Macaroni a la King

I don't have a whole lot of meal recipes from Mom. It's mostly breads and other baked goods. But, I pulled this little 3x5 card out and decided I would give it a try. It had no name or instructions or measurements on parts.

1 c. mac
2 T butter
3/4 c. celery
pepper
onion
soup
milk 1/3 c.
1 c. cheese
1/4 t. salt
nutmeg

I took my liberties with this recipe since that was all I was given. Here is what I did.

Cook macaroni according to directions on box. While that is cooking chop up celery, onion, and green pepper. When macaroni is done, drain and put in greased 8x8 pan. Melt butter, and saute vegetables. Add 1 can cream of chicken soup and milk, and stir until heated through. Take off heat and add cheese, salt and nutmeg. Pour on top of macaroni. Sprinkle with a little more cheese (because more cheese makes it better). Cover with foil and keep in fridge until ready to eat. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Cook until heated through and bubbly.

This actually turned out better than I expected! Ben said it was delicious and ate all that remained once everybody else had some. We both agreed that the celery flavor was the predominant flavor of the dish. I would leave it out, but Ben liked it. And, I realized afterwards that it probably meant black pepper instead of green pepper. It just added another vegetable and helped cancel out some of the celery taste. I used both co-jack and mozzarella cheese and used more than one cup (because it makes things better).

The only reason why it sat in the fridge overnight was because we ended up just eating dinner at Girl's Camp when I went to pick Ben up. They made pizzas by spreading coals on the gravel driveway, placing pop cans with water in the coals, rested the pizza pans on the pop cans, and covered it with a box (I think lined with foil). It worked pretty well, but the leftover pizzas we had were mostly bread with very few toppings on top.

And, finally, not a cupboard recipe, but a delicious recipe that everyone should know about, we had this plum raspberry upside down cake from Martha. It is so yummy! Ben always looks forward to it every summer when the plums and berries and in season.

I accidentally whipped the cream into almost butter (by hand!).