2 cups milk (we usually drink 1%, but if you’re already making a WHOLE CROCK POT FULL OF MAC & CHEESE, you might as well shoot the works and use whole milk.)
In the bowl of the slow cooker, combine macaroni, butter, cheddar cheese, cream cheese, parmesan, evaporated milk, whole milk (you’re using skim, aren’t you? Wuss.), garlic powder and paprika. Stir in salt and pepper.
Cook on high until the pasta is cooked through and the sauce has thickened. Check it at 2 hours, then every 20 minutes thereafter. Maximum 3 hours.
Pro tip #1
If you have a pepper grinder, use fresh ground pepper. That pungence combines with the sharpness of the cheddar to really make the flavor pop.
Pro tip #2
You may have noticed that the recipe says elbow macaroni, but the picture shows a box of radiatore. Don’t use radiatore for this recipe. Raditore is awesome if you’re making mac & cheese on the stovetop, but in a slow cooker, it comes out like this:
Delicious, but clumpy and a bit mushy. Stick with the elbows.
Pro tip #3
That nasty-looking burned cheese along the inside of the crock pot? That’s actually the best part. It’s worth the scrapin’! If I don’t fight you for it, my wife will.
Pro tip #4
When reheating, add some milk to restore the creaminess. I also like to spike mine with some hot sauce. My favorite one with this recipe is Parrot Head, which I found at the Pepper Palace. I haven’t seen it anywhere else, so I may have to grab another bottle when I get back down to the Gulf later this month.
This is made primarily with red habanero chiles, and is therefore not for the timid.
My wife, Diana, and I are always looking for ways to save money. She can clip coupons and sniff out deals as well as anyone. There is one rewards program, however, thats stands out above all others where our grocery budget is concerned: Meijer mPerks.
Diana is from the Toledo Strip, that area along the Ohio-Michigan border. The Meijer superstore chain got its start in 1934 in Greenville, Michigan, not too far from Diana’s old stomping grounds. (Pause for mental image of my wife stomping on the ground.)
So when Meijer opened a store here in Springfield, IL about 10 years ago, the brand familiarity attracted her. At first, I was concerned that the groceries were a bit pricier than a couple of stores closer to our home. That concern went away when Meijer instituted the mPerks program in 2010.
mPerks basically takes coupon clipping to the next level. Instead of having to scan the coupons and sale flyers in the Sunday paper, then build your shopping list around that, mPerks builds the sales and coupons around the stuff you were going to get anyway. Plus, there are various rewards that accumulate the more you shop at Meijer. One that comes up for us often is filling five prescriptions at the Meijer pharmacy and getting $10 off our next shopping trip.
There are also all sorts of in-store savings, and yes, there are digital coupons as well. You can check them off on the website or mobile app before you go to the store. Then, at the checkout line, punch in your linked phone number and watch your grocery bill shrink.
Meijer will send you coupons in the mail based on stuff you’ve actually bought before, and are therefore likely to buy again. A little creepy, but cool!
After a while, when you get coordinated enough to combine mPerks rewards with what’s on sale in the store already, you end up with a trip like the one on the receipt above. For those of you who don’t math, that’s a 58% savings on that grocery trip, over half of which was just mPerks, including the aforementioned $10 prescription reward. Tide detergent, normally $9.99, was on sale for $7.99 with mPerks taking off another $2. My daughter likes cucumbers. A pack of the little ones normally sells for $2.50. They were buy-one-get-one-free on this particular day. Take off another dollar for mPerks, and that’s $5 worth of cat terror for $1.50.
If you can keep this up for an entire year, you end up with something that looks like this:
Total savings for 2017: $1,274.51!
So bottom line, if there’s a Meijer store near you, and you shop there, and you’re NOT using mPerks, you need to start. On the other hand, if you’d rather not save over $100/month on groceries, please drop me a line at ms****@lo***********.net
, and I’ll be happy to tell you where you can send that $100!
(P.S. No cats were harmed in the filming of that video. As far as I know. They’re not my cats.)
In 2016, Konner Dudley, a high school classmate of my oldest son, started Redbud Coffee Co. in Auburn, IL. Konner and his wife, Jennafer, roast and deliver ethically sourced, single-origin coffee (and now tea as well) to caffeine addicts across southern Sangamon County as early as the next day (if you time your order right).
I could tell you the story of how Redbud Coffee came to be, but I’ll just let Konner do that.
What impresses me most about Konner and Redbud is that he understands that people are more important than coffee. Instead of just slapping a Fair Trade label on his packaging, he strives to ensure that the beans he roasts are from regions and farms where the farmers are taken care of in terms of pay and work environment.
Also, Redbud Coffee donates $1 for every bag of coffee sold to the Aruna Project to help combat human sex trafficking.
Oh, and did I mention the coffee is really, REALLY good? Konner mixes up the flavors a bit from time to time, but current offerings (as of November 8, 2020) include:
Brazilian Honey–a light to medium roast processed with honey. The sweetness of the honey does come through in the flavor, but is not cloying or overwhelming at all. This is my favorite one to order at the Redbud Food truck, which now has a semi-permanent location on Route 4 on the north end of Auburn.
Ethiopia Guji–a light roast with a pronounced aroma and taste of blueberries. I love this one.
From $16.00
Decaf de Mexico–this has a mild, roasty flavor and is my go-to for making half-caf blends with whatever else I have lying about.
The Tempest–the Redbud website describes it as, “A balanced but somehow wild blend crafted specifically for espresso. You can use it for whatever you want though. We’re roasters, not cops.”
Costa Rica Natural–haven’t tried this one yet, but it has notes of raspberry, lime, sugar cane, & floral, according to the website.
Can’t decide? Get a sampler!
Prices for 12 ounces of coffee range from $14 for the Decaf to $18 for the sampler (six of those little bags in the picture above). Yes, that’s a bit more than Maxwell House, but come on people. You get what you pay for. I’m telling you, there’s nothing like coming downstairs in the morning to find a bag of coffee on your front porch that was roasted less than 48 hours ago by someone you know personally. (UPDATE–coffee can now be ordered in four sizes, from 12 to 60 ounces.)
Oh, and by the way, if you’re not from around here, Konner will also ship outside the local delivery area. Redbud City Coffee is also now available in select retail establishments as far away as Jacksonville, Petersburg and Lincoln. Check the map here.
It seems like everywhere I go, there’s some regional specialty that I always need to try. That’s actually one of my favorite parts of traveling–connecting with people through their local foods. Springfield, IL has several of these, but we are best known for one in particular–the horseshoe.
The horseshoe was invented at the Leland Hotel in Springfield in 1928 by Chefs Joe Schweska and Steve Tomko. A classic horseshoe is constructed by placing two pieces of toast on a pre-heated platter (the anvil) a cut of ham shaped like a horseshoe on the toast, cover the whole thing with cheese sauce and add french fries for the “nails” in the horseshoe. OK, the visual is a bit of a stretch, but what are you going to do?
Down through the decades…
Chefs across Springfield have come up with a multitude of variations on this classic. Just about every restaurant in the county has some variation of a horseshoe on their menu. Some have hand-cut fries, like Ruby’s in Auburn (which unfortunately, has closed). Some have battered fries, like Abe’s Hideout.
Grilled chicken horseshoe at Abe’s Hideout. Excellent grill flavor, perfectly crispy fries, and delicious homemade cheese sauce.
Some do crinkly fries like tourist favorite D’arcy’s Pint.
OMG Burger Horseshoe at Patsy’s on the Square in Divernon, which has also, unfortunately, closed. Underneath all that is a fresh-made hamburger, bacon, and a fried egg. (I feel like I’m forgetting something.) The grilled onions are my own touch.
We even have a breakfast variation, though I have seen something similar in other parts of the country referred to as “haystacks.”
Breakfast shoe with ham at Chatham Cafe in Chatham (where else?). These are also great with hash browns.The word is starting to spread, too. Horseshoes have been seen on menus as far away as New Hampton, Iowa (check page 5 of the menu), Chicago, even London! (Still trying to find out the name of the pub in London that had them, but one of my daughter’s friends that lived in Manchester knew what they were, so I believe the rumors are credible.)
So you’re probably getting the message loud and clear that a horseshoe is not what you would call “health food.” This is about as comfortable as comfort food gets. Unless, of course, you order a horseshoe when you really should have just gotten a “pony,” the smaller size. Or if you get a truly ridiculous creation like the Stuffed Meatloaf horseshoe at Lake Pointe Grill in Springfield (as of November 2022–ALSO closed.) It starts with their meatloaf, a combination of ground beef and Italian sausage, that is stuffed with white cheddar and gouda cheeses. Then they wrap bacon around it. Then they make a horseshoe out of that. At $13.99, it’s pricey for a horseshoe, but oh my lanta, I don’t know how I’m still alive after finishing it.
Everybody has their favorite shoe, and most of them are good. My vote goes to the Poorboy horseshoe at Bernie & Bettys in Springfield. Start with the best Italian beef this side of New Orleans and match it up with some of the best cheese sauce in town–that’s a winner every time!
So now I’ve got you all hungry, and some of you that aren’t close to Central Illinois are cursing my name. Hey, the Low-Rent Foodie’s got your back. If you can’t get to Springfield, try making one yourself with the. . .
Official Leland Hotel Horseshoe Recipe!
This isn’t exactly a closely guarded secret around here, but you have to know whom to ask. About 20 years ago, I worked briefly for the Illinois Commerce Commission, which is now housed in the former Leland Hotel. While the potato and meat variations are endless on a horseshoe, pretty much everyone agrees that what makes or breaks it is the sauce. What follows is the best there is:
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup beer
2 tablespoons butter
3 cups of grated sharp Old English Cheddar or Colby Longhorn cheese
1 teaspoon worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
Dash of cayenne pepper
Beat the egg yolks and beer together. (Pause for a moment to appreciate what an awesome sentence that is.) Melt the butter and cheese over boiling water, stirring in one direction only with a wooden spoon. Add the seasonings. Stirring constantly, add the beer and egg mixture a little at a time. Keep the mixture piping hot as you stir, but don’t let it bubble. Constant stirring and the very best cheese will yield a smooth, uncurdled mixture. Serves four normal humans, or two Low-Rent Foodies.
So last week I told you the story of our trip to Sint Maarten, the Dutch side of that tiny island in the Caribbean. We had heard that the food was legendary on the French side, so we planned to visit the town of Grand-Case (pronounced grahn cahz) to see about lunch. At the suggestion of Alton Brown in his show Feasting on Waves, we decided to seek out the lolos, cheap outdoor restaurants on the beach.
So, how to get there? St. Martin has lots of cars, but not a lot of roads, so getting anywhere takes a while. We hailed a cab, and told our driver where we wanted to go and what time we needed to be back to the ship. He told us it would be virtually impossible to get a cab to bring us back from Grand-Case, but he didn’t want to see a pair of tourists stranded in a foreign country, so he offered to wait for us while we ate, then drive us back to Philipsburg himself. I said if he would be willing to do that for us, I’d buy him lunch. This turned out to be one of the best decisions I have ever made on a vacation.
Crossing over to the French Side. I was on the wrong side of the taxi to have the camera, apparently.
When you arrive in a foreign country on a cruise ship, you are a tourist by definition. There’s nothing wrong with that, especially in a country whose primary industry is tourism. Yet, somehow, it never felt quite right to me to identify myself as a tourist. Somebody just there to see stuff and leave. If I’m going to go all the way out to some island, I want to make some kind of connection with the place and its people. I have found that food is one of the fastest ways to make this connection.
Our cab driver’s name was Roberto Pantophlet, but everybody on the island calls him “Choo-Choo.” We hit it off immediately, as he commented on my ubiquitous Chicago Cubs cap. It turned out that his son, Simon, was pitching in the Cubs farm system that year. All the way around the island in the slow, slow, traffic, we talked about baseball, family, faith and island living. By the time we finally reached Grand-Case, I felt a lot less like a tourist.
Boulevard de Grand Case
So, the lolos. My goodness, where to begin. Have you ever been to an outdoor barbeque, maybe at a county fair or some such place, with huge amounts of meat cooking on a grill right in front of you? And the incredible smells making you want to permanently excise the word “diet” from your vocabulary? Where the only thoughts jockeying for position in your mind are what you want to try first and how much of this can you eat without dying? OK, now multiply that by about six, and you’re starting to get the idea.
Lolos. Pro Tip–one Euro = one US Dollar at the lolos. So not only are you getting awesome food, but the best deal in the Caribbean as well!
We chose The Rib Shack, the last Lolo on the right, for no other reason than due to sensory overload, we just needed to sit down.
The Rib ShackView from the Rib Shack.
Honestly, I could have spent at least a week in this place. There was so much to try, a single visit didn’t even make a dent. Of course, you have to get ribs at the Rib Shack. They are marinated in lime and cider vinegar with onion and garlic and served with “rice and peas,” which we would call “red beans and rice” stateside (see photo at top of post). We also tried several other local favorites, all of them fantastic.
Stewed Conch and Curry Rice. So good that I about had it gone before I remembered to take a picture of it.Saltfish fritter with Carib beer. Every island has its own main brew. This one is actually brewed in Trinidad and Tobago.Crab Back. A spicy stuffed crab that is quite possibly the best thing I ate all week.
This experience was over way too soon. Yes, the food was great, and I wanted more of it, but this day remains the best “local” experience I have had on a cruise. For a few hours, I wasn’t just in another world, but felt like I was actually part of it, not just some foreign interloper with American money.
That’s Choo Choo on the left.
Hurricane Irma update
The pictures in this post were taken in 2010. On September 6, 2017, Hurricane Irma tore across this island as a Category 5 storm. As you can imagine, it made a hell of a mess.
Six months later, as I write this, the island is making a near-miraculous comeback. Many hotels and restaurants have reopened, and many areas have been cleaned up. The Huffington Post has some remarkable before and after shots, published just a few days ago.
I never did hear what happened to Choo Choo or his family. Facebook isn’t really much of a thing on the island. I found a couple of people who might be relatives, but they didn’t respond to messages (not surprising, I guess).
Hy-Vee is a Midwestern grocery store chain that operates some 240 stores in eight states, including here in Springfield, IL. It has become a retail anchor here, bringing 24-hour shopping into a part of town that had been going downhill fast. I’m glad they’re here. Full disclosure: although Hy-Vee appears to be an excellent grocery store, I don’t shop there, strictly because of location. I live two towns over, so it just isn’t convenient for me.
What I DO go to Hy-Vee for is the Market Grille, a restaurant attached to the store. Specifically on Sundays and Mondays.
Sunday Brunch
It is a long-standing tradition with my family that we will go out for one big meal after church. Then we won’t eat for the rest of the day. A good brunch buffet accomplishes this goal quite nicely. Hy-Vee Market Grille has a brunch buffet that will make your jaw drop. It cost $17.99 a person last I checked (add $1.99 for drink), so it’s not cheap. (Pro tip–look for coupons in the Sunday newspaper). But when you realize what you’re getting for your money, you don’t mind so much.
In the main restaurant area, you see what you would expect to see at a decent brunch buffet. Breakfast foods, a carving station, smoked salmon and cocktail shrimp, a lunch entree or two with some interesting variation on potatoes, a dessert table, and a sampling of cheese and/or sushi. Not bad. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Walk out through the sliding glass doors into the main store area and prepare to be amazed. There is a good-sized salad bar out there and a deli with several stations where shoppers frequently get meals to go. Most of that stuff is included in the buffet as well! You can get asian entrees, pizza, BBQ, all kinds of sides, even the huge desserts that you’ll need help finishing. All included. The “outside” part of the buffet is also available during the week, I believe for $14.99.
Monday Night Specials
Now on Monday night, the draw for me is trivia. I have a lint trap for a brain. What I mean is that I frequently forget important things, but the most useless information just gets stuck in my head and won’t leave. I greatly enjoy putting this otherwise impractical skill to good use in an environment of friendly competition.
Trivia Workshop, a local organization that runs various trivia events, has a traveling show called Pub Quiz, whereby they do a trivia contest on Monday through Thursday evening in a weekly rotating location. Since these are typically slower nights for these establishments, the trivia is a draw for a certain segment of the population, to which I happen to belong. Hy-Vee’s starts at 7:30 on Mondays. The place gets packed though, so you need to be there at least an hour early to get a seat. Of course, while you’re there and waiting, you’ll probably get something to eat and/or drink. That’s kind of the point.
Hy-Vee Market Grille sweetens the deal on Monday night with a burger and tap special. It is a point of some contention who has the best burgers in Springfield, but these folks are definitely near the top of the list. They switch up the menu a fair amount, but a perennial favorite is the Mac-n-Cheese Burger. Served open-faced on sourdough bread (because there’s no way you could pick this thing up without wearing it), this half-pound burger is covered in white cheddar mac and cheese, then finished with some bacon bits and toasted panko bread crumbs. It sells for $12, but on Monday night, the second one is half price!
Need something to wash it down? (That’s not really a question.) Hy-vee Market Grille has an ever-changing array of craft beers on tap. They’re half price on Monday night too.
As good as the burgers are, and as good as the deal on them is on Monday night, sometimes I’m craving something else. My favorite dish at Hy-Vee Market Grille is the BBQ Bacon Fried Rice (pictured above with an Old Bakery Porter, brewed in Alton, IL). It’s exactly what it sounds like. Although one does not normally think of either BBQ or bacon when thinking of a Thai-inspired fried rice dish, after you try this, you won’t be able to unthink it. This dish sells for $13, the beer for $6 (but only $3 on Monday night!).
Now as I said before, I don’t do my normal shopping at Hy-Vee because of the location, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t ever. Do any of you shop there? If so, what’s the main draw for you?
I love to cook. My wife, though she is very good at it, does not. Between her job, my job and my writing, there is not a lot of time left over in our schedules for cooking. Actually, there’s plenty of time for cooking; it’s the planning and prepping that we are frequently too tired to do when dinner time rolls around. Fortunately, in Springfield, IL there is a middle ground between going out for a meal and cooking at home, known as Let’s Make Dinner.
Each month, Let’s Make Dinner has a menu of 14 or so entrees and desserts, along with assorted optional sides. How it works is that you make a reservation and pre-select at least four meals (we usually do four at a time). You get six servings (good-sized servings) of each meal for $26 apiece. Not too many places you can feed a hungry family of four for $26. The ones that I am thinking of would not be able to offer you this level of nutrition either. These recipes are delicious, and pretty much all of them are reasonably healthy.
If you’re REALLY pressed for time, you can order off their menu and stop in to pick up frozen, pre-assembled meals. But where’s the fun in that? The most enjoyable part of the experience for me has been getting my kids into the kitchen. This is definitely a family-friendly affair.
Preparing your own meals
When you arrive at your appointed time, you will find various stations set up with your mise en place, that is, all the ingredients for your pre-chosen meal prepped and ready to go, from left to right, as you follow the recipe.
Diana and Greg checking the place out.
The recipes are very easy to follow, and there is some wiggle room if you are not a fan of certain ingredients, or if you like your spicy food REALLY spicy.
Greg and I whipping up some Chicken Parmigiana Rotollo.
Bring a cooler to transport your assembled and packaged meals home. You can either make one fresh right away, or pop them in the freezer for that day you know is going to come when you’re just…too…tired…to…cook. Most entrees do require thawing before cooking (the calzones don’t, really), so this does actually work better if you know in advance that you’re GOING to be too tired to cook. Just take it out of the freezer, and pop it in the oven.
Piggy. It’s what’s for dinner.
Pro tip: with an entree, such as the Apple Stuffing Pork Tenderloin above, that is packaged and cooked in a foil pan, transfer it to some sort of platter before carving. Otherwise, you’ll cut through the bottom of the pan and make a heck of a mess. Not that I’ve ever done that. More than once.
Apple Stuffing Pork Tenderloin, properly carved on a plate.
Give Let’s Make Dinner a try, and let me know what your favorites are! Here’s one of ours. . .
Paying homage to both my Italian and Baptist backgrounds with this Italian Breakfast Casserole. My wife prefers it with half the Italian seasoning and substituting onion powder for the green onions.
