Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite Toast ($3 or less, fifteen minutes)

This is not a picture of food. It is, instead, a painting by Delacroix, called "Liberty Leading the People," or more correctly (sans accents) "La Liberte guidant le peuple."

See, what's really funny in a not-pleasant way about all the franco-hysteria of 2003 and/or -- oh, now -- in which legions of people were introduced to sliced, deep-fried potatoes as "freedom fries" and battered, pan-fried bread as "freedom toast" is that freedom is what the French were all about. Might even be currently all about. The Statue of Liberty? Made in France. Our freedom as a country from the British Empire? Assisted by France (via Lafayette [he looks like he likes a stinky cheese, don't he?], among others). Freedom from undergarments like corsets and to show one's breasts, as in the painting above, while killing aristos? You know it: FRANCE.

Thus this is VERY FRENCH TOAST.

Which itself is an irony, since no decent French person would touch the stuff, I'm sure. It's pure American.

Ironies upon ironies abound.

This is why Tea-baggers are idiots (does this sign even make sense?), largely -- okay, one of the reasons. Zero ability to sense irony.

For le pain faux-francais, what you need is some stale bread (not moldy! just stale!). Also milk, a couple of eggs, a little sugar, a little cinnamon, and a hot, greased pan.

In a bowl -- here I feature the beautiful gift bowl I got last week from the Brickman-Curzons -- beat a couple of eggs with about a 1/3 c milk for every pound of bread. You might need more or less, but that's the beauty [use your mute button freely at this link] of this recipe. The freedom of it, you might say.

Sprinkle on about 1/2 tsp sugar and a 1/4 tsp cinnamon. Mix this all up well. You can see I waited to beat my eggs until I'd added the other stuff. That's okay too.

Heat the pan with a little oil, until when you shake a wet hand over it, the water pops or dances immediately.

Take a slice of bread and briefly dip it, both sides, in the bowl of eggy-cinnamon-milky-sugar stuff. DO NOT SOAK the bread. You want just to coat it.

Drop it in the pan. If the pan's big enough, do several.

Here I've used my own bread (a recipe I'll post later) -- it's a very dense whole wheat which is good to keep the batter on the outside. White bread will absorb more, more quickly, so keep in mind that you want to be quick in the batter with Wonderbread sorts of breads.

You'll be able to smell this as it cooks and see the edges browning. Lift up each slice to check underneath to see if it's the right color -- brown colored. Like French toast colored. When it's that color, flip and cook the other side.

Set the oven on warm and set an oven-safe plate inside. Put each slice on the plate as it's done, to keep it warm.

Meanwhile, heat a little REAL maple syrup (the other stuff is gaggy and people tend to use too much of it trying to get it to taste like something. So dish out for the real, and use only a little.). I just put the glass bottle next to the pan, not touching, and it's warm enough by the time I'm done.

When it's all cooked, take the slices you want out of the oven and butter and drizzle with maple syrup. Then chow. Or, powder with confectioner's sugar if you need to -- though since this has some cinnamon and sugar in the batter, you might find that's overkill. Fry a runny egg and put it on top, if you don't value plaque-free arteries. Use it as sandwich bread for a thick bacon or slab-o-ham sandwich. Have at it. Do whatever. You have that freedom.

There you go.

Note: Here is a picture of what Chuck made of the batter leftovers. He says to say, however terrible it looks, it was mighty tasty. He simply turned the batter into the hot pan, shoved it around until it cooked, sprinkled it with grated cheddar and jalapeno paste (cinnamon and jalapeno??) and ate it.

In no other country would this be legal. I swear.

The Fungus Among Us (about $4, about 40 minutes including baking time)

Mushrooms are not a fungus. They're flowers. The fungus is underground, and the mushroom is its...

Sigh.

Well, that doesn't make them any more palatable in theory, does it? I mean, is it better to think you're eating a fungus (images flash by: someone's nasty fungal toenail; the gunk in the the crevices between tiles in the shower; the largest living organism on earth, which is now taking over an entire Northwestern state -- should I even go on?)?

Or a penis/uterus (new set of images [and here I avoid the more obvious]: the German cannibal, who started with his consensual victim's you-know-what [which they ate together and pronounced kind of tough] ; Rocky Mountain Oysters (a festival? REALLY?); folks who eat human placenta...really, I should probably stop)?

I know. It's a food blog. This is crazy talk for a food blog.

And yet.

Don't you wonder who first looked at this thing-- grey, a little damp, pushing up out of the dank ground -- looked at it and said, "Effin' YUM! I want me some of that!" -- Because I'm thinking that person was starving OR had already eaten some funny mushrooms. I'm also thinking: probably he died, since so many mushrooms can kill you, the nasty buggers.

So I'm also thinking that the person(s) watching him took notes, sent another idiot out there to try another kind, who fell dead, and so forth until folks found the ones that are really tasty. Because, really good mushrooms are REALLY good.

Like these.

What I have here are stuffed mushroom caps. I use button mushrooms because I can find them readily at the grocery store, but any cap with a sufficiently rounded aspect will do. Just so you can get a hole where the stem is -- and yes, I know -- how to avoid double entendres when you start the way I did, I don't know.

What you need:

About a pound of good-sized mushrooms or just the caps

1/2 c finely chopped walnuts

1/2 c plain bread crumbs

1 1/2 TBSP dried dill

4 oz finely crumbled feta

4 TBSP milk

pepper

2 TBSP olive oil

Oven to 375. Lightly grease a large flat pan. I use a lasagna pan for this.

Mix nuts, bread crumbs, dill, feta and milk. The resulting stuffing will be loose and crumbly. This is right. Don't worry.

Wipe the mushrooms off. Me, I wash them, in violation of all that's sacred about mushroom cleaning, I understand. Alas. But then, I eat a lot less dirt this way.

If the mushrooms still have stems, wiggle them back and forth with your fingers. They should pop right out. Save these in the fridge to chop up in your next soup.

Wash your hands.

With your fingers, lightly press the filling into the cavities of each mushroom. You want enough pressure to compact the stuffing, but not so much that you break the mushroom in half. Experiment. If you break the mushrooms, it's okay: just set the pieces next to each other in the pan and cook them with the rest. They'll look broken but still taste just fine.

You want to make a little heap of stuffing on top of each mushroom. It'll stay together, I promise.

Place each mushroom in the lightly greased pan. They can touch each other if they need to. If not, not. You can ask them about this and explain good and bad touch if you think that's good parenting. If you do, you might consider explaining about death, since -- well, they're headed into the oven, and ultimately into the hydrochloric acid of your gut (okay, I love this site), so I think it's probably fair to say something while you're talking to the mushrooms anyway.

When you've stuffed all the mushrooms -- and I've never done this without having stuffing left over, which freezes just fine -- drizzle them with the olive oil. Use less if you'd like.

Bake the whole thing for about 20 minutes, uncovered. The mushrooms will darken and the stuffing will brown just a little bit. When they're soft enough for your taste, remove from the oven and, waiting so you don't burn your mouth, consume.

There you go.

Easy Mac (less than $2; about 15 minutes)

Seriously. Does anyone know what that orange powder is that comes in a box of mac and cheese you buy when you need comfort food?

Specifically, where the hell does the orange come from? It's neon, it's weird, it probably sneaks around in your cupboard at night, inviting the marshmallow cream to help out in its seduction of the brownie mix. It probably has one of those round, rotating beds. It probably listens to Al Green and wears necklaces with Italian horns on them. Honestly, it probably needs a good two weeks of penicillin. I mean, who knows what it's bringing to the table? Could be anyone. Could be anything.

I like orange. I wear a lot of orange. This orange just frightens the bejesus out of me.

Hence: easy mac, homemade. It's white. And, aside from what might be hiding in the white (by which I mean in the parm, the milk, the canola, or the pasta), you know what you're eating.

I guess ideally you'd make your own parm from the milk you got from your own cow/sheep; your own oil from your own canolas (canolis? Does anyone know what a canola is? [okay, CANada + Oil + a? Really?]); and make your own pasta from wheat grown on your own property, from dirt you made -- and from eggs you harvested from your own chickens whom you feed with your own scratch -- and from whatever else you might decide you can gather from around you, unpolluted by the touch of other people's diabolical plans to poison you with neon-orange additives.

But let's say that for the time being, we're just going to move one step closer to controlling ingredients. And that this is, in fact, as easy or easier that that box mac you ingest, or give your kids to ingest, on any given day.

Here's what you'll want. This will feed at least four people as a meal.

Large sauce pot

pound of pasta, any shape. Flat pasta cooks faster than pasta that's bunchy. The fastest is angel hair. The slowest I've found is gemelli.

some parmesan, any sort -- even (and here's how you can tell this is not a gourmet recipe) the stuff in a shake jar.

A little milk.

a little oil.

That's it.

Okay, boil the pasta until it's the tenderness you like it. My Nana complains that Americans eat their pasta raw (which is her word for al dente); I say, if you want to chew, undercook. If you want to gum and slide for your mastication, have at it.

If you've never boiled pasta before, the rule is a LOT of water. Pasta needs to swim, so cover it and then some. Boil the water, add the pasta. Keep it boiling until it's done.

Drain the pasta and shake it to clear all the water. Return it to the warm pot. Drizzle on some oil, maybe a TBSP. Splash in some milk, less than a 1/4 cup. If you want some herbs, try a little oregano. Also, you can weaponize with jalapeno paste; just stir it in at this point.

Keep the pot, and the pasta, warm if you need to on a VERY LOW heat. Mix so all the pasta's coated. Put some parm on it, maybe a 1/4 cup max. Stir once or twice, very lightly.

Do this again and again until when you stir, you don't see milk puddling in the bottom of the pan.

Parm is funny and can clump, so you don't want to over-stir. If it clumps, peel that part off the spoon, eat it, and keep going. Add a little more milk if you think the pasta's not coated to your liking.

The finest meal-variation of this is to add peas to the boiling water. Pasta Parm Peas is what I used to call it. You can also add shrimp or chicken. If you do, you get to name it.

There you go.

Chicken, Peas, White Sauce (under $10; about 15 minutes)

This is not really Chicken ala King. I've looked it up. That dish is way harder. This you can do in your sleep almost. So if you want ACTUAL Chicken ala King, sorry.

I made a big pot of this stuff for a grieving friend recently, called it "chicken in white sauce with peas and biscuits." She said, "Oh, you mean Chicken ala King." I nodded. Um, okay. If you say so.

That may be the first time I heard anyone call it that. I never called it anything, just fixed it, served it, and let it talk for itself. So yeah. Chicken ala King. Whatev.

I don't know where I first ate it or how to cook it. It must have come in a dream. Like this dream where I make a basic white sauce, add some cooked chicken and peas, and drape it over some biscuits. That dream.

Here's what you need:

4 TBSP oil or melted butter

4 TBSP flour

milk

about a pound of cooked chicken, diced into bite-sized pieces (I shred mine)

some frozen peas, maybe a cup

biscuits

thyme, a couple of bay leaves, and a little nutmeg. Or you could use a little sage, I guess. I tend to like thyme.

Pour out about six cups of milk so that it's ready when you need it.

In a large stockpot, heat oil with flour over medium for 2 minutes (this is called making a roux).

Add milk all at once. I use a whisk at this stage to get the roux to break up smoothly in the milk. Otherwise I tend to get sauce with mini-dumplings.

Whisk smooth. Add the bay leaves when you start cooking the milk so they have time to flavor the sauce. Cook over medium to medium-high heat, stirring with a regular spoon very often (otherwise you'll burn the milk and have to start over) until it bubbles and thickens.

NOTE: if it doesn't thicken after it starts boiling, take another TBSP of flour in a container you can close and shake. Add 1/2 c water and about 1/4 c of the hot liquid to the flour. Shake until smooth, add to the boiling milk. Bring to a boil again and wait five minutes at boiling. If that doesn't work, do it again. Usually, however, one time works fine.

Once it's thickened, you can add flour to make it thicker using the method above, or add a little more milk to thin it out if you like your sauce thinner.

Add about a TBSP of thyme, and sprinkle some nutmeg over the top and stir in. I tend to just lightly sprinkle the surface with nutmeg. You should taste now, and add salt and pepper if necessary. If you like yours weaponized, now is the time to add jalapeno mash.

Add peas and chicken. Stir and warm them.

Serve over halved biscuits. There's a biscuit recipe on this site -- I think in December 2009 somewhere. Should be easy to find.

There you go.

Smashed Potatoes (under $3; about 25 minutes)

There is almost nothing more unpalatable to me than the mashed potatoes of my childhood. My mother used to peel and boil chunks of potato until they fell into powder. Then she'd get out the electric mixer, add margarine and some milk and mix until she could nearly pour the stuff. Babyfood. The consistency of vomit-froth. Insubstantial and unchewable. Gah. Yuck.

I encountered these again in Wisconsin and would have despaired, but thankfully, I'd been living in Georgia in between, where I --

1. had a shitty electric mixer that couldn't handle potatoes for, say, 15 (I fed 23 people at once);
2. so had bought a potato masher (mine is less hand-grenade-y than this), which changed my life, potato-wise; and
3. had met the inestimably wonderful Peter Gareis, who taught me his secret to mashed spuds.

The secret to smashed potatoes ala Gareis is that you must chew, and you must chew on rich, worthwhile things. All hail Peter, who stood in my kitchen and made these one day while I watched. Actually, come to think of it, it might have been his kitchen, and I might have been spying intrusively. All hail Peter anyway.

Okay, what you need:

A large pot

water

about 6-8 medium boiling potatoes (for about four people, or just one of you, if it's been a really really bad day)

butter

milk

salt

cream or yogurt cheese

Easy.

Step one: wash potatoes thoroughly. You're going to eat the skin, so make sure it's clean.

Step two: cut unpeeled potatoes in about 2" pieces.

Step three: put potatoes in pot and just cover with hot water.

Step four: boil them on high until a fork slides easily into the largest piece you can find. This should take about 10-15 mins. NO longer than 20 or you'll have crap falling apart potatoes and that's no fun.

Step five: drain the potatoes. Save the water for soup if you're that kind of person.

Step six: put the potatoes back in the warm pot. Add about two-three TBSP of cream/yogurt cheese, a splash of milk, a tsp salt and some butter.

Step seven: mash vigorously. Add a little more milk to get a smoother consistency if you need to.

Taste and adjust salt and add pepper if you like that. Find an old sappy movie and plop down on the couch with a bowl of these. Eat in big gobbing spoonfuls, like ice cream. They're good for your soul, very calming, very grown up.

There you go.

Cornbread (about $2; 40 minutes)

I was reading something the other day -- don't ask me what -- and someone was complaining that she couldn't make cornbread because there wasn't any buttermilk. That got me to wondering what the heck she was talking about. I guess you could use buttermilk. I'd never used it. But I guess you could.

And anyway, the chemistry of using buttermilk in baking is easy enough that you can substitute spoiled milk (or sweet milk curded with a little vinegar) for buttermilk, in a pinch.

People get their panties in a wad for the weirdest of reasons.

Witness: the sugar issue (this person's actually pretty mild in her disapprobation; she only kicks you off the website). Apparently -- I'm really outside this debate (here's another random sampling), too, so can't be trusted to represent it at all well -- if you add sugar to your cornbread you are [insert nasty regional epithet here]. "True" cornbread, the food of [benevolent regional description]ers, is sugar-free.

I don't know. You could take out the sugar I guess, just add a little less milk, and see how it does. All depends on whether or not you want to be a [nasty region]ist, or if (heresy, I suppose) the matter of sugar really does mark you as a [nasty region]ist.

Alright: here's the recipe. I make this in a cast iron skillet, and make 1 and a half of this recipe to fill it. As written below, this will fill a loaf pan.

You'll need:

1 c self-rising cornmeal (buy local!)

1/2 c white flour

1/4 c white sugar

1 egg (what I want for my birthday)

milk

corn or a very small can of creamed corn (6 oz?)

Oven at 350.

Grease the skillet or loaf pan generously.

In a bowl, mix meals and sugar. If you're using corn niblets, add them to the meal/flour mixture. I put about a handful in mine -- so maybe 1/4 c?

In a large measuring cup, beat the egg with creamed corn if you're not using niblets. Don't do both or you won't have bread so much as corn pudding. Which is delicious, but won't really sop much.

Add enough milk to the measuring cup to make about a cup and a half of liquid. Keep the milk out since you may need a little more wet.

Mix the wet materials into the dry materials all at once. Add enough milk that the consistency of the batter is like very loose pancake batter. You should be able to pour it. Mix just until everything's incorporated, then immediately pour into your greased pan.

Bake about 30 minutes. Eat hot with lots of butter. Sop up soup if you want.

NOTE: I use this for stuffing at the holidays, only I make it hot and spiced. I double the recipe, add garlic, red pepper flakes, oregano, sage, basil and thyme. Cook in a large skillet. Leave out overnight, then crumble with regular bread for your stuffing. It's my secret. Shhhhh.

There you go.

Say Cheese (less than $3; Overnight)

Cheese, I hear, is bad for you. It clogs the heart. People can die of cheese. This is weird, isn't it? It's just a little clotted milk with the whey wrung out.

Hey, did I ever tell you the stinky cheese story? Probably. But I'm getting old, so I'm going to tell it again. You can skip to the food part if you've heard this before.

I can't tell you how many people turn my book over (the ten or so who bought it) and say: wow, that's a great picture, you look just like an author. By which they mean: you look like you're smelling something really terrible. You look like you're thinking: "Bad prose is everywhere! It offends the nostrils, it stinks to high heaven! I am rarified! I write!"

Actually, it's rotten Gorgonzola. It really is a bad smell, the smell I can only liken to nasty, nasty, dirty ass.

But wait: I get ahead of myself. Picture this: a romantic honeymoon, picnic lunches in picturesque plazas in Italy in April, etc. etc. We were there on the cheap, so we foraged for food in the morning, backpacked it til noon, bought some wine and ate al fresco. We had olives above the forum, with the best mozzarella and grilled eggplant I've ever tasted. We ate bread and artichokes at the Pyramid or near the Pantheon. I can't remember it all. The point is, we went to the bread store, bought bread; went to the fruit market, bought fruit; went to the cheese man (blessed are the cheese-makers...), bought cheese.

One day, unsure what any of the labels read at the particular formaggeria where we were standing, I saw a familiar label: Gorgonzola. I'd heard of that! Hurray!

I held up my palm. In my Engaliano, I said: as much, as thick as my palm. The nice man said prego, wrapped it in three or four layers of wax paper and a paper bag, we paid, and four hours later, bread and loquats (in the rose family!) in hand, we were ready to consume.

You have all, I think, seen my palm. It is not a dainty thing. Likely we had -- conservatively -- half a pound of Gorgonzola in a bag, four hours in the heat.

When we opened the backpack, there was a visible mushroom cloud. Not spotting any dogs nearby, I said: honey, was that you? Chuck said: I think there's a sewer grating under us.

Oh, I said.

Then he opened the paper bag with the cheese in it. Strangers fifty yards away passed out.

Close the bag! I shouted.

AAHHH! Chuck screamed, it's on my HANDS! it's on my HANDS!

Moist towelettes (they have a MUSEUM!) did nothing; a whole bottle of water did nothing; no, rotten Gorgonzola is like sulphuric acid and passes straight through skin to impregnate the blood and muscles underneath with the smell, as Chuck put it, of thousands upon thousands of dirty pigeon butts.

I can'd brede, I said, my eyes rolling back in my head. Oh God, helb me.

Dis is an excellend dime for a pigture, Chuck said.

Snap.

This is the story of the author photo I love best. Yes, I am smelling terrible terrible things. Really. This is not a metaphor.

The cheese I'm about to tell you how to make, however, is both mild and easy; it substitutes naturally for cream cheese, sour cream, any savory, thick dairy. I haven't tried it in sauces that I would heat, feeling like it would lose its structure this way. But we use it, cold, for all kinds of things.

What you need is a man's hanky, plain, unflavored yogurt (I use non-fat, but feel free to try whatever), a little milk, and some salt. C'est tout. In the end you have about 6 oz of spreadable cheese.

Beside a sink where you can let the cheese drip overnight, line a largish soup bowl with the clean hanky. Dump about half a 32oz carton into the bowl on top of the hanky. Bring two opposite corners together and tie in a half hitch. Grab the other two corners and tie these in a double half hitch securely over the faucet handle. You want the proto-cheese to swing free and drip into the sink.

Go to bed. Sleep. Leave the thing for 24 hours.

When it's done, untie the hanky and let the cheese ball (in roughly the shape of its packet) roll out into a bowl you can seal.
Add about a TBSP of milk and about a tsp of salt. Mix with a fork and refrigerate.

We serve this with crackers and paprika Nick McRae brought us from Europe. I eat it on sandwiches, all by itself. I've even used it for dipping chips. It's really versatile, I swear, and doesn't smell in the least.

There you go.