Mountain Macaroni

Unlike the last time we went to the mountains, we brought food this weekend and cooked it.

It was a fairly eventful trip: our friends Ken and Melanie and their baby came. When we got up to the house Friday night the power had been off for several days, long enough for all the food in the freezers and fridges to spoil and for various horrendous goos and oozes to leak out all over the kitchen floor. We started up the generator, and the power company restored the power a few short hours after Lawson called them, and we avoided opening the fridge all night. The next day Mel and I cleaned it out, which involved throwing out a lot of economy sized tubs of mayonnaise and frozen shrimp and rancid orange juice concentrate. Also some odoriferous baby back ribs. Yuck.

Otherwise we were fine: we hiked, we drank, we pulled ticks off the dog.

Lawson smoked some ribs. They were salty and delicious. I steamed some okra. Lawson made a salad of Vidalia onions, red bell pepper, cucumbers, lemon, olive oil, and blue cheese.

And I made Southern macaroni and cheese, the baked kind.

I've had plenty of variations, eaten it at potlucks and holidays and barbecue joints, but I never knew much about it. Melanie explained to me that there are a few major schools of mac and cheese preference: the egg school and the creamy school. Lawson's family is the former, as is Ken's. Mel's family is split, with Mel in the creamy camp. I tend to like creamier kinds, I guess, especially because prior to moving down here I considered "macaroni and cheese" a synonym for "Kraft dinner." But I understand the appeal of egg.

I've made lame mac and cheeses in the past by following various recipes, so this time I decided not to use one, and I was very happy. I made a pretty good hybrid of the two styles unintentionally. I'm almost embarrassed to write it down, Mom...it is calorific redneck hiking food, that's for sure.

Mountain Macaroni

Cook about 12 oz. macaroni until not quite al dente.

Meanwhile, saute in olive oil until soft:
- one small fresh onion, diced
- one small fresh red chile or bell pepper (I used a mild Anaheim), diced

Remove to a bowl. Mix in:
- 1 cup half and half
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
- several T mayonnaise
- salt and pepper to taste
- 12 oz (1.5 smallish blocks) sharp cheddar, cut into cubes

Mix all together with the pasta; pour into big casserole dish; bake at 350 degrees for about half an hour.

Planned Side Dishes

It's important to plan over a healthy breakfast.

Lawson and I are assigned the side dishes for his big family Thanksgiving again. We are going to be much less ambitious than in years past, so I am feeling pretty good about it all. Here's what we're making:

- Collards, traditional Southern style. This involves a ham hock and several hours of simmering with plenty of water.

- Green beans, traditional Southern style. This involves a smoked turkey neck and several hours of simmering with plenty of water. Are you getting all this?

- Spinach-rice. Because the turkey is smoked, it isn't stuffed, and every year Lawson pores over stuffing recipes and spends hours making it and nobody eats very much. His stuffing is good, but I don't think it's a stuffing-eating family. So we're going with rice and spinach this year.

- Macaroni and cheese, which I have noted in the past is the weirdest of the traditional Southern Thanksgiving foods. We will be using the absurd Macaroni and Cheese Supreme recipe of the illustrious David Wade, TV chef and object of my scholarly and acquisitional interest. I can't wait. The recipe includes 2 cups of sour cream. It will clog arteries from 8 yards away.

- Cranberry sauce. I adore the extremely tart raw cranberry-orange relish we make every year with the hand-cranked meat grinder, but I'm going to try plain cooked cranberry sauce this year to see how it goes over.

- I may make some gingerbread.

So, all in all, it should be pretty low key. The only bad part is that we have to procure all our groceries tonight, along with the rest of the city.

Durum

That’s semolina to you. Grandpa’s grain elevator in North Dakota in the 1940s through the 1960s dealt with “spring wheat” and “winter wheat,” along with rye, flax, oats, soybeans, and corn. Spring wheat was usually the hard durum variety which is especially prized for pasta.

The reason I’m bringing this up is: we had a nostalgic dish tonight that was one of the first things I learned to cook as a 20-year-old bride. I picked up a free recipe pamphlet from the North Dakota State Fair published by the Durum Council of America, and it has recipes I still use for macaroni and cheese, sausage and macaroni casserole, spaghetti with meatballs, and other hearty and unfashionable things. The pamphlet recipes are professionally written and edited. Although it’s from the sixties, there is no cream of mushroom soup in evidence, and in fact the only processed ingredients are canned tomatoes and mushrooms. Fat is everywhere, but the use of salt is reasonable. This has the bonus of being a one-pot meal that can be cooked on a camp stove.

Here’s the original recipe. Of course I now modify it to use less meat, light sour cream, no sugar, more spices, and so forth.

Mexican Macaroni Sausage Casserole (as opposed to my regular vegetarian one)

1 pound pork sausage
¾ cup diced onion
¾ cup chopped green pepper
1 large can (1 pound 13 ounces) tomatoes
2 cups sour cream
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon chile powder
1 teaspoon salt
8 ounces elbow macaroni

In large skillet, brown sausage, onion, and green pepper. Drain off excess fat. Stir in tomatoes, sour cream, sugar, chili powder, and salt. Add macaroni. Cover skillet and simmer about 30 minutes, or until macaroni is tender.

Oh, and here’s a fun web page:

http://www.northern-crops.com/technical/introdurum.pdf