🥘 The Konik Method for Making Delicious Food

Five recipes I cook pretty regularly, that don’t stress me out, that are reasonably healthy and maximally efficient. Also, tasty!

Most months, I share neat stuff I read the previous month, write a lengthy review of a nonfiction book I learned from, do a deep dive on something I found interesting, and try to teach folks about one solid aspect of how I get things done without going nuts. It’s a nice rotation. Popular posts along these lines are the Konik Method for Making Analog Notes, the inaugural August edition of the linksposts, my review of Tiny Experiments by Anne-Laure Le Cunff, and my article about the tension between excellence and egalitarianism in human societies.

But you may have noticed that April has five weeks, and that means I give myself permission to do something a little unusual. I’m gonna talk about cooking.

Now to be clear, I am what I could call a competent cook. I have friends who are amazing cooks and that’s not my thing. It’s not my favorite hobby, and my husband has what he calls “the refined palate of a raccoon” which is to say he’ll eat basically anything without complaint. I also have two kids who vary in their pickiness levels (moooooom why does it have GREEN STUFF this week?) although I do my best not to indulge the whining (if you really aren’t willing to try it, you can have a sandwich for dessert… somehow we’ve only had to resort to alternates like twice). But I do care about putting a homemade meal on the table most nights, and I prefer it to taste good without costing me too much effort.

If you have ever looked at recipes posted online I am sure you have seen a line like that before. I find that recipe posts come in two varieties:

• “It’s easy, I swear! Just buy these seventeen obscure things that of course I, a cooking influencer, keep in my pantry, and then follow these eighty-two discrete steps to cook something in one pot, and we’ll ignore the fact that you now need to clean every measuring cup and bowl you own.”

• “It’s homemade, I swear! Just mix a can of mushroom soup with a packet of ranch mix and top it with jarred bacon bits and pour it over a rotisserie chicken!”

I am deliberately ignoring the class of instagram recipe that consists of buying vegetables or bread type things and then changing their shape in a way that is either wasteful or requires you to pre-commit to a very specific chain of things like cutting bread into dinosaurs and then making croutons or french toast casserole from the remnants. If that’s your thing, more power to you, but I’m a simple soul, willing to take shortcuts but preferring control over my simple, sensible process.

So here are 5 recipes I cook pretty regularly, that don’t stress me out, that are reasonably healthy and maximally efficient… in approximate order of difficulty: (1) flexible no-knead dough (2) sheet pan meat + veg (3) burgers in the air fryer (4) instant pot sausage & rice (5) dutch oven chicken & rice.

Flexible No-Knead Dough

I know a ton of people got into baking fancy bread during the pandemic as a hobby, but the main thing I learned is the opposite of what everybody on the internet seems to say, which is: bread is incredibly difficult to screw up. I’m not sure that I’ve ever baked bad bread except once or twice when I undercooked because I was trying too hard to follow a recipe precisely. The main thing is to recognize that even if the bread does not come out the way you intended it, it will almost definitely still taste good.

Let me give an example, in the form of what ostensibly started out as a focaccia bread recipe.

1. Combine 2 cups of hot tap water, 2 teaspoons of salt, and 2 teaspoons of yeast. Make sure the yeast bubbles. If it doesn’t you may have killed it, use hot tap water not boiling bottled water!

2. Pour into 4 cups of bread flour. Mix, either by hand or with a stand mixer, until combined.

3. Cover and put into the fridge for 12-36 hours.

4. Preheat the oven to 425F

5. Line a big round dutch oven with parchment paper, plop the dough into it.

6. Top with stuff. I like merlot bellavitano cheese chunks and sliced grapes. Some people prefer crumbled bacon and fried onions. Cracked salt and rosemary is probably traditional. Do whatever.

7. Bake for 30 minutes.

But with a few simple variations, you can turn it into pizza:

4. Preheat the oven to 550F, put pizza stone into oven.

5. Roll out a half portion of dough onto a piece of parchment paper; pinch the edges. Freeze remainder or save for a second pizza after the first.

6. Top with stuff. I like red sauce, shredded mozzarella, and diced chicken.

7. Get the pizza stone out of the oven, slide the parchment paper onto it, and put it all back into the oven for 15 minutes; keep an eye on it so it doesn’t burn, ovens vary. You can use a sheet pan if you don’t have a pizza stone.

8. Let cool before slicing or it will be floppy.

Oh, but you don’t have bread flour? Use all purpose flour, it’ll be fine just not as chewy. Oh, you prefer whole wheat flour? Swap in two cups if you want it to still be springy and focaccia-y, it’ll just be a bit softer and denser. Still delicious tho.

Don’t have parchment paper? Fine, thoroughly grease the dutch oven with butter and cook it directly in the pot; it’ll be a little crunchier, is all. Prefer olive oil? It’ll turn out a bit spotty because of how the bread fries, but you’ll probably be fine. I just got tired of having to wiggle it to free it from my dutch oven. And honestly I only use the dutch oven instead of the pizza stone or loaf pan or whatever because I store it in the dutch oven; after extensive experimentation I’ve discovered bread lasts longer there than in a bread box, paper bag, or alternative method.

Oh you wanted to make soft raisin bread? Bump it to 3cu wheat flour, soak the raisins beforehand, and mix them in. Oh you like your pizza dough flavored and have a ton of garden oregano that you dried last fall? Mix a half cup of dried oregano into the dough.

I’ve given this recipe to multiple teenagers and absolutely 0% of the time has it ever turned out anything but delicious. I do not knead, I measure with remarkable imprecision (sometimes I let my six year old help!), and I’ve never had this bread last long enough to go bad. You can roll it into circles and make buns if you want, why not.

Sheet Pan Meat + Veg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cover a sheet pan with aluminum foil. Onto one side, plop some meat that was cheap at the grocery store that week — pork loin, thick chops; chicken tenders, thighs, breasts, legs; a mid-sized beef roast also works. Season however; there are a thousand and one pre-made dry and wet seasoning options, and a lot of them are surprisingly good. I’ve certainly stopped bothering to mix my own. Costco’s pesto is great, so is most store-bought BBQ sauce. I like Old Bay, Kinder’s Cowboy Butter, and a multitude of other options.

Onto the other side, pick a vegetable or three. We like fresh green beans (snap off the ends), asparagus (cut off the ends and slice into 2” spears), and halved brussels sprouts. Spray with some kind of oil, season. I like to toss some parmesan cheese and raisins on top, but you can do whatever you like.

Bake for ~45 minutes. If your food looks done, but you want it to be crispier or more caramelized, broil it for ~2 minutes.

Burgers. In the Air Fryer. Yes.

My kids like burgers. I’ve tried to make the patties myself but it’s moderately annoying and Harris Teeter’s butcher counter sells amazing burgers that are stuffed with cheese and bacon and onion and all kinds of goodness. I hate babysitting a stovetop with a toddler underfoot and I am for damn sure not getting out the grill. Yes, I know it tastes better grilled. But I have two kids, I get annoyed about dealing with oil splatter, and the air fryer really does live up to the hype. I bought this (affiliate link) dual-zone ninja air fryer back in 2023 and I think it’s super easy to clean and use although a friend of mind with weak hands struggles to push the buttons. I used to think air fryers were silly — the oven is right there! — but the auto-shutoff is amazing with kids and the oven is right there is actually a huge liability with small curious children who cannot reach the countertop but can open the oven on their own.

Anyway, I put the burgers into the air fryer, cook for 10 minutes, flip, cook for another 10 minutes, and they turn out great every time. Top with whatever vegetables you like. I usually just do cold sides like pickles and fruit because we are weird. But you could do a salad if your family tolerates them better than mine.

Instant Pot Sausage & Rice

Ok this one is more complicated, but I like it because the leftovers make a great breakfast. I have had the bog standard 6qt instant pot since 2022 (affiliate link, because why not, it’s great for the same reason the air fryer is great; kids + auto shutoff = low stress) and this is what I cook most often:

1. Use the sauté setting. Heat some oil. 2 tbsp of avocado is enough, but you can use whatever neutral you like, and I’ve never measured.

2. Toss in a package of ground hot italian sausage (or if you like working extra hard, dice some of the tubed kind). The original recipe called for 14oz but I have never measured. Periodically poke it with a stick until it’s brown.

3. While that’s cooking, dice up some garlic (I leave this to your discretion; I usually do obscene amounts), a FRESH onion and two bell peppers (do NOT use the frozen diced bagged stuff, it’s utterly flavorless and depressing in this recipe); I prefer vidalia + colored peppers, but it doesn’t really matter.

4. Put the sausage into a bowl once it’s brown, then sauté the garlic, onion, and peppers (in that order, but it doesn’t matter nearly as much as people online think).

5. Add a cup of stock (chicken is fine, homemade lamb stock is great, water will work fine too, hell you can use beer if you feel like it), and scrape the bottom of the pot with the wooden stick (or spatula or spoon like a normal person).

6. Cancel the sauté function, add like a cup of frozen (bagged, the boxed stuff is weird and annoying) spinach, some corn if you feel like it, and a can of (black? red? who cares) beans.

7. Thoroughly rinse a cup of long grain white rice (the original recipe, which I have unfortunately lost the link for, but it’s fine because I’ve changed a lot of details over the years) freaks out about how you CANNOT use short grain or brown rice; this is basically true but mostly because different rice has different cook times and needs different amounts of liquid; you can tweak the recipe accordingly if you know your rice). Put the rice on top, DO NOT MIX.

8. Add a (14.5oz) can of diced tomatoses, you can get the kind with seasoning or the fire-roasted kind or the plain kind it is all fine.

9. Close the lid of the instant pot ad SEAL the valve. Pressure cook on high for FOUR (4!) minutes. It will beep; ignore the beep, it’s like the “preheated” sound on your oven.

10. When the pressure cooking cycle is over, it will beep a couple of times to let you know it’s “done” ignore that too. Let it do “natural pressure release” for 10 minutes. Basically it will count down FROM four and then back UP to ten. At ten (or so, you’re not gonna ruin it if you don’t vent it soon enough), flip the valve from sealed to vent. Open the lid carefully when the metal pin drops (I originally wrote these these recipes out for teenaged babysitters to follow, forgive me if that seems obvious to you).

11. Fluff the rice and put the sausage back, leave it on warm or turn it off depending on when you plan to eat. If you accidentally added the sausage back in on an earlier step (which I have definitely done) it will be fine, you’ll just get less flavor contrast.

12. THE NEXT DAY: Fry it in a buttered skillet with an egg or three. Yum!

Dutch Oven Chicken & Rice

This began life as One-Pot Autumn Herb Roasted Chicken with Butter Toasted Wild Rice Pilaf from Half Baked Harvest. My version is much shorter (and has a lot more root vegetables), hers is worth checking out if you want something mind-blowingly good with a lot more ingredients.

1. Heat a large dutch oven on the stove. Cover the bottom in oil.

2. Season 1 family pack of bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (or legs) with something like herbs de province, or oregano and thyme, or whatever europeanish green stuff you like.

3. Brown the skin side of the chicken thighs — for real, actually brown them. Properly brown! Crispy and delicious! You won’t get a second shot at this, they won’t burn, it takes way longer than five minutes it’s okay. Set aside in a large bowl.

4. While that’s happening, prepare your ingredients. Not usually necessary, but this dish moves fast when it gets going. Cut up a couple of potatoes (I buy the package of colorful ones and slice them in half) and 3ish carrots. Quarter an onion, cut some garlic bulbs in half (I usually aim for eight. We like garlic; if I could fit more I’d use more).

5. Reduce heat, add 2tbsp of butter (or don’t, it’s fine, I often skip this step and it’s noticeable but you aren’t gonna ruin it if there’s less butter).

6. Preheat the oven to 400F.

7. Toast 1cu orzo for 2 minutes, then toast 2.5cu wild rice (yes the type matters, no I don’t know why. Splurge on the wild rice). Toss in a packaged of sliced mushrooms (white is fine, baby bella is fine, you can slice your own but they’re the same price at my grocery store so why bother?). Toss in the carrots and potatoes.

8. Add 4cu chicken broth. You can substitute one cup for cider or beer, I’ve even used wine, I don’t usually notice much in the way of a flavor difference unless I use a really strong beer. Scrape up the brown bits with your trusty wooden thingie.

9. Add onion quarters on top. Layer the chicken thighs on top. Nestle garlic heads into the nitches. Spray everything on top with a bit more oil.

10. Cover with lid, cook in the oven for an hour or so — until the liquid is absorbed.

11. Remove the lid for the last 5 minutes to brown the chicken a little more. If you’re impatient, broil it but watch carefully so it doesn’t burn (90s is usually enough).

The apple cider glaze is gilding the lily but does taste good if you feel like babysitting the stove. To get a similar flavor contrast we just serve with lemon slices. Also: the leftovers are amazing; I recommend the microwave for a big scoop of rice, and the air fryer for 5 minutes for the chicken. The skin crips up nicer that way.

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I am at no risk of becoming a pro cook or recipe blogger, but I do hope this helps someone make something delicious and stress a little less about making meals. In my experience you can vary things up a lot more often than people online are willing to admit, because for the most part the kinds of people who go looking for recipes the most often are the kinds of people who need recipes instead of just inspiration.

But back when I was doing consulting more often, the most common thing that would happen is I’d hop on a call with someone and they’d explain their problem and I’d say something like “why not just—?” and they’d say “oh, can I? you don’t think that would be too simple or stupid?” and I’d say “no, I think the thing you wanted to do sounds absolutely reasonable and will work out fine” and eventually I felt guilty taking people’s money to say “you are smart and should have more self-confidence and do the thing you planned” even though it was just a “pay what you think I’m worth” type thing, so I stopped.

Anyway you are probably smart and should have more self-confidence in the kitchen; it’s actually really hard to make disgusting food although I’ve certainly managed it, it was usually the sort of mistake one only makes once, like using wildly incorrect proportions because I misread the directions on a totally unfamiliar recipe like pad thai.

Anyway does anybody have an idiot-proof recipe for pad thai? Or any other recipes they’d like to discuss?