Losing the Internet Connection: A Cooking Show Continues with a Positive Vibe

Just when it seemed like our cooking show was about to come to an abrupt halt, we managed to regain our connection and continue where we left off. We took some spinach and Swiss chard and blended them together with the fridge for three to four minutes, creating a delicious puree that added a burst of freshness to our dish. Our apologies if you lost us for a second; we're back, and ready to cook!

The topic at hand was about acidity levels in cooking, but before we dive into that, I want to emphasize that the technique showcased today can be applied to any protein or vegetable. It's all about learning those basic steps and building up your dish gradually. This is especially useful when you're limited by what's available in your pantry. Whether it's a tight budget or simply not having access to certain ingredients, this technique will help you create a meal that's both delicious and satisfying.

Now, let's talk about the importance of acidity in cooking. Acidity helps balance the flavors in our dishes, preventing them from becoming too rich or overpowering. It can also help break down proteins and tenderize meat, making it more palatable. In this recipe, we used a stock to add depth and complexity to our dish. However, I want to emphasize that acidity is not just limited to using acidic ingredients like lemon juice or vinegar. There are many other ways to introduce acidity into your cooking, such as using tomatoes or citrus-herb marinades.

Moving on to the main event, we're preparing chicken thighs with a flavorful puree made from spinach and Swiss chard. This dish is perfect for any occasion, whether you're feeding a small group of friends or a large family. The beauty of this recipe lies in its versatility; you can easily adjust the amount of ingredients based on your needs.

As we cook our chicken thighs, I want to remind everyone that it's essential to not overcook them. We want them to be cooked through but still juicy and tender. Overcooking can make even the most tender cuts of meat dry and unappetizing. So, let's take a moment to appreciate the simplicity of this technique and how it can elevate our cooking game.

Now, let's talk about sides. A simple pasta dish or a flavorful rice pilaf can complement this chicken nicely. You can also try adding some roasted vegetables or a hearty salad to round out your meal. The beauty of this recipe is that it's incredibly adaptable; you can experiment with different ingredients and flavors until you find the perfect combination.

As we continue our cooking journey, I want to emphasize the importance of community and support. We're all going through tough times right now, but by coming together and sharing our knowledge, recipes, and love, we can get through this. If you have a neighbor who's struggling or a friend who could use some encouragement, consider reaching out to them with a meal or a kind gesture.

And finally, I want to remind everyone that there are resources available to help us navigate these challenging times. Food Network Kitchen has an app that features hundreds of recipes and cooking techniques. We'll also be featuring a live cooking show on Facebook every day at 5 pm. So, be sure to tune in and join the conversation.

As we conclude this episode, I want to leave you with a message of hope and resilience. We're all in this together, and by supporting one another, we can overcome even the toughest obstacles. Remember, cooking is not just about following recipes; it's about sharing love and care with those around us. So, let's continue to cook, share, and support each other as we navigate these uncertain times.

And with that, our show comes to an end for today. But don't worry; we'll be back tomorrow, with more recipes, techniques, and tips to help you cook your way through this challenging time. Until then, stay strong, America!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everybody michael simon here this is our first day of daily dinners with me um so here's the idea about this you know a lot of you right now a lot of people are home um you know restaurants are closing around the country uh you know some of them are staying home for carryout which is great uh a lot of grocery stores have limited supplies right now and people have some limited supplies in their pantry we tried to build a pantry or get a pantry that hopefully looks relatively similar to yours like we put what we had in our current pantry out there and i'm going to make meals from the pantry and what i really want to show you during the course of this is there's going to be lots of abilities to use substitutions like if i say beans you could use any beans we could mix up different proteins we could substitute different shapes and sizes of pasta if you don't can't find fresh onions and fresh celery you could use a little bit of onion powder or celery salt there's a lot of different ways to get where we need to be what i hope and my goal is that you can get a delicious meal on your table for your family and not a ton of time for not a ton of money um and you know as we know the kitchen table and food brings people together and i i think in this time that's what we need more than anything else so we're going to do a one pot chicken the first thing you need you need a good size pot it doesn't matter what size shape steel enamel cast iron copper don't worry about it big pot put the pot on the stove get it over a medium heat let it start getting hot for yourself for a little bit i have two pounds of chicken here i have chicken thighs you could use chicken legs you could use ground chicken you can use a whole chicken cutting a piece breast bone in skin on doesn't matter and you could even use another protein you can make the same dish with pork chops if you wanted to so this is going to all be about kind of technique and how we get these great flavors and very simple food so we have our chicken thighs i'm going to season them with a little bit of salt and pepper on both sides and then we will get them cooking first one of the questions and thank you for all the questions and comments about um different things you were looking to make or things that you had when we posted this recipe yesterday and we'll be posting we posted the meal plan for the 10 days um all the meals two days ago a day ago and every day you know around after the class will be posting the recipe for the next day um one of the concerns and questions that we got was i went to the store there was no meat you know there was no fresh meat or frozen meats left so if you had canned chicken canned tuna canned salmon and you could also use this in the dish it won't go in the searing method we would put it in at the end and i'll tell you when that's going to happen so i have my pan over medium heat i'm going to add a couple tablespoons i'm using grapeseed oil here but pick a fat any fat whatever fat you have in your home will work perfectly for this dish don't be concerned if it's olive oil chicken fat bacon fat duck fat grapeseed oil canola oil we're not worried about that next we are going to take our seasoned chicken thighs here's one of these there's advantages and disadvantages of doing this not being in a studio disadvantages there's a pimple here on my cheek that um no one's covering up with makeup advantage is i could cook in my slivers so i hope you are cooking in your slippers too so we're going to take this chicken and we are going to place it skin side down in our hot pan and then once this gets in there we're going to let the pan do the work and let that chicken get crisp and we're good for a couple minutes now and did you say the skin stays on or comes off this is skin on um so i'm gonna let the skin get crunchy thank you liz for the question um if you have skinless that's okay we're just gonna brown both sides the exact same way that we would um if it had skin or no skin if it doesn't have a bone it's just going to speed up the cooking time but no big deal there either so this is going to take a minute or two while that's happening i'm gonna cut up i have an onion carrot celery um garlic i have uh one can of cannellini beans that i rinse any beans will work here kidney beans black beans you know even chickpeas will work craziness so don't get too caught up in that any other questions liv a lot of people just checking in from around the world let's check nope no questions yet so far everyone's everyone's doing okay so far this is gonna be a big cook along guys so um a couple things i like to do when i'm setting up the cook get a little bowl beside that you can throw your garbage again if you were having trouble finding fresh produce and you still want that onion flavor in this kind of situation i have no problem with anybody using onion parted garlic powder any of those things someone's asking how do you use dried beans um dried beans so if we were using dried beans and there's a lot of those out there right now too and they are readily available in most stores we cook them ahead of time so in a perfect world you would soak them in water for a night and then you could rinse them off and then start them in cold water and just cook until they're tender and then those are good and they'll hold and you can use them um as you need them so they will hold once cooked for about three to five days in your fridge smashing the garlic two cloves john is asking if you season the chicken before you put it in there yes john just salt and pepper um if you wanted to add spices or flavors or um you know paprika chipotle different spices this would be that would be the time that you could do that before it goes in the pan um one stalk of celery you cleaned it just gonna slice that real thin and i'm gonna do the same with the carrot i cleaned my carrot really good so i'm leaving the skin on um you could certainly take the skin off too no problems either way there again is a kind of a quick cook dish so let's check on the chicken there you go there we go we got nice golden brown and that's what we're looking for with the chicken good color and fermentation any other questions liz alexander is asking if you've made this recipe with a purple onion purple onions would work leeks would work pearl onions would work pick an onion any onion again a lot of times when a lot of you i know right now are going to your grocery store and having trouble finding certain things don't worry about it get the onion that they have available um if they don't have fresh you know like i said spices would work same thing if you can't find fresh pairs celery and they have frozen you can get that if you can't find either celery salt would work for a flavor um enhancer here so don't let um i want to teach you guys how to cook things not to get kind of caught up with the recipe and what the grocery store has or doesn't have we'll still be able to get a great meal on the table with a lot of ability to substitute all right so chicken gets flipped i'm going to move that over in my pan a little bit you see that though oh yeah the other side brown and if that's happening we'll add in get our onions in there and our carrot and we're gonna put a nice pinch of salt on top of those two to bring the flavors out of all of that do we have any other questions liv your skillet sounds hot says sue i always cause a lot of smoke how do you control that um it's i'm over about medium heat right now i don't even have the hood on um you know so it's it's not smoking too bad right now sometimes the smoke comes from if make sure that your chicken before you season it and get it all going is dry that's an important thing um you know if you throw it in there and it's really wet it's going to steam and throw off smoke after that but you will get a little bit of smoking at home if you have a hood turn it on we don't have on ours on right now so you could hear me a little bit better um this isn't the fancy world of cooking shows it's literally me and olivia on a um on a cell phone taping me so it's an iphone come on yeah we'll get all this uh that's how that's how we're rolling right now so we're keeping it kind of pretty stripped down and simple i don't have a fancy mic on but i am in my slippers once the chicken's done how long does it usually stay good in the fridge for so this is a great question if you want to do this in ball this will hold in your fridge for about three days and it will freeze and i know everybody likes to freeze out there this will freeze incredibly well just put it in a sealed container so you can see i took the chicken out for a sec as i got the rest of my ingredients going in here i have the carrots like one medium onion one medium carrot one stalk of celery two cloves of garlic and a little bit of salt and we're letting those break down now i'm going to add now in the recipe i put water wine or stock i'm just using water because i think a lot of people it's going to be harder to find some of those things you might not have a stock made this is still going to be delicious with water about a cup of water um i think these times if i flush it into lizzie's wine stash i get in trouble so water it is because it's still going to be good take your spoon scrape the bottom of the pan to get all those goodies up into our sauce because that's where the flavor is that's another question look uh laurie's asking how would you adjust the cooking time if you're using frozen veggies instead of fresh so if you're using frozen veggies instead of fresh and this is a great question um i would build um the sauce first without the veggies in there yet we put in we brown the chicken then we'd deglaze the pan with the liquid the water the stock or the wine then we'd add our tomatoes and when that comes up the temperature in a simmer you would add the frozen veggies when you add when i'm going to add the beans so that way though they're already cooked usually or they'll cook the rest the way through and you will be fine so you would put in the veggies when you put in your beans now this is a 24 26 ounce can of crushed tomatoes um i only need about two cups so i will save the rest of this it's like almost like a tomato puree i'll save the rest of this for tomorrow we're gonna make a pasta bake so i'll need some tomato sauce i'll save that so two cups liv isn't real tall so she's up on her toes right now working with what i have any other questions um yeah so shawna mentioned that you didn't check the chicken how do you know it's done the chicken is not done yet so what's gonna happen is when i put this tomato sauce in here and now i'm gonna add my beans one can of i use cannellini but any bean you have and we stir this we're gonna bring this back up to a simmer we're gonna put the chicken in i'm gonna put it in the oven then and let it finish and that's when we'll take some more questions and i'll go over some other like fun little tips for you guys um so the chicken has to cook all the way through the best way to check chicken if you're unsure is you need to cook chicken to 160 degrees so once you put this in the oven it's probably going to take about five minutes ish um but at you know at that point put a thermometer in the center of the thigh and when it reaches 160 you're good it's done no worries so this is coming up to a simmer at this point i want to give it a taste so do i need more salt do i need more pepper if i like things spicy now would be the time to add some of those flavors like you know if you wanted to add chipotle or paprika or whatever spike fennel seed whatever spice you really love you could add that to the mix right now i like a little bit of um a little bit of spice in my life so you know maybe i'm gonna put in a little bit paprika or smoked paprika or here's what i really want i just didn't see it first i'm gonna put in some chili flakes but that's because i like things to be a bit biting if you don't total optional if your kids don't want to make spices totally optional do you have any other questions jaclyn asked if they were using wine what kind would you recommend just a white or red actually would work in here um you know it doesn't have to be anything fancy i prefer wines that aren't super oaky but lines that you like to drink and chefs say this all the time so wine if you like to drink you'll like it in your food if it's a wine that you don't like to drink chances are you won't like it in your food so look nestle our chicken back in here and now i'm gonna put this in the oven and let it go for about five minutes oven could be you know anywhere between 375 and 475 to be honest with you is fine um just depends on how quick you want to eat uh it's not gonna hurt it one way or the other all right what do we got for questions all right lindsay is asking is it okay to chop onions and peppers ahead of time and freeze them for meals is it okay to chop onions and peppers ahead of time and freeze them for meals absolutely 100 if you have time during the day to get ahead on your prep um that is something that you should do um you know all those things i think really help and make cooking a little bit easier for you at home anything else yeah we have someone asking who does your makeup when you shoot from home um no one does my makeup when i shoot from home why i don't have any on do i look uneven these things are sharp um you know maybe i had to have liz start doing my makeup for me this is actually fun this is my grandfather gave this to me it's an old potato peeler with has the scrub brushes right on it very cute um so we have dana asking if you're using garlic salt and celery salt and onion powder instead of the veggies on hand how much would you recommend you know i want to say to taste but i would say probably a teaspoon of each of those once you get the tomatoes and everything in the sauce will get you the flavor that you're looking for put them in stir it let it come to a simmer give it a quick taste and then you can make uh you know a decision from there can you save tomatoes in the can or do you need to put in put it in something else i'm not going to leave it in the can is it going to be fine for a day or two 100 but you should just put it in a in a container you could even pour it into a ziploc bag a store bag it'll be fine um refrigerate it obviously once the can is open you want to refrigerate it but could i leave in a can for a day it's not going to hurt anybody am i going to absolutely not really upset my refrigerator um jenny's asking if we don't have a pan that can go in the oven should we just do stove top or transfer to a baking dish 100 you could completely do this stove top um put a lid on it let it go stove top over low it's gonna take a little bit more time don't worry about that you could also if you wanted to do this um in a slow in a uh a slow cookers a countertop slow cooker you could do it in that i would i would omit the liquid the water the wine or the stock at that point because they don't liquid doesn't reduce in them as much and it will take longer but this is something that you could certainly do in one of those i don't have a ton of experience honestly with instapots and things like that so i could you do it in one yes have i done it one no one is asking what if i don't have a thermometer how would i know if the chicken is done if you don't have a thermometer i would cut into it you know and cut into it and and you know it's going to be when you touch it if it's done it's going to be pretty firm but if you cut into it you don't want any pink if there's no pink here you're okay um sometimes if the chicken is fresh and never frozen there sometimes will be a redness on the edge of the bones that doesn't mean that the chicken's not done once the chicken gets frozen the blood in the bones turns black so a lot of people get confused by that but the chicken will still be completely cooked even if the bone has a touch of red but just make sure that the flesh of the chicken has no pink um and it is cooked all the way through ryan has a good question what's your go-to favorite spice my go-to favorite spicy you know my favorite spice is probably coriander seed it's underused gives things a nice little pop a good kind of almost like a burnt orange flavor which i really enjoy has a little bit of citrus to it my mom use it a lot very popular with greek food or moroccan food you know so i it's i've always liked it i liked it as a kid i like is it at all um we have a couple fans asking what brand is the pan that you're using currently um you know i use a lot of full copper i don't know if that one is fault but that folk is kind of the copper that i like the most i would say my my copper of choice so to speak um the nice thing about them is they literally last several lifetimes like most of my pans i've had for 20 plus 20 years or 15 to 20 years and still use them today i very rarely kind of add to the collection so to speak it's just been 20 years of collecting um one of the things i wanted to show you guys is because things have been a little bit crazy in the grocery store and you know there's depends on where you're shopping i guess one day i went to the store there was no meats tons of produce no canned goods the next day two days later i went in there was some meats good amount of canned goods no produce so if you want to keep some greens and things like that they're a little bit more perishable um so what i did was and what i like to do sometimes is i just took some spinach and swiss chard and blended the fridge for like three four yeah okay guys we're back we lost the internet connection for a second i apologize um the chickens are okay hopefully that you you know you're still with us um the the question was i think lack of acidity was that the last one so yeah you can make this with a stock um what i really want to show you guys is if you learned this basic technique you could do it with any protein you could do with different vegetables like when i added the celery the carrots the onions you could added beets butternut squash whatever whatever vegetable it was it's just the basic steps that you're going through with each dish and that's what i'm going to show you every day it's like when you're limited to the pantry or there's things are a little bit tighter it's the technique that's kind of going to get you through and you could build the dish up every day um as you'd like and and that's really what makes the huge difference and what makes cooking um you know a little bit more fun in i guess these drying times kelly's asking if this thickens while it cooks yeah it's going to thicken a little bit but for me work on it oh what's that where's that coming from well we need to find we need to talk to at t let's let's figure it out all right we're gonna get it we're sorry guys we will figure this out together okay so here we go we have this beautiful chicken thighs the pan is heavier not as strong as it used to be i'm not gonna lie the past couple days i i'm typically a very aggressive eater i haven't ate as much these past couple days little stress might be winning so i lost a couple pounds for everyone asking for the recipe it is on michael's story on instagram and facebook and on his twitter and also food network kitchen so again depending on how many people you're feeding or how hungry your friends are would one thigh work i think so if you want to not a problem um you obviously depends on how much you're gonna make if you have some of the puree you could top it if you wanted to you could hit it with a little bit of oil at the end a little bit of cracked black pepper if someone did want to do a side with this did you talk about that already because a few people with the side of my salad would work i think rice like a uh you know either a basmati or a rice pilaf or a risotto or simple pasta um any of those things would work i mean then it just gets into a little bit of of dealer's choice what you're which what you kind of like chickens cook perfectly all the way through it's scorching hot look at that it's really really good guys like this is the deal we're going to get through this tough times we're going to get through it i know resources are limited to some people we're going to get through it you might not have all the things that you're used to when you cook and some supplies maybe aren't there i'm going to show you how to make everything regardless of what's in your pantry keep asking questions every day i'll keep answering questions every day a little bit of uh hopefully you could get away from the noise for a second for 30 30 minutes or so we'll cook some food get a meal on your table for your family your friends you know this is when it's all i just had my little love thing here this is when it's all about love it's like take care of your loved ones it's gonna probably get a little bit aggravating sometimes maybe people that aren't always at your house or at your house kids aren't at school it's crazy i know we're all going through the same things if you have a neighbor that you know maybe not be getting the love or the food that they're used to drop something at their doorstep and knock if you don't want to go in i get it but let's do this we could do this our hearts are big america if there's one thing that we prove and we're extremely resilient and this is a time when we should put all of our differences aside love each other get through it if you need more recipes too remember food network kitchen also has an app which is fantastic i have hundreds of recipes on there as do the rest of the talent on food network but i'm gonna be on food network live on facebook every day at five food network kitchen food network kitchen live thanks liv um we'll also put it up on my instagram page and my facebook page later but if you want to get it on live it's five o'clock on food network kitchen on facebook got the questions answered i love you america be strong we can do thishey everybody michael simon here this is our first day of daily dinners with me um so here's the idea about this you know a lot of you right now a lot of people are home um you know restaurants are closing around the country uh you know some of them are staying home for carryout which is great uh a lot of grocery stores have limited supplies right now and people have some limited supplies in their pantry we tried to build a pantry or get a pantry that hopefully looks relatively similar to yours like we put what we had in our current pantry out there and i'm going to make meals from the pantry and what i really want to show you during the course of this is there's going to be lots of abilities to use substitutions like if i say beans you could use any beans we could mix up different proteins we could substitute different shapes and sizes of pasta if you don't can't find fresh onions and fresh celery you could use a little bit of onion powder or celery salt there's a lot of different ways to get where we need to be what i hope and my goal is that you can get a delicious meal on your table for your family and not a ton of time for not a ton of money um and you know as we know the kitchen table and food brings people together and i i think in this time that's what we need more than anything else so we're going to do a one pot chicken the first thing you need you need a good size pot it doesn't matter what size shape steel enamel cast iron copper don't worry about it big pot put the pot on the stove get it over a medium heat let it start getting hot for yourself for a little bit i have two pounds of chicken here i have chicken thighs you could use chicken legs you could use ground chicken you can use a whole chicken cutting a piece breast bone in skin on doesn't matter and you could even use another protein you can make the same dish with pork chops if you wanted to so this is going to all be about kind of technique and how we get these great flavors and very simple food so we have our chicken thighs i'm going to season them with a little bit of salt and pepper on both sides and then we will get them cooking first one of the questions and thank you for all the questions and comments about um different things you were looking to make or things that you had when we posted this recipe yesterday and we'll be posting we posted the meal plan for the 10 days um all the meals two days ago a day ago and every day you know around after the class will be posting the recipe for the next day um one of the concerns and questions that we got was i went to the store there was no meat you know there was no fresh meat or frozen meats left so if you had canned chicken canned tuna canned salmon and you could also use this in the dish it won't go in the searing method we would put it in at the end and i'll tell you when that's going to happen so i have my pan over medium heat i'm going to add a couple tablespoons i'm using grapeseed oil here but pick a fat any fat whatever fat you have in your home will work perfectly for this dish don't be concerned if it's olive oil chicken fat bacon fat duck fat grapeseed oil canola oil we're not worried about that next we are going to take our seasoned chicken thighs here's one of these there's advantages and disadvantages of doing this not being in a studio disadvantages there's a pimple here on my cheek that um no one's covering up with makeup advantage is i could cook in my slivers so i hope you are cooking in your slippers too so we're going to take this chicken and we are going to place it skin side down in our hot pan and then once this gets in there we're going to let the pan do the work and let that chicken get crisp and we're good for a couple minutes now and did you say the skin stays on or comes off this is skin on um so i'm gonna let the skin get crunchy thank you liz for the question um if you have skinless that's okay we're just gonna brown both sides the exact same way that we would um if it had skin or no skin if it doesn't have a bone it's just going to speed up the cooking time but no big deal there either so this is going to take a minute or two while that's happening i'm gonna cut up i have an onion carrot celery um garlic i have uh one can of cannellini beans that i rinse any beans will work here kidney beans black beans you know even chickpeas will work craziness so don't get too caught up in that any other questions liv a lot of people just checking in from around the world let's check nope no questions yet so far everyone's everyone's doing okay so far this is gonna be a big cook along guys so um a couple things i like to do when i'm setting up the cook get a little bowl beside that you can throw your garbage again if you were having trouble finding fresh produce and you still want that onion flavor in this kind of situation i have no problem with anybody using onion parted garlic powder any of those things someone's asking how do you use dried beans um dried beans so if we were using dried beans and there's a lot of those out there right now too and they are readily available in most stores we cook them ahead of time so in a perfect world you would soak them in water for a night and then you could rinse them off and then start them in cold water and just cook until they're tender and then those are good and they'll hold and you can use them um as you need them so they will hold once cooked for about three to five days in your fridge smashing the garlic two cloves john is asking if you season the chicken before you put it in there yes john just salt and pepper um if you wanted to add spices or flavors or um you know paprika chipotle different spices this would be that would be the time that you could do that before it goes in the pan um one stalk of celery you cleaned it just gonna slice that real thin and i'm gonna do the same with the carrot i cleaned my carrot really good so i'm leaving the skin on um you could certainly take the skin off too no problems either way there again is a kind of a quick cook dish so let's check on the chicken there you go there we go we got nice golden brown and that's what we're looking for with the chicken good color and fermentation any other questions liz alexander is asking if you've made this recipe with a purple onion purple onions would work leeks would work pearl onions would work pick an onion any onion again a lot of times when a lot of you i know right now are going to your grocery store and having trouble finding certain things don't worry about it get the onion that they have available um if they don't have fresh you know like i said spices would work same thing if you can't find fresh pairs celery and they have frozen you can get that if you can't find either celery salt would work for a flavor um enhancer here so don't let um i want to teach you guys how to cook things not to get kind of caught up with the recipe and what the grocery store has or doesn't have we'll still be able to get a great meal on the table with a lot of ability to substitute all right so chicken gets flipped i'm going to move that over in my pan a little bit you see that though oh yeah the other side brown and if that's happening we'll add in get our onions in there and our carrot and we're gonna put a nice pinch of salt on top of those two to bring the flavors out of all of that do we have any other questions liv your skillet sounds hot says sue i always cause a lot of smoke how do you control that um it's i'm over about medium heat right now i don't even have the hood on um you know so it's it's not smoking too bad right now sometimes the smoke comes from if make sure that your chicken before you season it and get it all going is dry that's an important thing um you know if you throw it in there and it's really wet it's going to steam and throw off smoke after that but you will get a little bit of smoking at home if you have a hood turn it on we don't have on ours on right now so you could hear me a little bit better um this isn't the fancy world of cooking shows it's literally me and olivia on a um on a cell phone taping me so it's an iphone come on yeah we'll get all this uh that's how that's how we're rolling right now so we're keeping it kind of pretty stripped down and simple i don't have a fancy mic on but i am in my slippers once the chicken's done how long does it usually stay good in the fridge for so this is a great question if you want to do this in ball this will hold in your fridge for about three days and it will freeze and i know everybody likes to freeze out there this will freeze incredibly well just put it in a sealed container so you can see i took the chicken out for a sec as i got the rest of my ingredients going in here i have the carrots like one medium onion one medium carrot one stalk of celery two cloves of garlic and a little bit of salt and we're letting those break down now i'm going to add now in the recipe i put water wine or stock i'm just using water because i think a lot of people it's going to be harder to find some of those things you might not have a stock made this is still going to be delicious with water about a cup of water um i think these times if i flush it into lizzie's wine stash i get in trouble so water it is because it's still going to be good take your spoon scrape the bottom of the pan to get all those goodies up into our sauce because that's where the flavor is that's another question look uh laurie's asking how would you adjust the cooking time if you're using frozen veggies instead of fresh so if you're using frozen veggies instead of fresh and this is a great question um i would build um the sauce first without the veggies in there yet we put in we brown the chicken then we'd deglaze the pan with the liquid the water the stock or the wine then we'd add our tomatoes and when that comes up the temperature in a simmer you would add the frozen veggies when you add when i'm going to add the beans so that way though they're already cooked usually or they'll cook the rest the way through and you will be fine so you would put in the veggies when you put in your beans now this is a 24 26 ounce can of crushed tomatoes um i only need about two cups so i will save the rest of this it's like almost like a tomato puree i'll save the rest of this for tomorrow we're gonna make a pasta bake so i'll need some tomato sauce i'll save that so two cups liv isn't real tall so she's up on her toes right now working with what i have any other questions um yeah so shawna mentioned that you didn't check the chicken how do you know it's done the chicken is not done yet so what's gonna happen is when i put this tomato sauce in here and now i'm gonna add my beans one can of i use cannellini but any bean you have and we stir this we're gonna bring this back up to a simmer we're gonna put the chicken in i'm gonna put it in the oven then and let it finish and that's when we'll take some more questions and i'll go over some other like fun little tips for you guys um so the chicken has to cook all the way through the best way to check chicken if you're unsure is you need to cook chicken to 160 degrees so once you put this in the oven it's probably going to take about five minutes ish um but at you know at that point put a thermometer in the center of the thigh and when it reaches 160 you're good it's done no worries so this is coming up to a simmer at this point i want to give it a taste so do i need more salt do i need more pepper if i like things spicy now would be the time to add some of those flavors like you know if you wanted to add chipotle or paprika or whatever spike fennel seed whatever spice you really love you could add that to the mix right now i like a little bit of um a little bit of spice in my life so you know maybe i'm gonna put in a little bit paprika or smoked paprika or here's what i really want i just didn't see it first i'm gonna put in some chili flakes but that's because i like things to be a bit biting if you don't total optional if your kids don't want to make spices totally optional do you have any other questions jaclyn asked if they were using wine what kind would you recommend just a white or red actually would work in here um you know it doesn't have to be anything fancy i prefer wines that aren't super oaky but lines that you like to drink and chefs say this all the time so wine if you like to drink you'll like it in your food if it's a wine that you don't like to drink chances are you won't like it in your food so look nestle our chicken back in here and now i'm gonna put this in the oven and let it go for about five minutes oven could be you know anywhere between 375 and 475 to be honest with you is fine um just depends on how quick you want to eat uh it's not gonna hurt it one way or the other all right what do we got for questions all right lindsay is asking is it okay to chop onions and peppers ahead of time and freeze them for meals is it okay to chop onions and peppers ahead of time and freeze them for meals absolutely 100 if you have time during the day to get ahead on your prep um that is something that you should do um you know all those things i think really help and make cooking a little bit easier for you at home anything else yeah we have someone asking who does your makeup when you shoot from home um no one does my makeup when i shoot from home why i don't have any on do i look uneven these things are sharp um you know maybe i had to have liz start doing my makeup for me this is actually fun this is my grandfather gave this to me it's an old potato peeler with has the scrub brushes right on it very cute um so we have dana asking if you're using garlic salt and celery salt and onion powder instead of the veggies on hand how much would you recommend you know i want to say to taste but i would say probably a teaspoon of each of those once you get the tomatoes and everything in the sauce will get you the flavor that you're looking for put them in stir it let it come to a simmer give it a quick taste and then you can make uh you know a decision from there can you save tomatoes in the can or do you need to put in put it in something else i'm not going to leave it in the can is it going to be fine for a day or two 100 but you should just put it in a in a container you could even pour it into a ziploc bag a store bag it'll be fine um refrigerate it obviously once the can is open you want to refrigerate it but could i leave in a can for a day it's not going to hurt anybody am i going to absolutely not really upset my refrigerator um jenny's asking if we don't have a pan that can go in the oven should we just do stove top or transfer to a baking dish 100 you could completely do this stove top um put a lid on it let it go stove top over low it's gonna take a little bit more time don't worry about that you could also if you wanted to do this um in a slow in a uh a slow cookers a countertop slow cooker you could do it in that i would i would omit the liquid the water the wine or the stock at that point because they don't liquid doesn't reduce in them as much and it will take longer but this is something that you could certainly do in one of those i don't have a ton of experience honestly with instapots and things like that so i could you do it in one yes have i done it one no one is asking what if i don't have a thermometer how would i know if the chicken is done if you don't have a thermometer i would cut into it you know and cut into it and and you know it's going to be when you touch it if it's done it's going to be pretty firm but if you cut into it you don't want any pink if there's no pink here you're okay um sometimes if the chicken is fresh and never frozen there sometimes will be a redness on the edge of the bones that doesn't mean that the chicken's not done once the chicken gets frozen the blood in the bones turns black so a lot of people get confused by that but the chicken will still be completely cooked even if the bone has a touch of red but just make sure that the flesh of the chicken has no pink um and it is cooked all the way through ryan has a good question what's your go-to favorite spice my go-to favorite spicy you know my favorite spice is probably coriander seed it's underused gives things a nice little pop a good kind of almost like a burnt orange flavor which i really enjoy has a little bit of citrus to it my mom use it a lot very popular with greek food or moroccan food you know so i it's i've always liked it i liked it as a kid i like is it at all um we have a couple fans asking what brand is the pan that you're using currently um you know i use a lot of full copper i don't know if that one is fault but that folk is kind of the copper that i like the most i would say my my copper of choice so to speak um the nice thing about them is they literally last several lifetimes like most of my pans i've had for 20 plus 20 years or 15 to 20 years and still use them today i very rarely kind of add to the collection so to speak it's just been 20 years of collecting um one of the things i wanted to show you guys is because things have been a little bit crazy in the grocery store and you know there's depends on where you're shopping i guess one day i went to the store there was no meats tons of produce no canned goods the next day two days later i went in there was some meats good amount of canned goods no produce so if you want to keep some greens and things like that they're a little bit more perishable um so what i did was and what i like to do sometimes is i just took some spinach and swiss chard and blended the fridge for like three four yeah okay guys we're back we lost the internet connection for a second i apologize um the chickens are okay hopefully that you you know you're still with us um the the question was i think lack of acidity was that the last one so yeah you can make this with a stock um what i really want to show you guys is if you learned this basic technique you could do it with any protein you could do with different vegetables like when i added the celery the carrots the onions you could added beets butternut squash whatever whatever vegetable it was it's just the basic steps that you're going through with each dish and that's what i'm going to show you every day it's like when you're limited to the pantry or there's things are a little bit tighter it's the technique that's kind of going to get you through and you could build the dish up every day um as you'd like and and that's really what makes the huge difference and what makes cooking um you know a little bit more fun in i guess these drying times kelly's asking if this thickens while it cooks yeah it's going to thicken a little bit but for me work on it oh what's that where's that coming from well we need to find we need to talk to at t let's let's figure it out all right we're gonna get it we're sorry guys we will figure this out together okay so here we go we have this beautiful chicken thighs the pan is heavier not as strong as it used to be i'm not gonna lie the past couple days i i'm typically a very aggressive eater i haven't ate as much these past couple days little stress might be winning so i lost a couple pounds for everyone asking for the recipe it is on michael's story on instagram and facebook and on his twitter and also food network kitchen so again depending on how many people you're feeding or how hungry your friends are would one thigh work i think so if you want to not a problem um you obviously depends on how much you're gonna make if you have some of the puree you could top it if you wanted to you could hit it with a little bit of oil at the end a little bit of cracked black pepper if someone did want to do a side with this did you talk about that already because a few people with the side of my salad would work i think rice like a uh you know either a basmati or a rice pilaf or a risotto or simple pasta um any of those things would work i mean then it just gets into a little bit of of dealer's choice what you're which what you kind of like chickens cook perfectly all the way through it's scorching hot look at that it's really really good guys like this is the deal we're going to get through this tough times we're going to get through it i know resources are limited to some people we're going to get through it you might not have all the things that you're used to when you cook and some supplies maybe aren't there i'm going to show you how to make everything regardless of what's in your pantry keep asking questions every day i'll keep answering questions every day a little bit of uh hopefully you could get away from the noise for a second for 30 30 minutes or so we'll cook some food get a meal on your table for your family your friends you know this is when it's all i just had my little love thing here this is when it's all about love it's like take care of your loved ones it's gonna probably get a little bit aggravating sometimes maybe people that aren't always at your house or at your house kids aren't at school it's crazy i know we're all going through the same things if you have a neighbor that you know maybe not be getting the love or the food that they're used to drop something at their doorstep and knock if you don't want to go in i get it but let's do this we could do this our hearts are big america if there's one thing that we prove and we're extremely resilient and this is a time when we should put all of our differences aside love each other get through it if you need more recipes too remember food network kitchen also has an app which is fantastic i have hundreds of recipes on there as do the rest of the talent on food network but i'm gonna be on food network live on facebook every day at five food network kitchen food network kitchen live thanks liv um we'll also put it up on my instagram page and my facebook page later but if you want to get it on live it's five o'clock on food network kitchen on facebook got the questions answered i love you america be strong we can do this\n"