 31 Mar 2007

a little thought

Often when I watch a cooking show, I’m amazed by how much a little bit of oil or a little bit of butter is. Maybe it’s because I’m asian, and everything’s a little smaller in Asia (insert dirty joke here), but a little bit of butter on a cooking show looks like a huge glob to me. That’s probably why I can’t make stuff like Alfredo sauce well– the fat content matters a lot in those creamy white sauces.

On the other hand, I’m amazed by how small a “good amount” of garlic is. When cooking shows say to use a good amount of garlic, it looks like a tiny amount to me. A good amount of cooking show garlic seems like a tablespoon, I usually use at least 3 times that much.

It’s amazing how different eastern and western cooking differs. I’ll try to put recipes inspired by both eastern and western styles, but I’ll leave it to the reader to decide how much a “little bit of butter” or a “good amount of garlic is.”
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Thoughts Mike | 29 Mar 2007

fresh vs frozen vs canned

This is an interesting article about fresh food vs frozen or canned food.
True or false: Fresh Food Is Better Than Frozen or Canned Food

For the lazy, here’s the gist of the article.

The general consensus is that fresh fruits and vegetables are more nutritious than frozen or canned produce. However it seems that it’s not always the case. Since fresh food travels far to get to you whereas canned and frozen foods are processed immediately, the nutritional value may be higher for canned or frozen food. And the canning or freezing process leaves nutritional value intact for the most part.

So what does this mean for us lazy men?
We don’t need to go to the supermarket every other day to buy fresh vegetables and fruits. We can stock up on canned or frozen foods every once in a while, so that we always have what we need in our pantry or freezer. As an added bonus, frozen or canned vegetables are often cheaper than fresh.
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About Mike | 29 Mar 2007

about lazymanfood.com

Welcome to lazymanfood.com. I first thought of doing a site like this during my junior year of college. It’s now almost five years later and I’m finally starting to work on it.

The Lazy Man Food Philosophy

Food does not have to take a long time or take a lot of work to be decent.
Real men use tools to make life simpler.
Cooking should not need fancy knife skills or expensive cookware.
We can be lazy and still eat healthy.

What you will find on Lazymanfood.com

simple recipes
reviews for kitchen gadgets that make your life easier.
tips to make your cooking a little lazier
general thoughts on food

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