triticale - the wheat / rye guy

The Carnival of Macaroni And Cheese Recipes

Back when we were starting out, one of the popular cookbooks was Diet For A Small Planet, a depressing tome full of excellent recipes. The premise was that you could save the Earth by eating more efficiently, combining foods which each supply part of the protein we need. Combinations include beans and rice, beans and corn, turkey and peanut butter, and dairy and wheat. All but one of those I remember are in fact common in diets around the world, the last one manifesting itself in the theme I chose for this week’s Carnival, macaroni and cheese.

To far too many people, macaroni and cheese is one word, and refers to the stuff that comes in a box. Once upon a time when I was grocery shopping, I totally confused another customer, who asked where to find macaroni and cheese, by telling him the macaroni was in Aisle Six and the cheese was in Dairy along the back wall. Our contributors, however, understand that that there are plenty more ways to prepare this dish.

Shawn Lea, who administers this Carnival, provides us with a link to The Cheesiest Baked Macaroni & Cheese (and other recipes from Hot & Sticky BBQ).

My own wee wifey, who's recipes I used to post, now has her own blog, and gives us Lena's 3 Cheese Macaroni, a classic soul food side dish.

keewee presents Blue Ribbon Macaroni & Cheese posted at KeeWee's Corner.

Bill presents Italian Macaroni and Cheese posted at Famous Recipes.

Another Bill presents ALL DAY MACARONI AND CHEESE posted at Slow Cooker Recipes. and presents Tuna-Macaroni Salad with Orange (but no cheese) at Diabetic Recipes.

Kathee presents Low-Fat Macaroni and Cheese posted at World Famous Recipes.

Riannon at In The Headlights submitted a recipe for baked mac n' cheese like her mom used to make, and suggests some additions.

Tinker, at The Secret Life of Shoes offers Slow Cooked Macaroni and Cheese

There are other ways to do the dairy and pasta combination beyond the standard macaroni and cheese. For starters you can move beyond the standard elbows to shells or rotini. We use egg noodles in a quicky we call Noodle Goop. There are also recipes which include assorted other ingredients.

The Headmistress/Zookeeper at Heartkeeper's Common Room adds all sorts of good stuff to her Crockpot Macaroni and Cheese

Free Recipes presents Parmesan Ham and Macaroni Casserole posted at Free Recipes Online.

Michelle presents Sundried Tomato-Stuffed Shells with Sausage and Lamb posted at scribbit.

Chef Jules at Gourmet to Go submitted a recipe for Pastitsio Pie, which is sort of a Greek second cousin of lasagna. Lasagna is, of course, yet another way of doing the pasta and cheese thing.

As always, several people submitted other sorts of recipes. Nothing wrong with that as long as you don't do like I did and submit a gooey super-sweet one to the diabetic carnival.

Gillian at Food History submitted two recipes for Coleslaw. As soon as I saw the title on the submission, my first thought was that it was cool, as coleslaw goes with mac and cheese, and in fact she let me know that she was thinking the same thing.

Kevin presents 5 Minute Meals Your Family Will Love - Ready, Set, Cook! posted at More4kids Parenting. If I'd gotten to the Carnival earlier, these would have been great for Mother's Day since once they are prepped the kids can handle the final stage, leaving Mom to luxuriate. Same with your commercial dayglo orange mac and cheese, which most kids know how to make. Of course my son once blew some of his friends away by stirring the sauce till all the powdery lumps disappeared, producing a gourmet version of their usual meal.

Kevin at Technogypsy submitted an upscale beef stew, Beef Burgandy. He says "Please use a good wine. Trust me." but that doesn't mean you have to push the boat out too far, as there are plenty of decent inexpensive wines out there. Just don't use bum wine, and don't use the salted cooking wine -ever - unless you are underage and can't buy anything else. And of course, serve one of the above macaroni and cheese dishes on the side.

David Needham at Third World Country is into posole (ground hominy combined with other stuff for protein efficiency) and submitted yet another posole recipe.

Thelly's specialty is Chicken Recipes and presents Steak & Ale Hawaiian Chicken and Baked Hoisin Chicken Wings

Gerry at DiseaseProof offers a totally different approach to the concept of efficient food with Nutrient Dense Juices.

As always, you are encouraged to view everything else at the blogs of the participants, even if their submission didn't come in a format that didn't give me a handy main page link, and invited to participate yourself. Next week's theme will be pancakes (they never were just for breakfast) at a blog which actually specializes in them, but again all recipes are welcome. Send your submissions to recipe.carnival(at)gmail.com.

Update:

Martin erred and got his submission for next week in before the deadline. I saw pancakes and passed it up. Here is his recipe for Hungarian macaroni, with cheese and other good stuff.

Posted by triticale at May 13, 2007 08:22 PM | TrackBack