Background: When I was a kid, we made mac ‘n’ cheese from the box with the radioactive orange pouch of powdered cheese. When I was a young adult, I learned how to make a Mornay sauce. I learned this move in between those other two moves. It’s the one I do most often. It’s the easiest, most stable, and most versatile.

1. Get some veggie noodles or whatever your kids (and you) like.
2. Make Buttered Noodles.
3. Get some (at least 1 pound) high-quality white American cheese that isn’t individually wrapped. The latter part is especially important.
4. Get some milk.
5. Get a microwave safe bowl.
6. Open the American cheese package and cut through the whole stack of slices, first in strips, then in cubes.
7. Separate the cubes, to the extent you feel like it, into the glass bowl. Add a forth of a cup of milk to the bowl for every pound of cheese.
8. Microwave for 3 minutes.
9. Stir with a fork.
10. Microwave for 3 minutes.
11. Stir with a fork.
12. Add more milk if necessary.
13. Pour over noodles or add noodles to sauce, depending on your quantities of each.
14. Keep extra sauce in the fridge for up to 3 weeks (probably longer, honestly, unless you use it to make queso. )

Why It Works

1. You are training them to not be afraid of the word veggie, not actually feeding them something healthy.
2. If you are doing the Buttered Noodles move on the same night, you can use the same method as you did in steps 9-14 in that move to make cheese sauce instead of Cacio e Pepe. If not, just pour over refrigerated buttered noodles.
3. If you are unsure what that means, go to a fancy grocery store and look in the cheese case and try to find something that isn’t made by Kraft and isn’t individually wrapped. The slices should be offset for ease of peeling instead of having plastic between them. If you can’t find that, Havarti makes an excellent substitute. If you are looking for the justification for using American cheese when, clearly, it’s the lowest in the hierarchy of cheeses, then read J. Kenji López-Alt’s meatloaf analogy. If’s fine. Just try mod #1 below.
4. Whatever milk you have on hand is fine. This is really just to loosen the sauce.
5. High sides are good for this move. You can mix some noodles for the kids in the glass bowl and fancy up your own in the pot.
6. This is why the “not individually wrapped” part is important.
7. The amount of milk here is an estimate. If your result is too loose, add more American cheese and zap it again. Adjust your notes.
8. Again, just an estimate. What you don’t want is the cheese turning brown anywhere, especially at the side of the bowl. I should say “what your kids don’t want” is the cheese turning brown. Adults know that’s just Dr. Maillard’s thing happening in the bowl. That’s where the flavor is.
9. So, you could whisk it. But after doing this for the 57th time, you’ll probably fork it.
10. Don’t forget to check for browning.
11. Why a fork? For the same reason you fork your scrambled eggs: Because your dishwasher is always full and your sink is usually full of dirty dishes and there’s a good chance that two of your whisks are dirty and the other one fell down in that space between the fridge and the bottom cabinets. It’s fine. Use a fork. It takes up less space in the dishwasher anyway.
12. Remember you can always add more milk, but you can only add as much cheese as you’ve got. Cheese is the limiting factor here. You could make this with water or chicken stock if you had to.
13. It might be less of a “Pour” and more of a “Use a rubber spatula to coax the sauce out of the bowl and gently fold around noodles.”
14. Pro-tip that’s probably going to be it’s own compound move at some point: Add pico to leftover sauce and you’ve basically got queso.

Mods:

1. Steam the heck out of some frozen cauliflower…like really blast it in the microwave before you do this move. Then blend it up really really good. See if you can replace some or all of the milk with cauliflower purée and get it past your kids. Over the years, gradually increase the size and amount of cauliflower chunks until they are eating cauliflower cheese casserole.
2. Top a portion for yourself with some of your own favorite cheeses like brie, bleu cheese, Parm, Asiago, Manchego, havarti, etc.
3. Add crispy fried onions or shallots to the top!

Background: My grandparents had a ceramic trivet with this supposedly Spanish proverb: “Four persons are wanted to make a salad. A spendthrift for oil, a miser for vinegar, a counselor for salt and a madman to stir it all up.” That sounds like it will translate to a move.

1. Get a spendthrift’s worth of oil.
2. Get a miser’s worth of vinegar.
3. Get a counselor’s worth of salt.
4. Mix like a madman.

Why It Works

1. Oil is expensive, and salad dressing is mostly oil. So let’s say 60% of your dressing is going to be oil.
2. Vinegar is cheap, and you can’t put too much in. So let’s say 30% of your dressing is going to be vinegar or some other acid.
3. Salt to taste. Ok, but whose taste, though? The counselor doesn’t salt to his own taste. He considers who is going to be eating the salad, what it is being served with, and what is the overall dining context. Then he seasons the salad. I assume that he and the madman butt heads about the rest of the seasonings.
4. The counselor walks away in frustration and disgust as the madman suggests putting everything he can get his hands on into the dressing. (Stinky “preserved” fish? Really?) This is actually just a ploy to get the counselor out of the kitchen so the madman can work his magic. Somehow it works.

Mods:

1. Vary the vinegar. Try balsamic vinegar, red wine vinegar, white wine vinegar. Come to think of it, try red wine and white wine. I’ve even made vinaigrette with Champagne. (Okay, it was actually sparkling wine.)
2. Vary the oil. Try first stone cold pressed extra virgin olive oils. (That’s why it takes a baller to make a salad.)
3. Vary the sources of salt. There are tons of different kinds of salt. But you can also use soy sauce, miso paste, anchovies, seaweed, katsuobushi, liquid aminos, Parmesan (or other hard salty cheeses), etc.
4. Vary the madman’s ingredients. I feel like both salad dressings and salad need three basic things and at least a couple wildcards. Something that makes it seasonal. Something that makes it local. Something that makes it unique.

*Except for all other dressings not based on vinegar and oil.

Background: Growing up, my mom’s go to marinade was Wish-Bone Italian Dressing mixed with soy sauce. It’s a brilliant move, really. It has everything you could want in a marinade: distilled vinegar, water, oil, sugar, salt, garlic (dried), onion (dried), red bell peppers (dried), rosemary extract, yeast extract, lemon juice concentrate. However, it also has some things I don’t care for like “natural flavor,” xanthan gum, “spice” (whatever that is) and annatto extract (color). I know that some of those are naturally occurring things, but, frankly, I can do just fine without them for a marinade. Also, I try to limit the number of processed foods and condiments I buy. That said, everyone needs a few quick go-to marinades so I’ve outlined one below. I’ll outline a bunch of other marinades that come from this basic principle in mods section below. This move is, of course, a nod to my mom and a rip off of her Wish-Bone Soy Sauce marinade.

Soy Sauce and a Bunch of Other Stuff That I Might Have Taken Directly From the Ingredients of a Certain Salad Dressing Because You Can’t Copyright a Recipe Marinade

1. Get three parts neutral oil and one part distilled white vinegar.
2. Add to that two parts soy sauce.
3. Add turbinado sugar to taste.
4. Season to taste with dried garlic, onion, and whatever other dried spices you like.
5. Add some squeezes of citrus juice.

Why It Works:

1. The oil will protect the food while the vinegar will start to break down the food. The oil also evenly distributes the flavor. Because you are going to be cooking the food, which also breaks it down, the oil is arguably more important so there’s more of it. Leaving the oil out would cook the food it does in ceviche.
2. This is where the salt and umami comes from. I use extra dark soy sauce because it’s clingy and rich and helps the browning process.
3. The sugar just rounds out the flavor. I don’t always use it. Needless to say, when you are adding things to marinades to taste, it should be before you put the raw meat in it.
4. Dried herbs and granulated garlic and onion are tools and nothing to be ashamed of.
5. Like the sugar, this is to round out the flavor. The vinegar is doing the heavy lifting, acid-wise. The reason is economics. You want to submerge the thing in the marinade. Citrus juice is more expensive than vinegar.

Mods:

1. Swap out the neutral oil with sesame oil and the vinegar with rice wine vinegar and you have a marinade with more Asian flavor profiles. Season accordingly.
2. Swap out the soy sauce with liquid aminos for a less-Asian, gluten-free, unfermented marinade.
3. Use just the soy sauce for meats that don’t need tenderizing like the Pork Tenderloin in Soy Sauce move.
4. Lose the vinegar and add tequila, lime, and jalapeñoes for a great Tex-Mex marinade.
5. Swap out both the oil and the vinegar with water to make a brine-based marinade. (Great for birds and shellfish.)
6. Add the odds and ends of onions, fresh herbs, and whatever other aromatic scraps you have lying around.
7. Instead of dried herbs and spices, consider going outside and grabbing what’s growing around you. Where I live, I can forage for wild onions, lemon bee balm (similar taste to oregano), rosemary, and many others. I usually have at least sage, cilantro, and fennel growing in the garden.
8. Add enzymatic ingredients to help tenderize especially tough meats. Good options are pineapple, papaya, yogurt, buttermilk, and ginger.

Background: Aioli was traditionally just an emulsion of garlic and oil. Where I live, we have pecan trees everywhere. I like to add pecans to my aioli to make a vegan spread that’s a mashup of a nut nut butter and a traditional aioli.

1. Make or pull out of the fridge some steamed garlic.
2. Get some shelled pecan halves.
3. Let everything sit on the counter for 15-20 minutes.
4. Add equal parts pecan halves and garlic cloves to a food processor.
5. Blend until it is the consistency of chunky peanut butter.
6. Slowly drizzle oil a few drops at a time into the spinning food processor until it is the consistency of warm creamy peanut butter.
7. Season to taste and pulse a few times.
8. Store in the fridge.

Why It Works:

1. You can also use roasted garlic, but the roasted garlic and the pecans together can be bitter.
2. I buy these when they are on sale and store in the freezer. If you do this, add extra time to the next step.
3. When you are doing an emulsion, everything needs to be at room temperature to emulsify.
4. You can adjust this later based on your tastes. You might find, however, that using half and half makes for an easy emulsion because the nut butter helps suspend the oil.
5. You may find that you want to skip the oil step if you like the consistency and there’s enough natural oil in the pecans.
6. When doing an emulsion, the oil has to be added very slowly so that it can be dispersed into the other liquids. Because there are natural oils in the pecans, you probably won’t need that much oil at all.
7. Salt to taste and, if you think it’s on the bitter side, consider adding honey or brown sugar. Blitz again.
8. This should keep for at least a few weeks.

Mods:

1. Add herbs de Provence just before step 6.
2. Add maple syrup at step 7.
3. Add roasted peppers at steps 3 and 4.

Background: I don’t remember where I learned about compound butter, but I think it was while cooking in an institutional catering kitchen that served beurre maître d’hôtel on it’s steaks for “fancy” banquets. Since then, I’ve tried many different combinations for compound butter but the move below is my favorite. I’ll give some alternatives in the mods:

1. Grow some summer squashes and harvest the blossoms before they hit the ground.
2. Grow some cilantro and harvest some leaves before the coriander seeds set.
3. Get a pound of white butter.
4. Get some waxed paper.
5. Let the butter sit for about 15 or 20 minutes.
6. Put the butter in a food processor and pulse it until it’s soft and smooth.
7. Chiffonade the cilantro and squash blossoms.
8. In a bowl with a thick rubber spatula, fold the chiffonade of cilantro and squash blossoms into the butter. Add salt if you want here.
9. Make a cilantro-squash-blossom butter log on the parchment paper, roll up, and twist the ends to compress the butter.
10. Put in the freezer to chill quickly.
11. The day before you are going to serve it, move it to the fridge to soften a bit.

Why It Works

1. Watch out for bees. One time, I found a bee trapped in a closed blossom when I cut into it. If you aren’t into growing squash blossoms, you can try any edible flower: citrus blossoms, clover, daisies, dandelions, hibiscus, honeysuckle, lavender, lilac, mums, nasturtium, pansies, roses, sunflowers and violets. If you aren’t into edible flowers or they are out of season, try a chiffonade of rainbow chard.
2. Cilantro is pretty easy to grow in Central Texas and it’s cheap in the stores. However, if you are one of those cilantro-tastes-like-soap gene people, then try another leafy herb like basil, tarragon, or yarrow.
3. Whiter butter works better than yellow because of the contrast with the ribbons of flowers and herbs.
4. You could use plastic wrap or foil, but these can be annoying to unwrap when frozen.
5. You want to soft enough to get processed by the food processor, but not soft enough to liquefy when blended.
6. Make sure that the food processor blade doesn’t get too hot and cause so much friction that it melts the butter.
7. A chiffonade is just cut ribbons of leafy vegetables or herbs.
8. Completely working the ribbons into the butter should create a pleasing pattern when the butter is sliced.
9. The butter should be still set enough to form into a log. If it’s too melted for that, you could try putting them in to silicon ice pop molds. The log should be the size of a stick of butter, but round. So you should have four them.
10. You can also store three of the four logs in the freezer and put the other in the fridge.
11. Unless you already have one in the fridge.

Mods:

1. Add a dash of lemon, lime, or vinegar for a little acidity.
2. Roll the outside of the log in black pepper for a different look and taste.
3. Try these combinations:
   • Garlic and chive (for potatoes)
   • Basil and oregano
   • Garlic, dill and lemon (for fish)
   • Garlic and tarragon (for chicken)
   • Chimichurri (for beef)
     • red wine vinegar
     • chopped parsley
     • garlic
     • red chilies
     • oregano
     • black pepper