A cooking journal

Justin
at the Stove

Fancy-but-simple dinners, most nights, for my family. Here's what I made and how I made it.
Colorado · est. 2026
Tonight
POV · coming soon
video drops here
Butter Chicken, Rice & a Baguette
marinated overnight · cooked tonight

The kind of dinner that tastes like a lot of work and mostly isn't — the yogurt marinade does the heavy lifting while you sleep. Warm baguette to mop the sauce.

Prep Log
Aug 25 · 9:12 PM
Ingredients out. Chicken into the yogurt-spice marinade, into the fridge.
Aug 26 · 5:30 PM
Out of the fridge. Onions and garlic down in the butter.
Aug 26 · 6:45 PM
Sauce built, chicken back in, baguette warming. Plated.
ingredients
out
marinade
sauce
plate
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The Log
Aug 24–25
Sunday Lasagna

Ricotta, mozzarella, marinara, layered in a 9x13. Baked Sunday, even better as leftovers Monday.

Recipe →
Aug 23
Ragù Bianco

The white one — beef, wine, and milk, no tomato. Made it a day ahead so it'd go silkier.

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Aug 22
Gochujang Honey Chicken Rice Bowls

Gochujang-honey sauce reduced until it clings, over warm rice. Fast, sweet, a little heat.

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Aug 21
Green Chili Smash Burgers

Double smash on cast iron, roasted green chiles, Monterey jack, sweet caramelized onion.

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Aug 19–20
Smoked Chicken Thighs

Dry-rubbed, 250° over hickory to 175 internal. Bark-forward and hard to mess up.

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Aug 18
Smoked Prime Rib Roast

Dry-brined bone-in, low and slow over hickory, buttered in cast iron. A two-day project worth it.

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Aug 17
Gochujang Honey Chicken Rice Bowls

Back to the bowls. When something's this fast and this good, you make it twice a week.

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Aug 16
Classic Smash Burgers

Ripping-hot cast iron and a hard press. Lacy, crusted edges in fifteen minutes of hands-on.

Aug 14–15
Beefy Skillet Mac

Homemade hamburger-helper energy — cheesy beef and macaroni in one skillet, off a batch of meat base.

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Aug 12–13
Cast-Iron Chicken Thighs, Apple-Bacon Pan Sauce

Seared skin-on, rested, plated under a glossy apple-cider pan sauce built off the fond.

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Aug 10–11
Chicken Pot Pie

Deep dish, creamy vegetable filling, golden butter crust. Reheats even better the next night.

Recipe →
Why This Exists

I started cooking to solve my own problem — I wanted good dinners without the mess of clipped screenshots, dead bookmarks, and recipe sites that make you read a memoir before the ingredients. So I built a place to keep my recipes as files I actually own. Then I figured other people had the same problem.

This site is the honest version of that. Some nights it's a real cook I filmed start to finish. Some nights it's Costco lasagna and I say so. I'm not a tech guru and I'm not selling one — the world doesn't need more of those. It needs tools that just work. I use mine to make dinner every night. Here's the dinner. Here's the tool.

— Justin