Slow-Cooker Mac & Cheese

April 13, 2018June 13, 2018 - Scott Leave a comment

INGREDIENTS

1 pound elbow macaroni, UNCOOKED
1/2 cup butter, melted
4 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
6 ounces whipped cream cheese
1/2 cup shredded parmesan
24 ounces evaporated milk
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.)
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/8 teaspoon paprika
Kosher salt and black pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

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:

Slow Cooker Mac and Cheese — 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.

Parrot Head hot sauce from the Pepper Palace — This is made primarily with red habanero chiles, and is therefore not for the timid.

Getcha some!

Meijer mPerks Rewards

March 30, 2018May 6, 2019 - Scott Leave a comment

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 mPerks coupons — 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:

Meijer savings — 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.)

Potato Chips

March 6, 2018October 9, 2021 - Scott Leave a comment

I can’t recall remember a time in my life when I didn’t like potato chips. The more unusual the flavor, the better. I can actually thank Frito-Lay for introducing me to previously untapped realms of flavor awesomeness with their Cajun Spice flavored Ruffles (sadly discontinued). Some of y’all are old enough to remember the commercial for those, with Justin Wilson, the Cookin’ Cajun saying, “They’re wondermous, I gar-on-tee!”

Up in Central Illinois, I had never heard anyone talk that way before, but I was intrigued by this character, so I sought out his “Louisiana Cookin Outdoors” show on PBS. My life has never been the same. Louisiana food is now among my very favorite cuisine. And it all started with a bag of chips!

i don’t get a lot of potato chips, because first of all, they’re no dang good for you. I’m at the age where the weight comes on a lot easier than it comes off, so I have to be careful about such things. As such, you will almost never see me eating plain potato chips. If I’m going to be rationing them out, I want them to be as interesting as possible.

So when I see a bag of chips that says, “a savory combination of sharp parmesan with subtle tones of smoked pancetta,” my curiosity is going to be piqued.

Deals on chips

Now in truth, these chips weren’t really that good. However, when you consider that they can be had at Aldi for only $1.79, I consider that a small price to pay for low-rent culinary experimentation.

I’m always on the lookout for new flavors of chips to try. My favorite that I’ve had recently are the Steak & Onion flavor from Meijer. Probably my all-time favorite are Krunchers Mesquite BBQ. Used to get those all the time in college when I could afford them. Otherwise, we had to settle for Kelly, the poor man’s kettle-cooked chip. That was a local product in Decatur, IL where I went to school. At least it was until the day the workers showed up and the doors were locked. Permanently. But that’s another story.

So what’s your all-time favorite potato chip? How about the most unusual flavor you’ve ever had? Enquiring stomachs want to know!