So Hipster It Hurts

Ahhhh, spring!

It’s finally here. Nothing ushers in thoughts of another New England spring like a minor snow/sleet storm on March 31^st, but nothing that good roaring fire in the woodstove can’t eventually thaw out. Finch finally started to move again sometime yesterday afternoon and I am happy to report that she has nearly forgiven me for trying to turn her into an icicle on our Monday morning walk. (I wasn’t trying obviously, but such nuance, like so much else these days, escapes her dottering sensibilities.)  It was during this unwelcome deluge, when I sat huddled by the fire and under my blanket with two shivering dogs by my side––even the cat’s crankiness had seized up in the dank chill. It took too many calories to complain––that sudden inspiration struck. 

Paraphrase of Inspired Thought: 

You know, I could really go for a big slobbery vat of steaming macaroni and cheese about now.

If the first image that pops to your mind when I talk about this bastion of American cuisine is more or less this:

or even this:

I got one word for you:

Not that I have any complaint with the concoctions that fine food scientists from Kraft industries have unleashed upon our civilized world (even if their cheese powder continues to be an alarming shade of orange), nor those of their their wholesome hippy counterparts. That boxed stuff is perfectly fine for the macaroni hobbyist or dilettante who occasionally dabbles in pasta e fromage. Heck, I’ve consumed at one sitting entire pots of mac and cheese the shade of Chernobyl and have enjoyed every last slurp but let’s face it. Even Organic Annie’s is still down in the Intramural Leagues of Macaroni and Cheese Creation.

And Hipster don’t play that game.

I let the genius of my idea begin to take sturdy root in my mind and then commenced to gathering the provisions that could help me turn this dream into reality.

Because what the Varsity League* teaches you is there is no reward so sweet as the satisfaction of accomplishment earned through hours of honest industry and toil.

*You may substitute in “Puritan Inferiority Complex” here if that is more directly applicable to your own experiences.

 Which is to say this is just background and context to lay the groundwork for our main feature.  Please remember to silence your cell phones, now sit back and enjoy our Feature Presentation.

VARSITY LEVEL KITCHEN SPORTS

Episode 1

MAKING MACARONI AND CHEESE 

 WITH CHORIZO SAUSAGE, BROCCOLI, AND MUSHROOMS

Serves: Um, two. 

Prep Time: Approximately 5 Months, 4 days, 26 hours.

Bake Time: 10 Minutes

Bread Crumb Topping:

2 Tbsp butter

2 Cups of Fresh, Seasoned Bread Crumbs

Pasta:

1 lb Elbow Macaroni

Cheese Sauce

6 Tbsp butter

1 Garlic clove

1 Tsp Dijon mustard

¼ Tsp hot pepper

1 Tsp Dried Sage

6 Tbsp all-purpose flour

3 ½ Cups whole milk

1 ¾ Cups chicken broth

1 lb Colby cheese

½ lb Farmhouse Cheddar cheese

1 Cup Chantarelle and Morel Mushrooms

1 Cup Broccoli

1 lb Chorizo sausage

Other Tools Needed.

4 Gallons whole milk

Rennet, culture, enzyme, cheese salt, cheese cloth, brush, cheese wax, and pot dedicated to             cheese waxing

1 Cheese press OR lumber and hardware and tools to build one

1 Cheese mold

2  5-lb weights

1 Cheese cave  OR dedicated dorm-sized refrigerator

1 Mushroom collecting basket

1 Garden

1 Hot Pepper seed  OR flat

1 Sage seed  OR  flat

1 Trowel

Flour, yeast, water, sugar, and salt to bake an approximate 1.5 lb loaf of bread

1 Pig, meat grinder, and sausage seasoning ensemble OR  1 CSA farm share

1 Whole chicken

2 Bay leaves

Dash Pepper

Pinch Salt

Optional

1 Dehydrator

Prepare Ahead of Time:

1.  Taking lumber, hardware and tools to build cheese press, go ahead and build your cheese press.

      (Time: approximately 1 week)

Figure 1: Cheese Press (maple)

Gonna party like it's 1899

2.  While glue on cheese press is drying, start your garden. Using trowel, carefully plant your pepper and sage seed / flat. Water as needed. (approximately 5 months)

Figure 2: Dramatic reënactment of pepper and sage seeds just planted

3. While garden is growing, take 2 gallons of whole milk and enough rennet, enzymes etc. to make 2lbs of Farmhouse Cheddar curds. (approximately 4 hours)

Figure 3: Proto Cheese of the Cheddar variety. Or is it Colby? Or Mozzarella?

4. Using cheese cloth, press, weights, wax, cheese cave / fridge,  press curds into cheese and age approximately 6 weeks – 2 months. (approximately 2 months)

Figure 4? 

6. In 2-4 weeks, repeat Steps 3-4 for Colby Cheese, and age approximately 4-6 weeks. (approximately 6 weeks and 4 hours)

Figure ??  

7. While Cheese is aging, take mushroom basket into forest and forage 2 cups of Chantarelles  and/or Morels.  Brush and clean with soft brush. (approximately 3 days) 

Figure ∑: Basket-o-Chantarelles and Antler. A study (2014)

     

After cleaning with soft brush

       

Optional: If it looks like the mushrooms won’t make it until the other ingredients are ready, you may dehydrate them, reconstituting in water about an hour before you need them. (approximately 3-4 days)

Figures

8. Harvest pig; grind, and season into sausage. Alternatively, root through CSA meat share until you find packaged Chorizo.

Figurine: I see the hind do and sperribs, but where on earth is the sahsage I want to know? 

9. While your farmer is harvesting your pig and turning it into sausage, bake loaf of bread. You may eat portions of it while it is fresh, but purposely save/forget entirely about until it’s gone hopelessly stale, about 2 cups. (approximately 3 days)

Figure I'd rip this graphic off of www.dripbook.com

12. Harvest ¼ pepper, 1 tbsp sage from garden. Dehydrate or air dry (8 hrs – 3 days)

Figure 12:  Has not been properly licensed and has been subsequently blocked or removed from the site. We regret any inconvenience.

                                                            -The Management

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees

2. Grind up stale and forgotten about bread in Cuisianart. Season with dried herbs and butter. Award yourself five points if they are your own herbs, but that is not required. Set bread crumbs aside. (approximately 5 minutes)

3. Take Chicken and put in pot of boiling water to make 1 ¾ Cups of chicken stock*. Let simmer. Add bay leaves, salt and pepper.   When done, set aside chicken for future dinners (approximately 4 hours)

* An earlier edition had this incorrectly posted as 2 13/4 cups of chicken stock. Upon realizing this error, we had the offending editor summarily dragged from her post and shot. We apologize for any inconvenience.
                                                                                                                            -The Management

4.  Removing chorizo sausage from intestinal casing, crumble and pan fry sausage until cooked. Set aside. (approximately 15 minutes)

5. Reconstitute mushrooms, if needed.

6. Cook Macaroni, drain and set aside.

7. Use garlic, butter, flour, chicken stock and milk to make your basic beschemele sauce. Add mustard and your harvested, dried hot pepper and sage.

8.  Cut 1 lb of Colby cheese off your wheel and cut into small chunks, adding a little bit at a time into the bechemele while you stir with a whisk.

9. Repeat step above with Cheddar, using 8 ounces or ½lb.

10. Cut up 1 cup of broccoli. Combine broccoli, pasta, chorizo, mushrooms into large baking dish and mix together to evenly distribute.

11. Add cheese sauce and stir, coating noodles-n-chunks evenly

12. Sprinkle breadcrumbs over the top

13. Cover in foil and bake 8 minutes covered, then uncover and bake 2 minutes.

14. Present and Serve.

          Helpful Tip: Be sure to compliment your wife on her newly finished sweater vest and her other marvelous accomplishments . . . 

Figures of Loveliness: Seriously, isn't this vest sweet?  Did you notice the DNA up the center? Bad. Ass. Alright? 

. . . in order to divert attention away from the state of the kitchen as you’ve left it, and to lessen her shock when she does eventually does notice it.

      After an exhaustive flurry of activity that utterly unnerved the dogs and made me giddy with anticipation to taste the fruits of my industrious efforts, I proudly presented my masterpiece to Gina that evening at dinner. She was suitably impressed and allowed as how I must have been working hard to pull it all off.

 Oh shucks, I said. It was a team effort, really, I said. And though I was being sort of falsely modest because I was hoping to continue the praise, it was also actually true. She made the cheese, I made the cheese press. She grew the garden. We both foraged the mushrooms. Together we waged a war against ease, convenience, shortcuts, and every advance of modern civilization to make a big slobbery vat of steaming macaroni and cheese that was, as a certain someone used to say,

Perfectly Delicious

Gina took a bite and looked up. She smiled. You know what this macaroni and cheese is?

I unlaced my shoes and slipped my feet out the highly fashionable but stiff wingtips, letting my feet have a chance to wiggle free. No, what is this macaroni and cheese?

She breathed in, savoring the meaty apricot tang of the chantarelles and the sharp note of our farmhouse cheddar, now mixed together in beautiful harmony.

This macaroni and cheese is:

So Hipster it Hurts.  

She adjusted her fresh-off-the-needles DNA sweater vest.

 Ha ha! I said. That's great! So hipster it hurts!  By the way, your vest looks awesome.

Aww, thank you honey. By the way, this meal is freaking delicious.

Aww, thank you honey. 

I took off my fully functional prescription monocle and gave it a quick buff with its designated wipey cloth thing.

Hipsters! Us! Ha hahahaha.

And so we fell into the easy routine of our nightly conversations. She continued to compliment my efforts of the kitchen, and I continued to be as endearing and charming as I could possibly manage, silently crossing my fingers that when she finally looked up and noticed the mountain of dishes in the sink that stretched towards the heavens and teetered in precarious piles on every stretch of counter, she would remember the great feeling of satisfaction which comes from hours of honest industry and hard toil.

Figure The End.