I'm not a cook either, but I do have one good trick for grilling steaks: marinade them in a tupperware container or something that contains 1 entire bottle of italian dressing plus 2 or 3 tablespoons of hot sauce. Poke holes in the meat with a fork before leaving them to soak. Letting 'em marinade overnight works best, but I've left them as long as four days (when packing for a camping trip) and they came out fine, and also as short as four or five hours, which gave a weaker flavor but was still nice.

(variation to your theme)

chicken with rosemary potatoes.
1 chicken, in bits and pieces that you fancy.
potatoes, cut and peeled. or not peeled. but cleaned, please.
salt-pepper-rosemary everything
add oil (bonus points if you add olive oil)
add enough water to half-cover the potatoes
stick in the oven/ovenette/or wherever you make your rosemary sweet potatoes and cook for 1-1.5hrs at 400-450 or until chicken and potatoes are cooked (whatever this means to you!)
towards the end of cooking add a whole lemon (squeezed)

enjoy!

Have a look through here, sam. Metachat really needs to revive its cooking blog.

The best-easiest thing I make is rosemary-garlic chicken.

1) Roast some garlic:
- Cut the top off a head of garlic, such that most of the pods are exposed.
- Sprinkle some salt on top
- Sprinkle some oil on top (I use olive) just enough to cover the top
- wrap not too tightly in tinfoil, and punch some steam-holes in the top
- roast at about 350 for an hour or so

2) Butter a piece of really fresh French or Italian bread, squeeze out a couple of the roast cloves of garlic, spread and eat. This has nothing to do with the chicken recipe, BUT IS A NECESSARY STEP

3) Get some good sized skin-on, bone in chicken breasts. Cut slits in to the chicken against the grain of the meat, right down to the bone, the slits should be about an inch apart.

4) Stuff a clove or two of roast garlic in to each slit

5) Sprinkle top of chicken with dried rosemary (yes, dried, if you want to use fresh, stuff it in there with the garlic), then massage some oil on top (again, I use olive)

6) Roast on a tray at 375 to 400 until done. How long it takes will depend on your oven, how many you're doing, the size of the breasts, the current value of the Yuan, and some other factors. I buy almost comically big ones from the local chi-chi grocery store and they take about 40 minutes. You can use the 'juices run clear' test or ideally a meat thermometer.

7) About 5 minutes before they're done, turn the oven to grill and crank up the heat to put a nice finish on them.

Oops, in step 5, you should also salt the skin to your preference. Kosher salt is best for this.

I made this over the weekend. It's one of those comfort food things. Please do not mock it.

1 lb. cooked chicken breast (poached, baked, precooked from the store, doesn't matter)

1 box Stove Top stuffing, cooked per package directions.

1 lb. pork sausage, cooked and crumbled. I like spicy, but to each their own.

1 box wild rice mix, prepared per package directions.

1 can cream of mushroom soup.

Mix all ingredients together. Bake until thoroughly heated through, about 30 minutes at 350. Cheese on top is optional.

It's odd, but I like it.

In contrast to BP, I want nothing but salt on my (medium rare prime grade ribeye) steak.

If you want to get really fancy: take a lump of butter and mash it up with some finely chopped herbs (parsley and chives are nice, or tarragon alone), then wrap the thing up in plastic wrap and leave it in the fridge while you grill the steak. As soon as you pull the steak off the grill, take a quarter-sized chunk of the butter and stick it on top of the steak to melt while the steak cools a bit. Fancy!

Corn on the cob on the grill is really delicious. There are lots of ways to make it; this is what I do.

I husk the corn totally, and slather it with butter, salt, pepper, chopped fresh herbs (dill and chives and parsley are nice) and Old Bay seasoning, and grill it till it's a bit charry looking. It's really pretty, and a great party food.

Another grill essential that we do a lot of is charred bread. Focaccia, I think it's called. It couldn't be easier, and it has such a great aroma and presentation. You just slice italian or french bread diagonally, and, uh....put it on the grill. Until it gets black hash marks on it. You serve it with hummus or guacamole or baba ghanooj or bruschetta or whatever kind or dip or spread or pate that you like. We never put anything on the bread before grilling, but I guess you could add butter or oil and spices if you liked.

Sirloin Tips
Marinate 1 hour in
3 Tbs soy sauce,
1 Tb dark brown sugar,
3 Tbs barbecue sauce.
1 Tb cider vinegar
Add hot sauce, or ginger or garlic or herbs to vary the marinade.
Grill

An easy salad for a hot day:

Pint of cherry tomatoes: pinch each one to break them open, squirting juice into bowl. (wear goggles, apron and wrap your kitchen in foil in advance.)

1/2 pint nice olives (don't use canned): smash each with the bottom of a glass, remove pit and add to bowl of tomatoes and juice.

Add a few glugs of olive oil, a glug of white wine vinegar (herbed is nice), a small handful of oregano (2T?), salt and pepper to taste.

Rest for half an hour.

Chop a couple of generous handfuls of fresh basil and mozzarella slices (if you want to be fancy use bocaccini, the little balls).

Serves four.

You can do the same thing with chicken as BP did with steak: marinate in any salad dressing (or even salsa!). Cook up a bunch of breasts and freeze into single servings. Thawed they can top a salad (green, pasta, etc.), be wrapped into a tortilla (taco, burrito, etc.), eaten as is with side dishes of your chosing. They're quite flexible and having them pre-cooked cuts down on total meal prep time.

+Satay ($meat)

Slice meat*
Rub w/ satay mixture (you can buy these at Asian markets)
Oil baking pan
Grill in oven (500'F) in 2nd to highest rack for ~10 minutes, flip, grill for another ~10
Optionally serve with peanut sauce

Very easy to make, very yummy, will disappear quickly.

You can also skewer them and grill on a barbeque.

*for chicken, deboned thighs are good and inexpensive - after you've 'unrolled' the meat from around the bone, pound on it a little bit with the back of a largish knife or with a mallet

+Cauliflower au gratin

Parboil (boil water, add some salt, dump cauliflower spears in, cook until ~75% of desired softness)
Melt ~1-2 tbsp butter in saucepan on medium
Slowly add in white flour while stirring until you get something the desired texture of playdough
Continue kneeding it in the saucepan on medium/low heat until it starts to brown and it starts smelling really good
Slowly (slowly!) pour in ~ 1/2 to 3/4 cup of homogenized milk or cream while stirring, you should end up with a slightly thickened sauce
Add in ~1 cup of cheese*, increase heat to medium and continue stirring until cheese melts
Throw parboiled cauliflower spears into a baking/cassarole dish
Drizzle the cheese sauce evenly over cauliflower
Top with grated cheese
Grill in oven (in a medium height rack) until the cheese starts browning

Very filling. Consumes a *lot* of cheese.

*if you freeze cheese, when you defrost it it'll come out crumbly - saves you the time to grate it

+Porpoise's Ginger Beef

Get some flank steak (or another tenderish cut, but I prefer flank steak for the texture)
Kinda-freeze it so that it's half frozen
Cut thin julien strips cross grain
Marinate with some sesame oil, white pepper, (a little!) dark soy sauce
Grate ginger on either a ginger grater or something designed to make lemon rind curls (or with another fine-grained grater)
Drain the ginger juice into the sliced steak and mix
Mix milk and cornstarch until you have something the consistency of melted (frozen) malt beverage
Mix in grated ginger
Batter marinated steak strips and deep-fat-fry until golden brown, set aside on paper towel or rack to de-oil-ify. This will render the batter crunchy.
Ok, now, mix a couple of tbsp honey with soy sauce and add water until it's the consistency of... uh, grenadine. You can optionally add chopped garlic.
Mix tapioca starch in a minimum of water. Heat the honey-soy-sauce mixture on medium heat, slowly add the tapioca mixture and stir until you get a 'ginger beef' sauce-consistency.
Optionally - throw in some dried/fresh chili peppers (dried - crumble, fresh, cut into slices first)
Heat a large saucepan/wok, add a little oil, toss in beef, pour the sauce over beef and toss.
Optionally - garnish with carved carrot sculptures and parsley/cilantro.
Optionally - sprinkle pan-roasted sesame seeds on top.
Optionally, toss in browned grilled spears of red bell pepper.
Serve immediately.

Heck, I'm waiting in line to use the laminar flow hood.

+Omlettes

Beat eggs, add white pepper and salt - set aside
Prepare meat/vegetables*, brown
Add oil to skillet, pour in eggs evenly. When 3/4 way done, throw in meat/vegetables to one half
Roll the other half over. When the bottom half is 'done', shake the skillet to flip the omlette.

*go wild - salami, ham, bacon, chicken, turkey, anything - just brown it first to enhance the flavour

+Universal Fried Rice recipe

I'll impart two secrets to you.

Use overnight rice (ie., rice that has been in the fridge overnight).
Brown meat/vegetables* until cooked.
Oil saucepan, on medium-high heat, add rice, break up until the individual grains are free from each other.
Beat an egg, add white pepper and salt.
While stirring the rice, drizzle the egg and mix until each grain of rice is coated with an even layer of egg.
Throw in meat/vegetables.
While stirring, you can drizzle light soy sauce over the rice or salt if you want it to be light-coloured.

The reason overnight rice is used is because it's a little bit dehydrated. However, it's a little too dehydrated, hence the egg to re-hydrate it just enough.

*when I was in Iowa and chinese BBQ pork and fresh shrimp &c were unavailable, cooked preserved chinese sausage and cubed salami were crowd favourites. For vegetables, go nuts - cubed bell peppers, carrots, purple onions, carrots, &c. When $ was tight, ground beef, chopped onions, and frozen corn/peas was a staple for me.

+Simple Chinese soup

Chicken stock (from cans or cartons) - bring to boil.
Throw in shitake mushrooms, baby bak choy (cut the bottom off so the individual leaves are free), enoki mushrooms (break up so each bundle is ~1cm diameter). Keep on light boil until vegetables are cooked.
Optionally, marinate lean pork in salt and white pepper overnight, cut into strips, cook in the boiling chicken stock.

+Stuffed chicken breasts

Cut a pocket in a large chicken breast, try to keep the hole small, but carve out as big of a pocket as you can.
Stuff with sliced mushrooms, cold butter (easier to handle), and optionally, grated cheese.
Roll the breast in a beaten egg, cover with breadcrumbs.
Fry on skillet until cooked.

- ok, there's a free hood so that's it from me.

Porpoise, those all sound great... except the cauliflower bit. Cauliflower is nature's styrofoam.

deborah, the chicken breasts in salsa sound GOOD! MMM! Now I wish I'd read this early enough to try it for dinner... :)

bonehead's salad sounds nice, too, except I'm usually averse to raw tomatoes.

I do grilled bread, too, but brush garlic olive oil (olive oil that's heated on very low with a shwack of garlic for about 1/2 hour) on it first. Mmmm...

Also, my mum's 'OMG I'm tired but want something nice for dinner' clam pasta:

Finely chop a shwack of garlic (seeing a theme here?)
Heat butter & olive oil in a skillet on med heat (say, about 1 tbsp of ea, depending on your taste)
saute garlic
add 1 can of clams per person, with some of the liquid
add some white wine if you've got it
let it simmer & reduce on med-low while the pasta's cooking
put water on, make pasta
while pasta drains, add chopped parsley and maybe some chives to the clams
serve.

BoringPostcards - hence the cheese. While some people call oils/fats the the 'gold of taste,' I refer to (good) cheese as the philosopher's stone. The 'foam' part of cauliflower is good at soaking up cheese and cheese carried in butter-fried flour re-dissolved in creamy milk.

otoh, I accidentally had some tempura-fried brocolli. Mind you, I don't mind brocolli - but it soaked up the batter in the bushy area but this was too dense to lose it's water to the oil during frying. Ick. It was like an uncooked dough lolipop on a vegetable stick.

Oh, riiiight. I forgot - for the cauliflower thing - fry up some thick sliced (the thicker the better, a chunk of bacon that you can cut yourself is even better - barring bacon, other salted pork products are good, too) bacon to about 80% (not crunchy, but just about going to get crunchy) - cut and mix into the cheese sauce before applying to the plain parboiled cauliflower spears. If you think that your immortal or just don't really care, incorporate a little of the bacon grease into the sauce or substitute butter with bacon grease (it's a little bit harder to get a good roux with bacon grease than butter, though).

grumble... you're

Grill: Aii Caramba, I love grilled fish tacos! No recipe required, I think?

Also, whenever you grill, stick a couple of big sweet red peppers on there too, then, when the skin is charred, put them in a paper bag, close it, and let them "sweat". After a while take them out, and the blackened skin will peel off easily. Cut into strips and drizzle a little olive oil on them or mix with other veggies, or use in pasta (like pasta with chicken and broccoli, for example). OMG! Red peppers this way are orgasmic. You will become a red pepper fetishist, yes you will. (You can also use the oven for this, though not quite as good.)

My Sunday-afternoon, fabulously delicious, yet curiously easy roasted chicken secret is the pan. I use a glass "boat" oven dish (just imagine the simplest possible line-drawing representation of a boat. It's shaped like that) that a large chicken will fit into fairly snugly. (The chicken will probably be a bit higher than the pan edges). Drizzle olive oil over the chicken, then sprinkle it with salt, pepper, powdered garlic, and paprika.

Cram it in the oven and let it cook for a couple of hours. I don't do anything else: I don't turn it, I don't baste it, I don't touch it... and it always turns out incredible. The boat pan makes an amazing difference.