March Travels

Well, as usual, my pictures are a$$-backwards, so I'll start with last night, March 15th. Had the other half of the night before's Salmon and also had Mac & Cheese sauce in freezer (from Christmas??) - what comes to mind with those two goodies?? What else but Chef Kelly Johnson's "Three Cheese Mac & Cheese that I tasted a few years ago when a group from Chef2Chef met in Tecumseh, MI to cook our fool heads off together?

CJ/KELLY'S THREE CHEESE MAC & CHEESE

1/4 cup +2 T. a.p. flour
3 c milk
1 tbsp DIJON mustard
2 Tbsps butter
6 ozs White Cheddar Cheese
6 ozs gruyere cheese
1/8 tsp fresh grated nutmeg
Salt & Pepper
9 ozs Penne or short tubular pasta
3 ozs Parmesan cheese
Panko to mix w/Parmesan to top dish.

Combine flour, 1 cup milk & Dijon, stirring till smooth.
Melt butter in a large heavy saucepan over med. heat.
Add flour mix. to butter; cook, stirring constantly with a wire whisk, 1 min.

Gradually add remaining 2 cups milk, stirring constantly.
Cook, stirring often 10-15 min. or till thickened & bubbly. Remove from heat.

Add the cheddar, Gruyere, nutmeg & salt and pepper to milk mix., stirring till cheese melts.
Stir in Pasta.

Spoon mixture into baking dish, top w/Parmesan/Panko mixture.
Bake 400° for 30-40 min.
Let set up for 5-8 min. cut in squares.

Serving Ideas : The way Kelly served:
Topped with pc of Roasted Salmon topped with BBQ sauce & Saffron & Basil oil drizzle.
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This time I added a little of Chef Tom Douglas' Dry Rub on the Salmon and grilled for 5 minutes before adding the BBQ sauce - what a nice zing the rub gave the overall dish! We were tired from being on the road all day, so didn't remember the asparagus I had in the fridge - damn, to add to the dish. It would have been a prettier plating with the asparagus. But, oh my, was this delicious!

DRY RUB FOR SALMON

3 Tbsps firmly packed brown sugar
2 Tbsps paprika
2 tsps kosher salt
1 1/2 tsps freshly grd. black pepper
1 tsp chopped fresh thyme ( or 1/2 tsp. dried)

Combine the rub ingred.
Sprinkle fillets w/lemon juice
Coat either both or one side of each salmon fillet.

Roast at 375 - 400° to temp. of 140°.

The spice rub can be made a couple days ahead and stored, tightly covered, at room temp.
Good wine with the salmon - an Oregon Pinot Noir.
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I can't count the number of times I used this rub while I was cooking at the ForestHouse Lodge - it was a real winner.


Wednesday night dinner was a great trailer/travelin' meal. We started with cups of Trader Joe's Cream Corn & Roasted Pepper Soup (it comes in a waxed cardboard container (32 oz.) and it's a great starter for dinner while salmon and veggies do their thing on the grill.



I topped the cups of soup with gruyere and a little of Tom Douglas' dry rub - great flavor!






The rest of dinner, Salmon, red potatoes (if you microwave the halves for 1 min. they finish off in just about the same time as the red peppers) and red bells.









Wonderful traveling dinner and so little clean up!



Roy went to lunch one day this week and he was served the most beautiful capers - he talked the waiter out of some to bring home for me to see. Now, I have to say, I feel really ignorant - I've seen these in/on olive bars, but....I thought they were a type of olive!! I didn't know capers grew so large. Man these are great! Further proof we are never too old to learn....




More good dinners are in the offing - not too sure what we'll do - in the freezer I still have 2 lbs. of crab (thinking of some crab cakes and ????) and some noodles, think those will go to Szechuan Noodles. Stew meat, steak, small razor clams, and white bean chili. In reality, I really don't have to buy anything else to see us thru the rest of the trip....right.