"Ordinary" Food

A reader asked if Lady Sally and I ever ate "ordinary" food, rather than the, to him, "fancy" things I keep writing about here.  OK, Jim, "This Bud's for you..."

Lady Sally's Mac & Cheese
Lady Sally admits she's glad to have her own Personal Chef these, days.  She spent years making and serving meals to her family.  But at least once or twice a year she cooks something for me.  A week or so back, we'd somehow gotten onto the subject of the ubiquitous Macaroni & Cheese, and I had explained that my Mom's Mac & Cheese was unlike any other I'd ever seen (one of these days I'll tell you about that). Sally said she made good M&C too.   A few days later, she took the opportunity to show me just how good hers is.

3 Tbsp Butter or Margarine
3-4 Tbsp Flour
1 to 1-/2 cup Whole Milk or Half & half
2-1/4 cups shredded Sharp White Cheddar cheese, 1/4 cup reserved for topping
2 cups uncooked Macaroni
1 tsp ("a squirt") Yellow Mustard, to taste

In one pot cook and drain the macaroni to package directions.  Don't overcook, let the mac have a bit of 'tooth'.

In a second pot, melt the butter over medium heat and stir in the flour to make a roux.  Cook the roux for a few minutes, but don't let it go brown.  Stirring constantly, slowly add the milk, to build the white sauce. Alternate adding cheese and milk to get a nice creamy sauce.  Add the mustard for color and flavor.  A pinch of nutmeg or black pepper or white pepper would not go amiss here.  Remove from the heat and pour over the cooked macaroni in an oven-proof dish.  Stir to combine.  The mac should not be swimming in sauce, but everything should be coated with it.  Fire up the broiler,  top the dish with the reserved cheese, and broil for 5 minutes or so until you get some nice browning action.

To go with this marvelous Mac & Cheese, I made grilled pork chops, bone-in, dusted on one side with paprika and on the other side with fresh cracked black pepper.  The vegetable side of frozen peas is one of my favorite simple veg.

Chef Ken's Signature Chopped Salad
If you're like me, you used to think that a salad was a bunch of lettuce on a plate, drowned in some dressing.  Then I discovered restaurant Salad Bars, and discovered that folks put all sorts of yummy goodies on top of their lettuce.  I'd go to the Salad Bar, lay down a token piece of green stuff, then pile on the mushrooms, olives, bacon bits, tomato, cheese and other stuff, and call that a salad.

Then I discovered the concept of a Chopped Salad.  Ignore that watery green leafy stuff and just have a big ole bowl of all the yummy bits.  After a year or so of experimenting with various ingredients, I've come up with a combination that I love, and Lady Sally takes a container for lunch almost every day.  Here's the scorecard:

From top center:  jicama, apple, yellow squash, celery, sugar snap peas, red bell pepper, carrots, zuccini and daikon.

Nuts of various kinds are an optional extra, as are cubes of various cheeses. Red or yellow cheery or grape tomatoes are nice too. If you can find them, those marvelous Peruvian spicy 'corn nuts' are great.  Use a taste-full apple, not a Red Delicious or Granny Smith.  I like Honeycrisp when they're in season, or Cripps, or even Gala.  Can't find jicama?  Substitute turnip or rutabaga.  Can't find sugar snap peas, try shelled edamame (a.k.a. soybeans) or a can of drained garbanzos.  No daikon?  Just use ordinary round red radishes, quartered.

Dice or chop everything large. This need not take a lot of time as long as you have decent knife skills. No more than 20 minutes, tops.   Lady Sally has the fabulous Saladmaster(tm) machine, which makes chopping vegetables a real speedy operation.

Saladmaster Machine

 Peel the daikon and jicama.  Trim the ends off the snap peas and halve them.  Don't bother to "string" the celery (does anybody do that anymore?). Even with the magic machine, I still hand cut the apple and bell pepper. Toss everything to combine.  Lady Sally likes Marzetti(tm) brand Slaw Dressing, which she calls "salad cream".  I like an Asian Sesame type dressing.  Just a bit, don't drown the goodies.


Chicken Gumbo
We eat a lot of chicken, in various guises.  Lady Sally likes a  Soup & Salad lunch, and Chicken Gumbo is one of several soups she really likes.  Here I can get a bag of Vegetable Gumbo in the frozen veg case.  I always doctor it up anyway.  The recipe below (for 4-5 quarts) doesn't include bag veggies.

Gumbo has been described as a Cajun sup made with anything that walks, swims, crawls, or flies.  It is thickened to varying degrees by one of three additions -- roux, okra or filé (fee-lay).  Roux gumbo starts with the roux, then liquids are added to create the broth and other ingredients for body.  Okra gumbo has that vegetable cooked with the rest of the soup, and as it breaks down the juices thicken the gumbo.  Filé gumbo has the dried, powdered leaves of the Sassafras tree sparingly sprinkled over it.  Yep!  Sassafras!  As a kid, we grew up around acres and acres of sassafras undergrowth oak woods.  We knew about sassafras root as the base flavor for rootbeer, but as Yankees we didn't know about gumbo.

The Cajun Trinity:
3 sticks Celery, sliced
1 large Onion, diced large
2 Red Bell Peppers, diced

Other things:
1 large Tomato, diced
1 cup Corn off the cob
1 cup sliced Mushrooms
2 Chicken Breasts, cubed (and/or shrimp, pork, fish, squirrel, possum, whatever)
Other veggies, as desired
Thickener:
[1 cup chopped fresh or frozen Okra]
or
[1/4 cup or less filé]
or
[Flour & Butter for Roux]

Tony Chachere's(tm) Creole Seasoning - to taste (or similar Cajun/Creole spice blend)

If using a roux thickener, start with that, then add liquid, and lastly the veggies.  If using okra or filé, cook the meat(s) and veggies in a splash of oil until the onions are translucent and the celery is softening.  Then add about 4 quarts of water or broth.  Simmer everything for about an hour to marry the flavors.  Serve over rice, or just in a bowl, and if using filé, now is the time to add it.