WELCOME TO MARINATE ON IT!
This site features a diverse collection of recipes for side and full meal-style dishes that I made either for the first time or simply worked on perfecting and made tweaks to during the days of quarantine in 2020. They are inspired by recipes from other cookbooks, as well as slightly tweaked recipes pulled from other websites or food blogs that I wanted to emulate, and even just things I thought of on the spot, (“hey! I kinda sorta maybe think this would work well…let’s try it!”).
In other words, I am by no means the inventor of the majority of dishes contained herein, but if you want to think that way and further inflate my ego, by all means I will take any compliments given! A main differentiator is that often times, when following a recipe, I make little adjustments here or there – maybe swap out some ingredients or make variations on certain sauces/spices/seasonings, or even just change up size or quantity of certain items based on how many or who I am cooking for. I’m honestly not a huge fan of painstakingly following a recipe with exact ingredients and measurements or methods outlined. Essentially, I am all about eye balling a recipe but then giving it my own flair.
To me, half the fun of cooking that I’ve learned over the last year is simply experimenting! That said, I would encourage anyone to look at the recipes in here and by ALL means, run with it in your own way. Just because I made a dish where chicken was the star, I can almost guarantee it would be just as good – maybe even better – if it was made with beef, pork or another protein!
Lastly, because it’s me, you can expect occasional posts about anything from hospitality to 90s movies to travel to cocktails to history to random pop culture references to tips on bars & restaurants in DC or anywhere else I travel to…whenever that may be…deal with it.
P.S.: Generally, any dish featured here should be able to satisfy 2 – 4 people but can of course be enjoyed solo, either with leftovers (more good food already made for later), or just simply buy and use less of the ingredients!
P.S.S.: All pictures contained herein were taken by yours truly and sans any filters or touch ups. Meaning, in theory, your dish could very well end up looking EXACTLY like mine as opposed to trying to recreate a beautifully shot and edited dish in a professional cookbook. No photoshop tricks here!