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It depends a lot. Every weekend my sister, BIL and nephew visit us (my mum and me); sometimes it’s for Saturday dinner, sometimes for Sunday lunch. Either way the meals tend to be fancier than when it’s just the two of us, and generally better.

For Saturday dinner it’s a coin toss between empadão (savoury chicken pie) or pizza. The preference depends on my mood to prepare the pizze or let my sister bring the empadão. Drinks get funny, there are two clear “camps” here, the latte folks (mum, BIL and me) and the fizz folks (sis and nephew).

For Sunday lunch, my favourite would be something like:

• barbecued pork belly and filled chicken thighs. Bought from a place nearby, they’re great. If neither I’m probably oven roasting something, like beef ribs.
• mayo salad. With potatoes and homemade mayo. It is not Sunday lunch if there’s no mayo salad. And no, I’m not adding weird stuff to it; only yolks (one raw for emulsion, one cooked for flavour), veg oil, salt, vinegar, boiled and diced taters. Get away with your carrots and peppers and olives, they don’t belong to my mayo salad, and if you bring me that white bottled stuff I’m going to curse you and your descendants to the 7th gen! [/pseudo-angry rant]
• an actual salad (the above doesn’t count): green leaves, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, croutons, probably something else. I like [ruchetta? rucola?] that bitter leaf, or watercress, but it’s usually lettuce. Preferably with a simple dressing (olive oil, vinegar, salt), but if I’m in the mood I might use a yoghurt-based dressing instead.
• I’d be OK if the carb was pasta or polenta, but given my mum’s tastes, realistically speaking it’s going to be white rice. Just no taters, unless there’s no mayo salad, but then it isn’t my fav.

Could be my cultural background but I’m a sucker for a traditional Sunday sauce or (even better) baked ziti, at least during most of the year.

Summer cookouts are also awesome with a spread of charred hot dogs, burgers, potato salad, pasta salad, and lettuce-based salad.

When I was young, spaghetti was a special dinner we had only on Sundays. And it was the only meal we had that we were allowed to drink soda with, so it was a treat. I still do a similar recipe as an adult, but obviously no longer limit myself from having it only on Sundays.

Someone asked me the empadão recipe. I’ll include it inside a spoilers tag to avoid cluttering the thread. It’s a bit laborious but if done right it tastes amazing.

Equipment required: stove, oven, pot, and a baking tin large enough for the whole dish, preferably rectangular and tall.

::: spoiler empadão recipe Traditional filling:

• 1kg chicken breast
• 2 onions, peeled, diced small
• 5 cloves of garlic, peeled, minced
• veg oil
• salt and pepper to taste.
• 30ml = 2 tablespoons of tomato paste
• 1 large tomato, peeled, seeded, diced
• 1 cup of requeijão [see note 1]. It’s a ricotta/cottage/paneer-like cheese blended with a bit more milk, often used as bread spread. If unavailable, milk cream in smaller amounts (like, 100ml?) is a good sub, but it’s fine to omit it. Worst hypothesis omit it.
• 100g palm hearts, diced. If unavailable, omit them.
• 50g of olives, no seeds, diced small
• Seasoning of your choice. Parsley and chives should be good; see notes for more.

1. Dice the chicken into large cubes and boil it in some water and salt (to taste), until you can shred it apart with a fork. It’s common to use a pressure cooker for this step, but it isn’t obligatory; just make sure to use as little water as reasonably possible.
2. Sauté the onion and garlic on some veg oil, low fire, until the onion is transparent. Then add the shredded chicken, salt and pepper. Turn the fire to high, and sauté everything together.
3. Add the tomato paste and diced tomato, and let them cook together until the tomato is falling apart. Note the filling should not be dripping liquid.
4. Turn off the fire. Add the requeijão (or milk cream), palm hearts, olives, parsley and chives. Mix everything well. Let it cool.

Dough + assembling.

• 400g = 3 ¹⁄₄ cups flour
• 5g = 1 teaspoon salt
• 200g fat (butter, lard, margarine, or veg shortening), ice cold
• 2 yolks
• up to 100ml water, ice cold (note: you probably won’t use all of it)
• another yolk (yup)
• the filling from the previous part.

1. Mix the flour and salt. Then add the fat, split into tiny lumps, and the egg yolks. Work on the dough with just the tip of your fingers, until it looks like, adding just enough cold water to make it stick together. It should be really coarse and look like apple crumble. Avoid overinteracting with the dough.
2. Use plastic wrapper and a rolling pin to spread the crumb into two discs. One of them should be large enough to cover the bottom and the sides of your baking tin; the other should be a bit smaller, large enough to cover just the bottom of your baking tin.
3. Add the larger disc to the baking tin. Make sure it fits neatly into it. Watch out for the corners, make sure the dough doesn’t get too thick there.
4. Add the filling. (Remember, let it cool.) Then cover it with the smaller disc of dough, and pinch their borders together, so the filling is well enclosed.
5. Remember that third yolk? Brush it over the dough.
6. Bake the dish in a pre-heated oven, at 180°C, until the dough is golden. This should take 40~50min. Remember the filling is already cooked, so don’t worry about it. Let it cool until at least lukewarm, and serve it. Traditionally cut into cubes.

Further notes and tips:

• The filling isn’t picky, so ingredients can be added or omitted depending on availability and your tastes. Just make sure to not add too many goopy ingredients, otherwise it might leak water into the dough.
• If you use too much water to cook the chicken breast, it will be bland, so avoid doing so. You won’t use the resulting liquid in this recipe, but please do NOT discard it, it’s basically homemade stock, store it for another recipe. (Or cook polenta/rice with it.)
• Personally I like to add some sage and thyme to the chicken cooking water. Some people also like to add smoked paprika to the dish; if doing it, add it alongside the pepper.
• When assembling the empadão, if you add the filling still hot, it’ll pre-cook the crust into some weird glue. So letting it cool down is important.
• You want a homogeneous dough, but you don’t want to work on it. Otherwise you’ll develop its gluten, and the crust will get tough. In fact, that’s why my sister’s empadão turns out better than mine (I’m used to rougher doughs, like bread and pizza.)
• It’s fine to use a store-bought crust of your choice, as long as it’s crumbly and savoury. If doing it, buy two discs (top and bottom)
• You’ll be left with three leftover egg whites. Don’t discard them either; they can be frozen indefinitely, for another recipe. (Or just pan-fry them, they’re tasty.)
• Vegans: I’ve heard a lot about people using unripe jackfruit for a vegan version of this dish. I don’t have myself experience with this, so I can’t help you guys with that, but if you’re interested it might be worthy to look it up. You’ll probably want to omit the requeijão, and sub the yolks with some additional fat. :::

Saturday at lunch is the best. Everyone.makes thier own food and I don’t have to cook. Thats the best weekend meal ever.

leftovers

I’m tired from work and don’t want to cook

When I’m visiting family, I’ll sometimes cook a huge breakfast.

Bacon, scrambled eggs, french toast (with cinnamon), etc

Chili and corn bread. My chili uses beans, but I’m not from Texas, so it’s fine. I use two kinds of beans (pinto, and dark red kidney) and two kinds of meat (ground beef, and hot Italian sausage).

If I wanted to make Texas chili, I wouldn’t use ground meat, I’d use stew beef, and I’d have peppers (Bell and jalapeño) and I’d omit the masa. I could make decent Texas chili, but my regular chili is awesome if you don’t hate beans.