Start Cooking Without Recipes

Hey daddio! Here’s what you’ll find in this week’s newsletter -

• 3-ingredient pulled pork recipe to start building your repertoire of dishes you can cook without following instructions

• Learn how long to cook fish with the simple 5-5-5 method to get a delicious, flaky finish every time

• Lessons from a failed attempt to make an avocado toast that doesn’t suck

But first…

Dad Joke of the Week

Tag us with your best dad jokes on Twitter or shoot us an email at [email protected] - we’ll feature our favorites here!

Family Recipe: 3-Ingredient Slow Cooker Pulled Pork

Every dad needs at least one dish that they can cook from memory. Whether you’re an accomplished chef or still searching for your signature dish, you can’t go wrong adding crockpot pulled pork to your arsenal. Perfect for potlucks, barbeques, and family dinners - it’s a crowd pleaser for any occasion!

One of my favorite things about this BBQ pulled pork recipe is its versatility. It’s standard practice to serve on sandwiches, but it’s also great with potatoes, over mac n cheese, or in an egg scramble (see tips on repurposing leftovers). This recipe makes about 8 servings, so you can try them all and see what you like best!

The other highlight is how STUPID SIMPLE it is to make this dish. Assemble and start the crockpot before work, and you’ll come home to a delicious meal! This recipe has helped us through more than a few hectic weeks at work, and also came in handy as a new dad trying to get dinner on the table between diaper changes.

My only gripe with this dish is that it’s pretty high in sugar between the BBQ sauce and root beer. I don’t make this one all the time, and when I’m serving it at home, I always make sure to pair with some veggies. We love making it with asparagus at our house.

As with everything - enjoy in moderation!

Follow along with video and photos on Twitter, or keep reading below for the recipe:

3-Ingredient Slow Cooker Pulled Pork

Serves 8

1 pork shoulder (from the deli)

1 jar of bbq sauce (pick your favorite!)

1 can of root beer

1. Separate BBQ sauce in half

2. Add pork shoulder, half of BBQ sauce, and can of root beer to crockpot*

3. Cook on low for 6-8 hours

4. Remove meat and shred

5. Combine shredded meat with remaining BBQ sauce

*Not armed with a crockpot in your kitchen? I highly recommend getting one. It’s a relatively inexpensive kitchen tool that my family uses on a near weekly basis to prepare low stress, delicious meals. You can’t go wrong with this highly rated crockpot from Amazon.

Dinner Dojo: How Long Do You Cook Fish?

Another great way to expand your “no recipe repertoire” is to learn methods for cooking. If you know how to cook individual ingredients to perfection every time, then throwing together a meal becomes a simple task. This week, we look at the 5-5-5 method for cooking light fish - great for cod, tilapia, and sea bass (my personal favorite).

My mom taught me this method shortly after my son was born. I was shocked at how easy it was! I’ve never been great at preparing fish, but this method quickly became my go-to for preparing mouthwatering seafood.

Simply season with salt, pepper, and lemon juice before you 1) pan fry each side for 5min, 2) bake at 375F for 5min, 3) let rest for 5min.

See where the name comes from? It’s as easy as 1-2-3!

Not a fish fan? It’s possible you’ve never eaten fish that was cooked well. A nicely cooked filet of fish can be crispy, flaky, and delicious. I mean come on - look at that beauty!

Fish is also crazy dense in protein. If you’ve ever counted macros for weight training or similar, you know that it can be hard to get enough protein in your diet, even with supplementation. Incorporating fish can be a great way to boost your protein intake.

Shopping Cart: Avocados

I’m a bit of a guacamole maniac. It’s simple, delicious, and packed with nutrients (avocados are rich in healthy fats, antioxidants, and other essential vitamins). Sometimes things will get out of hand, and I’ll add crazy stuff like bacon, cottage cheese, or fresh fruits to guacamole.

This week though, I found myself with ripe avocados and no tortilla chips! Rather than running to the store, I figured I’d try something new - avocado toast. Despite popping up on menus everywhere for years, I’d still never tried it.

Not gonna lie - it was pretty flat. Even though I spruced up the avocado with salt, pepper, garlic, lemon juice, and red pepper flakes, it was mostly bland.

That said, the crunchy toast alongside the creamy avocado was pretty satisfying. It has a beautiful green presentation that would be great for serving guests. I also got the benefit of all the nutrients packed into the avocados.

I took my mixed results to the Dad’s On Dinner community and got some great suggestions for improvement! The most common suggestion was to add Everything Bagel seasoning. Other ideas included parmesan cheese, hot sauce, and red onion.

For now, looks like dad’s not trendy enough to make an avocado toast that doesn’t suck. I’ll need to revisit this one later to see if I can make it better using community suggestions!

Community Shoutout

A shoutout to my fellow dad chefing it up for his family - the one and only DadChef! He doesn’t like to call himself a chef, but he’s a true chef in my book. DadChef not only shares lots of delicious looking food, but also actionable tips and ideas to level up in the kitchen.

I love his recommendation to make your pasta water “as salty as the sea.” It’s just the kind of principle-driven cooking that will make your food taste great, while freeing you from the tyranny of specific recipes.

No measuring here - just keep adding salt until it tastes right.

You’ll reduce stress by eliminating measurement, decrease preparation time by raising the temperature of the water, and improve flavor by cooking the salt right into the pasta. It’s a win-win-win!

That’s it for this week! Don’t forget to subscribe for weekly updates right to your inbox:

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