Making Meals With Meka! Live!

All right, y'all, I will be waiting for people to join. This is the live stream chicken and spinach linguine. So I'm just gonna sit here. We're gonna wait for more people to come in so we can start cooking live. So while we're gonna wait, I'm just doing my prep. Let me make sure I got everything so you guys can see. I'm gonna have to set my live game up because you can schedule the live on the computer, but then you try to stream from your phone, it don't match up. So I'm hoping everyone's not in that link, probably. So we're just gonna wait. I'm gonna have a little sip while people get in here. Let me go get me some water, though. I'll be back. All right, so we have one person. We are just waiting. Hey, who joined? Tap in the text box so I can see who's here. I'm trying to get this all together. All right, we got two people in here. So we're just gonna wait. You know how it is. Just like when you have a party, people don't show up on time, which is cool. We're just gonna sit here and wait. I'm sipping some water until all our guests arrive. But we are doing the chicken linguine, and I am gonna be cooking live. So if you just wanna let me know who's all in here, let me see. Because I can't tell. I know someone is in here. So just type your name, let me know you're in here, and let me know you are ready to cook. Internet is ridiculous. All right, so type your name. Let me know who is at this end here. I'm gonna wait for about five minutes, maybe, and then we'll start cooking. We are making a chicken and spinach linguine today, okay? Chicken and spinach linguine is on the menu. I'm sorry if there's been some confusion about which link to join. It's just really weird. I was able to create the link on YouTube, the upcoming event, and then when I tried to stream from my phone, I couldn't find the event. So I had to just go live. So we'll work out the kinks eventually. But I hope that you guys are ready to cook the spinach and chicken linguine. Like I said, we're gonna wait maybe about five more minutes, and we just gonna get started. And then if people just join in later, then they'll just kinda have to catch up. So go ahead and text me if you're in here. Text me your name so we can all interact. Cause I'm not seeing, I can't see who's in here. And then text me the cocktail that you have as well. Right now I'm just drinking water. And making sure everything is prepped. So we're just gonna sit back and wait. All right, so I have the chat button on. All right, so we will be cooking chicken, spinach linguine. I'm gonna wait a couple minutes until people start to trickle in. I don't wanna wait too long though, because we do have a time. I don't wanna be on here all day. So I'm gonna wait a couple minutes. I'm gonna wait maybe four more minutes, and then I'm just gonna start cooking. And then that will allow people who's going to attend, it will give them a chance to attend. Hello, hello. Are you ready to cook? Now you guys, I am not technically savvy. I guess that's something that I'm gonna have to start learning how to do is be technically savvy. So I hope everyone was able to find this link okay. All right, so let's do in about, let me see, in a couple minutes, we're gonna do an ingredients check. Okay, we're gonna do an ingredients check. I wanna make sure everyone has their ingredients, and we are going to make a fantastic chicken linguine dish. Right now I'm just sipping on some water. If y'all got a cocktail, y'all got a beer, let me know what y'all drinking right now. Right now I'm drinking water. Okay, now about 30 minutes into this cooking lesson, I will probably be drinking something a little bit stronger. You know what I mean? So I'll just, like I said, for people who just tuned in, I'm gonna wait, wait a little bit for people to come in, except, you know, this started at one. You know, people like to be fashionably late. So, but I will say in about three more minutes, we're about to get started. So I hope that everyone is ready to cook, and let's have a fantastic cooking session. Okay, let me see. Oh, you are laying in bed. That is so funny. So you're laying in bed, you're not gonna cook a log, but you're just gonna see how the meal comes together. Okay, that's totally fine as well. I'm gonna go step by step on how to prepare this meal, and then it'll be available on YouTube. So if you just wanna go back and, you know, recreate it, then that's totally fine. So I'm just gonna get started, cause, you know, we got things to do. So here's an ingredients check. So for this chicken linguine, now the recipe I'm gonna give, you're gonna be able to feed a family of four. I'm only gonna make enough for two people because I don't want any waste. So you're gonna need some linguine. I like the refrigerated linguine, but this is the dry linguine. This works perfectly fine. So I am going to, I'm actually gonna cook the refrigerated linguine, but most people probably have the dry linguine. That's fine. You're also gonna need one to two chicken breasts. So because I'm only cooking for two people, I'm not gonna use, you know, two full chicken breasts. I'm only gonna use one. You're also gonna need some grape tomatoes. Oh, thank you. I appreciate the compliment. Thank you. You're gonna need some grape tomatoes. You're also gonna need some spinach. And I like to use the spinach that's already in the bag, that's already washed. It's just really easy. Now this big old bag of spinach is literally gonna cook down to about nothing. So I like mine spinach heavy, so I'll probably put probably two bags of spinach in mine. You're gonna need an onion. If you like onions, if you don't want onions, then you can 100% omit the onion. You're also gonna need some fresh garlic. Garlic makes everything delicious. So I'm gonna need you to get the fresh garlic. The seasonings for this pasta is, this dish is not very heavy. We're gonna use pepper, and I like to use sea salt. If you wanna use regular salt, you can. And then we have our extra virgin olive oil. So this is really a very, very simple dish. It doesn't taste like it's a simple dish, but it is a very simple dish for people that are beginning. Now, you're also gonna need some chicken broth. I normally, I use bouillon. Oh, hey, hey, Benz. We're just getting started. I waited a couple minutes, cause you know, people trickled in. Let me know, was it hard to find this link? Because the original one that I posted, I couldn't access. So let me know if it was hard to find this link. Give me that feedback real quick. We're gonna use some chicken broth. And then I still have my Parmesan cheese. The Parmesan cheese is what's gonna make this delicious. It's still in the refrigerator. So let me go to the refrigerator. Oh, oh, I'm off the camera. I'll be back. Okay, I'm back on camera. Parmesan cheese that was just in that refrigerator. So we are going to get started making this delicious meal. Oh, and then I also have my cocktail in my personalized glass. I will be leaving the link to the vendor that I use to make these glasses. These are absolutely gorgeous. She's actually on the thread today. I'll be leaving a link to her page if you guys wanna get some personalized glasses. All right, so the first thing we're gonna do is we are going to start our water. So when you're cooking, it's all about like rhythm and timing. You know what I mean? So you have to know how long things take to cook so everything can come together at the end in one cohesive dish. So I'm gonna start my pot of water and my pot of water is going to be, of course, to cook the pasta in. So that's gonna take a minute. Now, while that is boiling, I'm gonna turn you guys over to my cutting board. All right, so we are going to chop our vegetables first. Now, I'm putting onion in mine. I love the taste of onion. So if you want onion, you know, I use about a half of onion. This is a sweet onion. So there's many different kinds of onions. We're not gonna go into the different kinds of onions today but this is a sweet onion. I'm putting a half a sweet onion in mine. Let me show you guys a real, real quick way to cut onions. You're gonna cut the end off, right? Turn it, cut the other end off, okay? And then cut that in half, all right? Then you go through and you just peel the first layer off. This is the easiest way to peel onions. I mean, you can't beat that. For sure a way for it to get peeled. There you go. Now, I'm gonna get like a little trash bowl, put all my trash in, so I ain't gotta keep leaving off the camera. So all the trash is going into this bowl. So we're gonna cut the onion. I'm gonna use a half of onion and I like nice pieces of onion. Like I like to eat the onion and know I'm tasting it. So I'm just gonna slice this in half and then with my fingers down, I'm just gonna slice it down, okay? That's gonna give me really nice, really nice pieces of onion, okay? So they're gonna be like this, okay? Now I'm gonna saute these down. Now, if you don't want big chunks of onion in yours, then just cut them smaller, okay? But the onions will add a really, really good flavor. So I'm gonna set this onion to the side. Now it's time to chop the garlic. Okay, who loves some? Yeah, onions are delicious. You know, onions are absolutely delicious. They add flavor to everything. So my favorite spice in the whole entire world is garlic, okay? When something calls for like two cloves of garlic, I put like about five, like I'm not joking. So we're gonna peel this garlic right now. This is, I told you guys to have like four or five cloves of garlic. So this is the whole head. A clove is just the little individual part. So I'm gonna peel off about five of these because, why am I lying? Let me tell you, I'm gonna do like six or seven, okay? You don't have to do six or seven. I just love garlic, but I'm gonna do six or seven, all right? Now mind you, the water is boiling. Start your water. So a real quick way to cut your, I mean, to slice your garlic. And those of you who have watched my videos, you will see you put your garlic clove on your board. You take your knife, back your hand, and then you just smash it. So what this does is when you're smashing your garlic, it gets the casing off of it. And then it also releases all that good juicy garlic, garlicky-ness, okay? So what I'm doing is I'm just chopping the vegetables first that we're gonna put in the Alfredo, all right? And then you just go and you take all of the outside off. All right, so real quick, if you guys wanna share, if you're a novice of cooking, if you're an expert of cooking, just let me know. Let me know what level you feel you are with cooking. And tell me about your first cooking experience. While you guys are trying to type those answers, I'll tell you mine. I've been cooking since I was eight years old. I had my great-grandmother, her name was Madea. Now, mind you, Madea, I knew a Madea way before Tyler Perry made the term famous. And I'm pretty sure most other black people knew the term Madea, so when he came up with Madea, of course, we were able to relate to that. So my great-grandmother, Madea, she's my maternal great-grandmother, and she loved to cook. She was a grandmother that would cook the homemade cakes and bread pudding. I still ain't had no bread pudding like Madea's. She would do the hog head cheese, all the stuff that was typical in African-American community. So we would all go to Madea's house for all like Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving, everything was at Madea's house. Madea was like this little, okay? Madea was like literally this big, and she had like a little step stool in her kitchen. But it was an honor for me because when I became of age, I was like eight years old, she would tell my mom, hey, Shirley, bring Tamika over here, right? Now, at first, as a little kid, you're like, man, why do I gotta go over there and help her cook? I don't wanna be cooking, I wanna hang out with my friends. But she actually picked me to come over there and help her cook. So she taught me how to make like caramel from scratch, cake from scratch. Now, I'm not a baker, so I can't remember none of them recipes. She taught me how to make gravy, just like how to cook, cook. You know what I mean? And then my mom also aided in that because my mom was a cook as well. But it got to the point like from eight years old, every major holiday that Madea was hosting, I got to go to Madea's house and help her cook. And she would just stand on, she was like, this big. So I'm eight years old, we're the same height. And we would just stand there and she would tell me how to cook and do this and do that. So that's where my affinity from cooking came from my great-grandmother. So if you guys wanna share what your affinity is, that's really, really great. Now, I'm chopping this garlic, my fingers are down, and then I'm just chopping. Making sure I get it all chopped up. I don't really, now, I love garlic, but I don't like huge slices of garlic in my pasta dishes. So I'm just gonna run my knife over this about 11 times till I get it really, really nice and chopped, okay? So this is what my vegetables are looking like, all right? Now, if you're cooking along with me, your garlic should look like that, okay? Your onions should look like that, all right? Now, so I'm going to start my pan. I'm about to put my vegetables to the side. I'm about to start my pan for the chicken. Now, you guys, always use a different cutting board for your chicken and your meats than your vegetables. I use a wooden cutting board. To clean my wooden cutting board off, I just use like some olive juice, some lemon juice, and sometimes I use hot water, but always use a separate cutting board for your meat and your veggies. Okay, so what did you say? You said that you learned from your grandmother as well? I'm telling you, like, you know, and the crazy part is, you know, like, my grandmother, I don't know if you guys' grandmother was like this, like made like top-notch dishes. They didn't go to no culinary school. They was in the kitchen learning from they mama or they grandmother, you know what I mean? And that's where the best recipes come from is learning, you know, from your grandmothers or your auntie or whatever. So my water is boiling. I just turned my skillet on because I'm about to cut this chicken. Now, I am going to use the same knife because I'm not going to cut anything else. All my vegetables are chopped up. Now, for this pasta, I like to make the chicken last, okay? I'm trying to get as many bites of chicken as possible. So I am going to cut this the long way first, okay? Now, you need a sharp knife for this, okay? So now I have two, you know, essentially two pieces and then I'm just going to go in and cut again, okay? And I'm just going to keep going down. Now, you see, I'm just using one hand to cut this chicken. So this is kind of like my, say, my icky hand. I have that one, I have that one icky hand. Okay, my knife's got it. Now, before I go on to season the chicken, okay, let me see. Oh, your grandma used to let you in the kitchen? I mean, like, those memories with your grandparents should be, you know, those are like forever be in the wall, okay? Now, for anyone that just tuned in, let me just do a quick recap. We are making this chicken and spinach linguine. I put the water on to boil for our pasta. I have cut up a half an onion and garlic is right here. My, I have cut up a chicken, my chicken breast. This is my icky hand, but this is my clean hand, right? I haven't touched the chicken with the clean hand. I'm going to season this chicken before I put it in the pan, okay? And I'm just gonna give it a nice dose of, or helping of sea salt. I like sea salt. If you want regular salt, you can use regular salt. And then pepper, okay? And then this is where I typically put my, my red pepper flakes as well. I love red pepper flakes. They don't make your, they don't make your food too spicy, but it adds that little je ne sais quoi, like, you know, just that little heat. I love, I love a little heat. So now my chicken is all seasoned. Okay. Turn my water up. My pan is hot and I'm just gonna put a couple of teaspoons of olive oil in my pan. Okay. Couple of teaspoons. And I'm going to, you know your olive oil is hot when it just glides around the pan like that. Y'all see that? It just glide, okay? That means my olive oil is hot. So I cut my chicken. I got my water going for the, for my pasta. And now I'm about to cook my chicken. This is on medium heat. I don't want this to cook too fast. Okay. I'm gonna move this back. Can y'all see that good chicken in that pan? I don't want the camera to mess up too much. Can y'all see that chicken? Okay. So now I don't want to be out of the camera too much, but I have to go wash my hands. So y'all just go ahead and look at that chicken. Y'all should be, y'all should be cooking y'all chicken at the same time. I'll be right back. All right. So y'all don't have to help me out. You know, leaving the camera is not good. What is a good way? How do I wash my hands without being out of focus of the camera? Cause my sink is way over there. The cameras weren't here. So, you know, kind of like, I know it's kind of like when you're on the radio, you can't have no dead space. You know what I mean? You're not supposed to have dead space. So I don't need to stay in the camera at all times, but it's going to be impossible if I have to wash my hands. All right. So I'm just going to saute my chicken. You're not going to cook this too fast. Okay. So I'm just sauteing my chicken on a medium heat. And you don't want to cook it too fast because if you do cook it too fast, it doesn't need to dry out. Ain't nobody trying to have no dry chicken in this pasta. Okay. It's not delicious. All right. My water is bubbling. Let me turn the camera a little bit. Y'all see that water bubbling? Y'all see that? That's what your water should look like. Okay. That lets you know your water is, it's ready. Oh, hey, Tiffany, you found me. Hey. So you guys, both my best friends, listen, I'm telling y'all, look, okay. Real quick. I'm going to tell y'all right now. Now I'm about to salt this water real quick. I'm about to put the water in here. So you get those who have just caught up. My water is boiling. I'm salting my water. Don't ever put olive oil in your water. If you put olive oil in your water, your sauce is not going to stick. I'm just salting my water. I cut up my chicken. The chicken is in the pan. And I cut up my garlic and my onions. But let me tell you, water stuff is cooking. Let's just have a little conversation. Okay. I'm going to tell you if I ever make it big or when, let's just say when. I want to say that my two best friends have always supported me. Listen, they, you know, now mind you, look, I ain't going to say our age, but we in our 20s, you know what I mean? And then, you know, I decided at this age, I've always had a passion for cooking, but at this age, I just really decided, you know, just to go for it. You know, have a cooking show. Why not? You know, do a YouTube live. And do you understand? And like, they were both like, hey girl, what do I need to go? What do I need to do? What do I need to buy? So, you know, like, you know, having two best friends like that is absolutely wonderful. You know what I mean? Because like, you know, you need to get the encouragement from your friends. So I'm telling y'all right now, when I blow up, we all blowing up. Okay. Four and five, we going. Okay. Y'all ready? Have y'all stuff ready. So both my best friends are on here, cooking with us today. But, you know, you guys, you know, tell me, is there anything that you waited until late in life to decide to, you know, take on full fledge? You know what I mean? And if, you know, if you, you know, for the first 20 years of your life, you did one thing and then, you know, you wake up one day and you're like, I don't want to do this no more. Don't do it. You get one life. Switch it up. All right. So the water is boiling. Um, and I'm going to put the pasta in here. Oh, oh, and my cousin, truth. Oh, truth. You know, I didn't even know, Aletia, that that was you, the truth parlor, and I should because I follow you. My cousin, oh, TNT on here too. So my cousin, Aletia, you know, hey, she be doing big things. She be fighting all across the country, honey. You know, she got that good airport job, that airline job. She be all over the place. And so I am kind of, um, I feel honored to have her, you know, join, join me today. I just really do feel honored to have her joining me today. Hey, cousin. My friend Tangerine is on here. Hey, Tangy. And I gave Tangy a pass today because me and Tangy worked out this morning. And I was like, Tangy, you support me for everything. You don't got to be on Making Meals with Mika today. And she's here. So I really appreciate everybody that's, you know, that's on here making, uh, Making Meals with Mika. You know, making it. It is what it is. I'm ready, boo. You about to make it big. Thank you for the encouragement. Thank you. So is anybody cooking? Oh, really? So my husband is making a cameo. Uh, he, he stole my, stole my wine. I mean, he could stir a pot or something if he gonna just get in the camera. I'm in a green room. Ain't, ain't no green room. I'm in a green room watching the game. He's out, he's out in the garage watching the game. Okay, so is anybody cooking? All right, so I'm going to drop the pasta. I'm going to drop the pasta in the water real quick. Now, I don't know if any of you guys were able to find this refrigerator pasta. Who's cooking? Yay! Okay, Toots, did you get this type of pasta or did you get the refrigerator pasta? He can stir a pot. If you want to interrupt, he ain't stirring no pot. If you want me to get you, you gonna work. I'm going to use my good refrigerator pasta. This is the VIP pasta. But if you want it, if you use the, if you use the dry pasta, you just go ahead and drop that in the water because it's going to take about 13 good minutes. Okay, going to take 13 good minutes. But I'm going to use this good refrigerator pasta because it only takes, it takes three minutes and it's quite delicious. Okay, I'm going to put that in there. So the chicken, the chicken, y'all see that? Y'all see that? Yeah, it smells delicious in here. So I cut my linguine in real, real big pieces. I mean, my linguine. I cut my chicken in real, real big pieces because I like to bite into a big old piece of chicken. Okay? All right. So now, since my chicken isn't, it's not all the way done, but it's all juicy. Now it's time to add my onions. Now Tiffany, my friend Tiffany don't like onions. It's okay. I'm going to add these good onions to the mix. Okay? And then I'm going to go on ahead and saute that till them onions get soft. All right, so what y'all sipping on? Okay, what is y'all sipping on right now? Tell me. Okay. This, what y'all, Toots, I thought you didn't, who don't like onions? Oh, you don't like pepper. I called Tiffany Toots. She don't like pepper. Okay. Onions are delicious, so the onions are in there. Okay, let me know what y'all sipping on right now. I am sipping on red wine and it ain't no expensive red wine either. This is about $3. I'm not lying. This is about $3, $3 bottle of red wine with a little spritzer. All right, Tiffany sipping Moscato. Cheers. Tangerine, you sipping? Bananas, are you sipping? Truth, are you in the bed sipping, honey? What are you drinking right now? That's good. So this is my red wine with a little white cloth and it's called a spritzer. Okay. So we got our pasta cooking. I got the chicken and the onions. Tiffany, where are you at right now? You got your chicken in the pot? In the pan? Stirring it up? You got your chicken in the pan? Now, those of you who logged on, let me know if it was hard to find this link. You guys, this is totally a pilot. If this works out, I feel like we should do this maybe once a month. Nah, not sipping right now. Oh, cause we just worked out. Tangerine and I just worked out, so she ain't sipping right now. She being good. I'm in here burning calories. I got these hot lights on me. I'm sweating. You know, I need to rehydrate. Yes, the chicken is cooking. Pasta's on the stove. Bet, bet, bet. And then True said she jet lagged because I told y'all she'd be flying all over the world. She just got back from South Bend, you guys. We're cousins. It was our auntie Gloria's 81st birthday, was it? And she flew to South Bend to surprise her for her birthday. I saw the pictures, wonderful. All right, so now, y'all see this? Cooking and interaction. I'm paying attention. Okay, she paying attention. And Banza cooking water. I mean, Banza is drinking water. Okay, so Tiffany, I guess me and you, we just the only alcoholics on here, it's okay. Now, when your onions are nice, when they're nice and translucent, meaning you can almost see through them, that's when I add my garlic because y'all know garlic is funny acting. You know, you keep garlic in the pan too long, it will burn. So I don't wanna burn it. So right now, it smells absolutely delicious in here. So I got my onions, my chicken, and my garlic just all getting along real quick up in there. All right, so let me tell y'all. So this is just a pilot, right? And I think the next time we're gonna make it a little bit more interactive, maybe we'll do a Zoom call, if you guys are okay, so I can see what y'all are doing. And then we'll do the Zoom call, and then I can see your faces as well. And then I can also be double checking to make sure you put the correct amount of seasoning in your good groceries and make sure you ain't over there burning nothing. So it's a way for me to kind of micromanage while y'all cooking. Y'all okay with that? Let's do that. So see, my garlic is starting to burn a little bit, so I'm gonna go ahead and turn it down. Now y'all see how unctuous this is? Now, we're gonna make everything in this one pan, okay? So I have the chicken, I have the garlic, I have the spinach, right? I mean, I'm sorry, the chicken, the garlic, and the onion. Now it's time to add the spinach. Before I add the spinach, because spinach takes up a lot of room, I'm just gonna drizzle another, just another little thing of EVOO. Now the spinach, we're gonna add this a little bit at a time. Now this bag looks like it's a lot, it ain't a lot. It's gonna mess around a little down to about one teaspoon of spinach. That's what I don't appreciate, I don't appreciate it. So now this is where you gotta be patient. So you're gonna come in here, constantly turn it, let the hotness from the skillet and the chicken wilt down that spinach. If you wanna use tongs, right now you can use tongs as well. I have some tongs over here. And then once this wilts down enough, we're gonna add, we're gonna add a little bit more, okay? Make sure you check on your pasta. Tiffany, what's your pasta looking like over there? What's your pasta looking like? So my pasta's almost done, and I'm not going to drain my pasta water because your pasta water makes your pasta better. Oh, my husband's on here. He's in the green room having some beer. But hey, hubby, hey hubby, thanks for being in the green room. Thanks for your support being on the live. And he could attest, he's not a big pasta eater. He's more potatoes and rice. But all right, Tiffany, if your pasta's looking good, follow this instruction. If your pasta is done, I want you to use some tongs or use a pasta spoon and take your pasta out and put it in another container. Do not empty that water out. Okay, so what I'm gonna do is my pasta's done, right? I am literally just going to, I'm gonna turn my water off. I'm gonna turn my water off. And then I'm gonna save that pasta water because that pasta water is gonna be key to making the sauce for this. And I'm just gonna take my pasta out and put it in my colander. And Tiffany, I need you to do that as well. Who's ever cooking with me right now, if your pasta's done, just take it out the pot and put it in another container, right? So the water can still drain off of it, but we're gonna use some of that pasta water. So here's my pasta, okay? I'm just gonna put it to the side. Don't throw this water away, okay? This pasta water is liquid gold. All right, so let's go back over to my good spinach. All right, so talk to me, toots. How's it going over there? All right, my stuff is wilted down enough that I'm gonna put some more. I'm gonna put some more spinach in here. So this in your skillet is gonna be a beautiful combination of your chicken, your spinach, your onions, and your garlic. Truth, you over there taking notes? You taking notes over there? So when you're hopefully big, you can go and make this good pasta. Look, I just spilled leaves on the floor, y'all, oh well. So I'm putting the rest of my spinach in here. I thought I might need two bags, I only need one. You never thought to save pasta water. People don't, people don't. Like Tangerita was on here, she'll tell you, when I went to her house and I cooked for her, it was me, her, my husband, and her, her boo-boo, her boyfriend, I cooked for them. And I told her the secret of the pasta water. So we're gonna use the pasta water in the sauce. We're not gonna use all of it, but because the pasta water has, hey, David, welcome, welcome. Are you cooking with us? Do you have your chicken and your linguine? And are you ready to make this meal with us? We almost halfway through, but we could catch you up. But what I was saying was, you save your pasta water because the pasta water has, it has the starch from your pasta, right? It has your starch. And then that starch is a natural thickener. So you don't have to add corn starch, you don't have to add flour or anything like that. All your thickeners is right here in your pasta water. So when you're making your sauce, you just add a little bit of that good pasta water to your sauce, and then it makes your sauce thicker. And I'm gonna show y'all in a minute. So right now I'm just sautéing, I'm just sautéing this up right now, guys. And we're just gonna let this do its thing and work all together. David, you just join us. What you sipping over there, David? You sipping anything? You know, we got somebody sipping Moscato, I'm sipping red wine. We got somebody drinking water. We got somebody in the bed, cause she jet lagged and she been traveling. And then we got someone just not drinking anything. So it's just, I'm not, well, I'm not drinking by myself cause my best friend, she's drinking with me. But I feel like, you know, look, I know it's only 1.40 where I'm at, but it's five o'clock somewhere. Cheers. You got hot cocoa. Hot cocoa. Timothy, this is gonna be for lunch, honey. This is gonna be for lunch and dinner, just two of us. So, you know, this is gonna make an amazing amount of food that we ain't gonna be able to eat in one sitting. So Timothy, this is for lunch and dinner. Truth, to answer your questions, I absolutely hate mushrooms. I hate them. They're not delicious, but you can make this your own. If you want to add mushrooms to this, my friend Tiffany's on here, she loves mushroom. Tangerine's on here, she loves mushroom. Vanza, I think you like mushrooms too, right? So if you want to add mushrooms, feel free, but you would never see a meal that Mika makes that has mushrooms in it, okay? Like, I just don't like them, but feel free. Now, that's a good thing with cooking. If you find like a good base recipe, like, okay, you guys, this is a good base recipe. But if you want to switch it up to make it your own, absolutely. Say you don't like spinach, if you want to add kale, go ahead and add kale, you know what I mean? Say you don't like tomatoes. Some people don't like tomatoes. Don't put no tomatoes in there. If I tell you to add one cup of cheese, say you like, well, I don't want one cup of cheese, I want three cups of cheese. Add three cups of cheese, it's your food. You know what I mean? You just have to make it your own. This was just to my liking. Like, I put red pepper flakes in here. You don't like red pepper flakes, you ain't got to put red pepper flakes. My husband is not a fan. So my husband's not a fan of red pepper flakes, but he put hot sauce on everything. Make it make sense. It don't make no sense. So it's like, you know, you're not a real big fan of red pepper flakes, but you're gonna put hot sauce on it? It don't make no sense. And that's exactly what you're gonna do to this. Y'all see, I'm sitting here in the kitchen making this all good and delicious and seasoned, and he gonna mess around and put some hot sauce on it. Now, we have put a boatload of spinach in this pot. Now we gotta continue to taste. So now I'm gonna add some more salt. You cannot have any bland food. I'm gonna add some salt. I'm gonna add some black pepper. Tiffany, where you at? What's your food looking like over there? Kale is delicious. Kale is absolutely delicious. Tiffany, tell me where you are right now, ma'am. I need to get some more black pepper, y'all. Now, another thing is, you guys, you have to constantly taste your food. You have to constantly taste your food. So I'm about to remove this from the pan because it's almost done. All right, let me see. I've added spinach gradually. Okay, you see that? She said it gradually. That's a good cooking term. She added it gradually. There you go. Deal with that good vocabulary, honey. Now let me go ahead and taste this. Now, my spinach isn't gonna be cooked all the way to how I want it, but it's okay because it still has some more time to cook. Yeah, that is good. You guys, if you don't use sea salt, I'm telling you to try sea salt instead of iodized salt because you don't have to use nearly as much sea salt. I would like to eat cream spinach. You know what? You could put cream spinach in here. Ooh, you know what? Cream spinach is good. I love cream spinach. And you can actually make this dish creamy. We're not gonna make this creamy because I'm trying to eat healthy. I'm trying to keep this nice and light. So this is not a creamy dish, but you can totally add cream. Now, you should be looking like this. You should be looking like this right here, okay? Now, what I'm gonna do is I have a plate. I'm just gonna go ahead and just put this to the plate and I'm gonna add this back a little bit in a little bit. I gotta get my sauce together. We're almost done. This really don't take a lot of time. Now, I'm gonna eyeball this. I'm gonna use the same skillet that all that just came off of and then this is where I'm going to add. Now, you want your stuff very saucy, add more liquid. I can't stand no dry pasta. I do not like no dry pasta. So I like to add a lot of sauce to mine. If you want yours less saucy, you want yours a little bit more dry, then add less. Use your eye. But I'm gonna add about two cups of chicken broth. I normally use chicken stock, but my husband brought this chicken broth home. So I don't wanna see it go to waste. So I'm gonna use this chicken broth, but I know I probably have to add a little bit more seasoning because chicken broth to me doesn't have very bold flavors. You know what I'm saying? You know, it's mild, it's like a chicken noodle soup mild. Okay, turn it up on high. So I'm gonna add a little bit more pepper to this chicken broth. I'm gonna add just a little bit of salt. You don't want this to be too salty. I'm gonna add a little bit of crushed red pepper. And I'm gonna let this boil. I'm gonna let this boil. All right, where are we at right now? It's just me and Tiffany drinking. A couple of us are cooking. Those of you who I told you a little bit later, I was asking, you know, where did you get, where did you get your love for cooking? Pepper is one of my favorites. Yes, pepper is absolutely delicious. You know, I, listen, I love garlic, onions, black pepper. Okay, those are my to go to. Now I have my chicken and my vegetables right here. I have my pasta right here. I saved my pasta water. Let me get, let me get a little spoon. Now, remember this is, I'm bringing this up to a boil. Okay, cayenne pepper is good too. But you know what cayenne pepper, you gotta, you gotta, look, cayenne pepper, you just gotta put like a little dash. Cayenne pepper is delicious. And you can go from hot to burnt, to burn your ass off in a heartbeat with that good cayenne pepper. So while our broth, I'm bringing this to a boil, right? While this is coming up to a boil, I'm gonna take my grape tomatoes. You can use cherry tomatoes. You can do, or grape tomatoes. I use grape tomatoes. And all I'm gonna do is to get the juices and stuff out. I'm just gonna cut these in half. Now I'm gonna do about two cups of, well, maybe like, yeah, like two cups of tomatoes. You decide how many tomatoes you want in your, in your pasta. And we're just gonna toss these in at the very last second. Cause I don't like overly cooked tomatoes. They become very, I don't know. I just don't like the texture. So now this pasta, you guys, is not a very heavy pasta. So it's perfect. Even if you don't like to, you know, if you're like on no carbs or whatever, cause me and my friends, we've been working out. We all got weight loss goals that we want to achieve. And we, you know, we have been reducing our carbs. So, you know, and our fat intake and stuff like that. So this, you know, this is a very light pasta. It's not really thick. It's not going to stick with you for hours and hours. All right. So my, my broth has come to a boil. Now that pasta water that I told y'all about, I need you to take about a cup of that pasta water and add it to, to your broth. And what that pasta water does is it's going to, because it has the starch from your pasta, it's going to automatically help thicken up, help thicken up this sauce. Okay. So all we have is the chicken stock. I put a cup of pasta water and then I have my red pepper flakes and I have salt and pepper. Just, just really, really nice. It's not a lot of seasonings. If you're a person that, you know, you're first time cooking or you don't really have a lot of experience with cooking and you want to make a dish that tastes like, it takes all day and tastes like it takes a lot of skill, you use this. And it's actually really, really delicious. So, Tiffany, I'm going to do a check to see where you are. I'm going to go ahead and take a drink. Hope y'all don't mind me taking a drink. That's good. And like I told you guys, this is just the pilot. I was thinking that next time we'll do maybe like a Zoom call. Cheers. All right, David, you done drinking your hot chocolate? David, are you done with your hot chocolate? Do you need to move on to adult beverage? Okay, just add your pasta water. Good job, toots. Good job. So let me know. I was thinking about doing one of these once a month, something really nice and easy, but the next time we'll do Zoom so I can see you guys and we can interact a little bit more. You guys can interact as guests and then we'll make something nice and delicious. Something that takes about, you know, an hour or less. You know, we can't be on here, you know, cooking gumbo and stuff like that because we can't be online, you know, all day. Okay, toots, you just add your pasta water. Perfect. Now, now that this is bubbling, we're gonna turn this down just a little bit. We're almost done, guys. Now, that pasta that's been sitting over there drying out, okay, we are, our bands are funny. We are going to add the pasta, okay, to this sauce, okay? Now, it's just my husband and I. I really don't want to waste anything, so I probably won't even add all of this, but I'm gonna add a nice amount of this pasta to this sauce. Now, you should always, I don't care if you making spaghetti. I don't care if you're making anything Alfredo. You should always, always, always add your pasta back to the sauce. You know, you don't want to just, you know, put the sauce on a plate and then add the pasta. You know, I mean, put the pasta on the plate and just, you know, run the sauce over it. No, because the, you know, the pasta doesn't get fully encompassed in that good sauce. So now, we're going to add everything back to this pot. I mean, this pan. So I got the pasta in there, okay? Then we're gonna add all the deliciousness. This is the spinach, this is the onions, this is the garlic, the red pepper flakes, right? You guys, it smells absolutely amazing right now, okay? We're gonna turn this up a little bit. Let all this get along really, really nice and good. And then, this is where you add your Parmesan. Now, my Parmesan has been out since I started getting a little room temperature. Now, I told y'all, if you've watched any of my making meals with Miki videos, I actually like to grate my own Parmesan, but for this purposes, because I'm pretty sure a lot of people didn't feel like grating their own Parmesan. I don't blame y'all. I just used, I'm just using already shredded Parmesan, but this is a really nice brand of Parmesan. Now, I'm gonna add about a cup or so of Parmesan to this. Now, cheese is naturally salty, so you shouldn't have to add any more salt to this, okay? Then, after I add that, I'm gonna add my tomatoes. And I tell y'all, I bet it's gonna look, you know that picture that was on the advertisement? This gonna look just like that picture, okay? It's gonna look just like that picture. And now, all you do is just toss it. Ooh, my God. Y'all can't tell me. Look at that. Look. What? You can't tell me that wasn't good. Come on. And then, there you go. Now, y'all, I mean, that was nice, quick, easy. Now, I don't want this to be too dry, so I'm gonna turn this, just turn this down, okay? That Parmesan's sticking, but it's okay. And you guys, that's pretty much it. Pretty much it. We made this beautiful dish in less than an hour. Tiffany, where are you at? Where are you at, viewers? Now, if you were cooking along with me, what type of brand of cheese did you use? Okay, let me tell you. It's called Santori, or Sartori. Sartori is absolutely delicious. I just get it from Kroger. I think Walmart sells it. It's not where, like, it's where the specialty cheeses are. Like, normally, they have, like, a specialty cheese area, and then they'll have a little cooler, and that's where that typically is. Now, you guys, mind you, I normally clean up while I cook, so I'm having a little OCD issues right now because I got stuff everywhere. I can just eyeball this until this needs a little bit more pepper. Now, Tiffany, I know you don't use pepper, so you gotta tell me what you use, but look, look at that. Now, tell me, don't that look just like, it looks just like the advertisement. Now, now we just gotta taste it and make sure it's delicious. So, if you guys have fun with this, please, you know, give me a thumbs up in the comments. Like I said, I think I'm gonna do this once a month, and we'll cook different things. If you have any ideas, feel free, of what you wanna see me cook or any recipes you wanna learn, let me know. But let me get, let me taste this. Mm, man, that tastes delicious. Nice, light, mm, that, you guys, that's good. Something, you said something with bacon? I gotta add a little more cheese. I can do something with bacon. You know, everybody love bacon, but listen, and no shade to those of you that don't eat regular bacon, but you know, somebody, and my friend Tiffany, well, I gotta use turkey bacon. So, I will try to come up with something that we use regular bacon, but we will do, like, turkey bacon. But look, here's the finished product, okay? Here's the finished product. Simple, easy, and delicious. So, thank you guys so much for tuning in with, you know, Making Meals Amika Live. I'll be looking out on YouTube and Facebook for the next cooking video. I will maybe try to incorporate something with bacon, or you can use turkey bacon as well. Something that's healthy, and something that's fun and easy to cook. So, that's about it. You know, I gotta clean up my kitchen before I have a heart attack and there's stuff everywhere, and then I'm hungry. It's time to eat. So, I'm glad everybody said it looks delicious. Thank you guys so much, because you could've totally been doing something else this Saturday, but you decided to hang out with me for an hour, so I really appreciate it. But next month, next month we gonna be doing the same thing, okay? So, everyone have a good evening, and I'm signing off. Thank you for making this meal with Mika. I will talk to y'all later.