My Version

Macaroni and Cheese
Ingredients:
8 ounces of elbow macaroni (about half of a standard box)
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3 cups milk
1/2 cup diced onion
1 tablespoon dry mustard
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon paprika
dash of hot sauce (I actually like more than a dash)
salt 
black pepper
6 ounces sharp cheddar, shredded
6 ounces Swiss, shredded
1 egg
about 1/2 cup of seasoned bread crumbs (I use Italian)


Directions:


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cook pasta according to directions.
While pasta cooks, grate the cheese.  Freshly grated cheese from the block tastes much better than the stuff in a bag.  Mix the swiss and cheddar together evenly, and divide into two portions, about 3/4 and 1/4.  
Make a white sauce.  To do this, first melt the butter in a saucepan.  Whisk in flour and mustard until smooth.  The sauce will thicken after being continuously whisked.  Add the milk, onion, garlic powder, paprika, and hot sauce.  Simmer for about ten minutes.  
Add the 3/4 portion of the cheese mix, and salt and pepper.  
Pour the macaroni into a 2-quart baking dish, and add the sauce.  Top with remaining 1/4 of the cheese mixture.  Sprinkle with bread crumbs and bake for 30-35 minutes.  
Delicious!!!  


Greens

Heat and season with hot peppers-in-vinegar juice.  Canned greens are actually yummy!!


Fried Chicken - Get Gus's takeout. 
Call Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken
(901) 527-4877
310 S. Front St.
Memphis, TN 38103
P.S. -  I can't believe the town of Southaven didn't patronize the Gus's that opened down there.  With all of the nasty O'Charleys/Applebees/(insert name of abysmally revolting restaurant here) that populate that town, I would expect the Gus's to not have gone under.  Embarrassing.  You should feel shame.  Consider self-flagellation. 

Baked Tomato Caprese

MMMM.

1.) Cut some vine-ripe tomatoes in half and remove the seeds.

2.) Cut some fresh basil up and put it in the holes where the seeds used to be. Salt and pepper.

3.) Cut some fresh mozzerella balls in half and place the halves into the holes.

4.) More basil, salt & pepper...

5.) Sprinkle just a few commercial bread crumbs on top.

6.) Bake at 450 for 6 minutes

7.) Broil for 2 minutes or until the cheese starts to brown.

8.) I put some Ken's light balsamic on top. It was not too bad for a light dressing, a concept that typically disgusts me.

Nom nom nom. I ate this with Merlot.

Something Feasted on My Feast

Fresh corn on the cob is a tasty July treat. After feasting on some very delicious corn from Fresh Market and Kroger, I was (naively) excited about the prospect of some "home grown" corn at - this is a real shock, brace yourself - Miss Cordelia's. The worm had already nommed the shit out the only healthy thing I probably ate all weekend.

Then the remaining uninfiltrated corn was tough and nasty. I think it was feed corn for other, non-human creatures. Way to go, Miss Cordelia's.

Miss Cordelia's always posts prices on their shelves, then when they ring you up, don't apply the purported discount. I wonder where the extra goes, or if it is an honest mistake. I went into the esteemed Deli & Picnic on July 4th, and noticed some turkey sausages in the meat case, the plastic enclosure for which was bubbling. This happens when bacteria grow inside the meat and produce gaseous byproducts through their metabolism. This is why bad milk jugs get puffy. So I looked at the date by which to sell or freeze, and it was July 1st.

Don't worry, truth is a defense to libel and slander, you bastards.

Overkill - Ice Cream Fail

Peanut M&M + Snickers Milkshake garnished w/ Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

This weekend snack was an exercise in excess. As we were returning from a Canuck wing feast, we encountered a child who was selling candy out of one of those big fundraiser boxes that such children wear around their necks. He was a polite boy who wore a t-shirt with the logo of the group for which he was fundraising. This supported the idea that he was not scamming us, so we decided to purchase a giant Snickers and some Peanut M&Ms. * We returned and ground the candy up with some butter pecan ice cream. The solid material suspended in the milkshake made it a little tough to properly enjoy.

* Compare to the girl who approached me at the Kroger on Poplar and Highland asking me to buy candy for her "cheerleading squad." She was dressed like a junior prostitute and had five or six types of jawbreakers and similar gross candies clutched in her grimy little mitt.

Me: "I don't really like fruity chewy candy."

Child: "Would you like to make a donation?"

Me: "I would feel better about that if you had a uniform on, or some literature. Do you have some literature?"

Child: "What's literature?." (Should you not be familiar with that term by age 12? Gah. By the time you are parading about in a cheerleading uniform, I would expect you to have at least an elementary school vocabulary.)

Me: "A handout of some sort that tells me about your organization. Do you have an adult with you? Is there a sign of some sort?"

Child: "Well we had a sign up but they told us to take it down."

Me: "So Kroger does not want you around here asking for money?"

Child: "Yes."

Sure. And then she would not leave the side of my car as I loaded the groceries. Beware.

Saigon Le - It's Feast O'Clock

This was menu item #153, soup containing squid, pork, crab, and a few juicy shrimp.  Also floating in the broth were plenty of scallions and some whole garlic cloves, as well as the expected mung bean sprouts and rice noodles.  Nom nom nom.  

Mmmm.....fish eggs

Carr's Water Cracker with sour cream, chives, trout roe, and red onion.  NOM NOM NOM. 

Feast on Fish / Miss Cordelia's angers me

Mahi Mahi * with Cucumber-Tomato Relish

This was quite tasty.  I adapted this from a recipe I found on the internet to make a spicy cold salsa to heap upon lemon-pepper mahi. 

1 cup of cucumber (remove seeds and chop into little cubes)

1 large tomato 

1 leek, sliced very thinly

2 cups of cooked shrimp, cut into small pieces

about half a cup of diced jalapeno pepper (the kind in the jar worked for me)

juice from 2 limes

shit ton of fresh dill

Tony Chachere's Cajun seasoning 

salt

1 ripe avocado

lemon pepper seasoning (commercial kind in the spice section)

4 pieces of mahi mahi

4 tbsp of butter

Put the tomato, cucumber, dill, peppers, leeks, lime juice, shrimp, salt, and Tony's into a bowl.  Let it marinade for 1 hour.   

Then, pan-fry the fish with the lemon pepper on both sides in the butter.  Put some of the relish and some avocado slices on top.  

NOM NOM NOM NOM.  

* This recipe was really tasty, but the mahi itself was mediocre because Miss Cordelia's sucks.  This relish would also have tasted great on some tilapia, grouper, or mahi mahi from Fresh Market. The fish at Cordelia's is hit or miss.  The night after the mahi mahi, we got some catfish that was not good.  

Don't cry for Miss Cordelia though, despite my rant, there is no doubt whatsoever that I will continue to drop a large percent of my resources on overpriced Triscuits, warm beer, and milk that is about to expire.  I might just trek on out to the wilderness of Not Downtown for my future fish needs.