What do you do when you have a packet of sweet italian sausage in the fridge and you have to do something with it? You fry it up!
And luckily you have some onions and peppers hanging around so you cook those up too.
And then you  make yourself some delicious sausage sandwiches. But then you realize that when you were in Denver you had Biker Jim’s and he used cream cheese as a requisite condiment, so you use the cream cheese that’s in your fridge too. And it becomes an even more glorious sausage sandwich.

I whipped up this super easy and tasty bourbon chicken dish after finding a random recipe online. I checked out the ingredients, I had most of them on hand, so I decided to try it out!
Here are the ingredients for this. As you can see, most of these things are standard items that nearly everyone should have on hand. The only things I had to pick up were apple juice and fresh ginger. And I cheated by using minced garlic.

Ingredients:
3 large chicken breasts
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1/4 tsp ginger
3/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 cup apple juice
1/3 cup brown sugar (I used light, but you could use whatever)
2 Tbsp ketchup
1 Tbsp cider vinegar
1/4 -1/2 cup water
1/3 cup soy sauce
This dish is super easy to cook. First, get your rice cooking, so will be done and hot when the chicken is done. Cut up the chicken into bite sized bits. Heat oil, add chicken, and cook until mostly cooked through. Remove chicken to a separate bowl. Add remaining ingredients in a large skillet one by one, heating over medium heat, until everything is heated through and dissolved. See how beautiful the sauce is? I think you can actually add some bourbon to the sauce if you want. I did not. Add the chicken back in and bring to a hard boil. Reduce heat and simmer for an additional 20 minutes. Serve over hot rice. I used a mix of brown and white rice. See how easy that is? It’s good too.

The only things that bothered me was that there was no veggies at all. But since you’re simmering this for 20 minutes, you really can’t add normal veggies, because they will get all overcooked and soggy and turn mushy. This probably calls for water chestnuts or something along those lines. But since I don’t like water chestnuts, I’m not sure what I would end up adding. But it definitely needs some veg. Also, the sauce isn’t thick or glaze like, and it ends up being quite liquidy. It would be nice if it was more of a thick sauce, so perhaps add some corn starch mixture? I’ll have to experiment more next time.

Anyone living on the east coast knows how damn hot it has been this summer. And when it’s this hot, I don’t ever want to cook, let alone cook anything warm. But you know, a girl’s gotta eat. So on one of these scorching days, I whipped up the easiest cold soba dish known to man. So here’s how easy it is. You cook some soba noodles, per the directions. After draining, rinse them well with cold water, and add a few ice cubes to help them cool down right away. If you have a cucumber, julienne that up and toss that in with the noodles. Then it’s sauce time.

Ok, so I cheated. I didn’t even make the sauce. I used some existing packets of sauce that come with mul naengmyun. Here’s the thing. If you go to a korean market and buy frozen mul naengmyun kits, they come with the naengmyun noodles, packets of the cold broth, and also packets of spicy dressing. I buy these kits strictly to make the mul naengmyun, so I only use the broth packets. So I had all these spicy dressing packets left over and didn’t really know what to do with them, but kept them in the freezer. So I just decided to use those. And you know what? It was amazing. It’s a teeny bit on the spicy side, but it works perfectly with the soba noodles. The dressing is spicy, sweet, and a little bit savory. I told you this was easy! All I had to do was boil some noodles and cut some cucumbers. Seriously. And then I had to cut the spicy packet open. Even I am capable of performing these rudimentary tasks.

This is a total hot day lazyman dish, and I love it. Why slave in a hot kitchen? These are the brand of soba noodles I used. They claim to be No. 1 in Japan. But if you look at the packet, they’re made in Australia. It would surprise me that an Australian made noodle would be tops in Japan, but I guess I have to believe the package! But I really like these. And they are a bit on the pricier side, but hey, it’s organic, and you don’t want to skimp on soba noodles!