I first posted about Trail Mix several weeks ago. We just finished that batch.

This is Trail Mix Take Two. We eliminated the sunflower seeds because they’re too small. We decided we needed another fruit/something sweet, so we added the yogurt covered raisins, which are cute and look like little eggs.

Trailmix ala RayRay:
almonds, cashews, goldfish, peanut butter m&ms, yogurt covered raisins and pineapple

Any suggestions as to how we can make it even better?

I wanted to have an epic meal for my last night of summer. We normally buy ground turkey for our “staple meals,” and I wanted to grab a pound so that way Derrick can cook sloppy joes tomorrow night when I’m in class. I noticed that they also sell turkey legs for something like $1.98 per pound, and we bought a package three turkey legs for $3.13.

We really winged the meal for the most part (no turkey puns intended!), rubbing salt, pepper, garlic salt, paprika and vegetable oil on the legs, then cooking it at 400 for an hour and a half. It turned out delicious, though I think Derrick thought the skin was a little spicy. Side dishes included saffron rice and country style baked beans. DELICIOUS!

This meal for the two of us cost about 8 bucks, and we have leftovers to “recycle” as sides for our next few meals. My point is simple, as I was saying in my last entry, that I am increasingly amazed by how easy it is to cook cheaply at home. Derrick and I like to eat out, so it’s worth the extra looking around and experimenting to figure out some fun meals for home. This one will definitely be one we cook again.

Oh, and don’t worry, I’ll get out of this writing about food rut soon enough. School starts tomorrow, & you’ll be able to look forward to monster student stories. I’ll be teaching two sections of Eng. 1101 and taking my first MFA poetry workshop tomorrow evening.

Not all of my meals are successes. I screw up more than I care to admit. But today I felt like trying a new recipe. When Derrick and I were deciding what to eat for dinner, macaroni and cheese came up. We have three boxes of Kraft Mac&Cheese (it was on sale for 57 cents a box at Walmart) and one box of Velveeta shells & cheese.

But I looked in the pantry at the sad box of Cellentani sitting by itself. As you loyal readers know, I was supposed to make pasta salad yesterday before my discovery of the toxic redrum mold. That box of tiny little corkscrew-shaped enriched macaroni product was just staring up at me, and I knew that it needed to be cooked. This noodle is perfect in terms of both appearance and texture. It’s perfectly little engineered shape will hold anything, from olive oil to spaghetti sauce to cheese. Cellentani was worth the risk of adding a new fancy dish, and it matched the already “yellow plate” of grilled chicken and squash! In case you don’t know what I’m talking about at all, here’s a linky: http://www.barillaus.com/Home/Pages/Cellentani.aspx

The grilled chicken, seasoned with Tony Chacheres, was delicious. Derrick hit a home run. This was also my first time cooking squash. I sautéed it in a little pan with butter, then salted and peppered it once it was on the plate. I definitely overdid it on the butter. I’m going to post the Mac & Cheese recipe that I used/adjusted a lot/sort of invented with the help of Commonsense cookbook. I’m also going to post what I think needed to be improved. I’ll appreciate any comments/suggestions as well!

Macaroni & Cheese ala RayRay

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This recipe is common sense, but, for the sake of this blog entry and my ego, we’ll say that I’ve invented it.  There are lots of variations on this recipe–some people use English muffins, biscuits, or bagels, and I like to think that these people are wrong.  The charm in my particular recipe is that you should ALWAYS have the 5 main ingredients in your fridge at all times.  These are not solely kept around for the purpose of making a Poor Man’s Pizza, but because they are versatile ingredients that you can use in making lots of other Poor Man (or Woman!) meals.

Poor Man’s Pizza ala RayRay

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