Mac and Cheese stuffed Chicken!

Deeeelicious special from Matchbox Gallery Place. Chicken stuffed with .... MAC AND CHEESE! It was served over braised collard green with bacon and polenta (it might have been grits, I've forgotten which). Nothing left on the plate.

Random Pasta

Whole wheat penne with red peppers, zucchini, onions, italian sausage and red pepper tomato sauce.

Apron

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The Southern Mac & Cheese

Some delicious mac and cheese was found! Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) for me this mac and cheese was found in the streets of Chicago. During one of my visits with J, I was in the mood to check out some Chicago food trucks. J remembered he had heard about a mac and cheese food truck, which sounded like an excellent idea to me, so we tracked that truck down (twitter + food trucks is an excellent combination. What would food trucks do without twitter?).

This food truck, The Southern Mac and Cheese Truck, does not cook their food on the truck. Their truck is actually an off shoot from their store The Southern Mac and Cheese Store. They load the truck up with four offerings chosen from their twelve different kinds of mac and cheese and a daily special. Here is their full menu.

The day J and I went they were offering Hot Dog Mac, New Mexican Green Chile, Truffle White Cheddar, and Pulled Chicken w/ Blue Cheese Crumble and Buffalo Sauce. Although there were only two of us, and although the portions are very large (one order could feed two people), we couldn't help ourselves and ordered three mac and cheeses because they all sounded so good. We rationalized that it would serve well for a second meal later in the day. We got...

The Hot Dog Mac which was my favorite (and was a daily special). Such a classic combination which brings back fond memories of my childhood where getting such a meal was a special treat.

The Pulled Chicken w/ Blue Cheese Crumbles and Buffalo Sauce. Also an excellent, very tasty combination which was Buffalo wings meets mac and cheese. I would also get this dish again.

And lastly the Truffle White Cheddar. I surprisingly did not like this one. I felt they actually put a bit too much truffle in it as it overpowered the dish. Also the cheese flavor did not come through enough.

Overall some excellent mac and cheeses. I shall have to go back to try some of their other delicious sounding combinations.

Vegan Cookies

K threw a cookie party where guests were to bring a batch of cookies for everyone to try. She herself made a few types of cookies to get the party started, one of them being vegan cookies because K is currently on a dairy-free diet. K's baby D is allergic to dairy, in particular allergic to cow's milk protein so this prevents K from having anything with dairy in it. Because of this I decided to also make some dairy-free cookies so she could have other cookie options besides her own to eat. After some internet searching I stumbled upon this recipe which was perfect since the party was during the holiday season. The recipe's animal free ingredients can be seen to the left.

The only ingredients that might be a little different from the norm is the margarine and the yogurt. Since most margarine has dairy in it one must pay attention to the labeling on the margarine. To be safe only buy the ones that are labeled vegan and not just labeled non-dairy. The term "non-dairy" only means less than 0.5% milk by weight (Wikipedia) so it is possible to still have a little bit of dairy in "non-dairy" products. Earth Balance is a good brand to go with. Smart Balance also has a few vegan options.

The other ingredient that you can get a vegan substitute for is yogurt. Vegan yogurts can be made from soy or coconut, found at a Whole Foods or a Trader Joe's. But again be careful and look for that "vegan" labeling because even some soy yogurts such as Stonyfield O'Soy grow their cultures in Milk so therefore have trace amounts of milk and can cause an allergic reaction (about their soy yogurt).

The recipe itself is pretty standard. One thing of note is that although it calls for a spritz gun (a cookie gun that presses out cookies with a design), if you don't have one you can just made little cookies by hand like I did. The cookies will look more like whoopie pies instead of looking like cookie sandwiches, but they still taste delicious. Another tip about the recipe is that once the filling is made it should be immediately used to fill the cookies. If you leave it out for a while it gets hard and difficult spread.

Recipe Link: Chocolate Spritz Cookies with Candy Cane Filling