MacMushNDawg and its variants!

MacMushNDawgs (or Hot Dog Soup) and its many variants in my household!
The basics are easy,
take some elbow macaroni (about 2 cups) and cook it off
as you do, chop up some hotdogs (1 pack) and fry the pieces up in butter or margarine
drain the macaroni when its cooked to your level of preference (tenderness),
add a can of cream of mushroom soup,
1/4 can of milk
and the dogs...
stir well, salt and pepper to taste...

I began to play with this and got these variants over the years,

I tended to use soy sauce or Worcestershire (not any more, the anchovies make me break out and suffer allergic reaction, so using kitchen bouquet or teriyaki/soy) sauce when browning off the hotdogs,

I have been known to add shredded cheese (colby jack is my fave, but cheddar is great as well) to the final mix, and add chopped onions and green peppers to the dogs when browning them. I also like tossing in bacon bits (as in make some bacon with the dogs and break it up to add in.)

Once upon a time I messed with the recipe in a big way...

I used a 50/50 mix of hamburger and italian sausage (hot) instead of hotdogs, added garlic, onions, peppers and pimentos to the browning, using a splash of teriyaki sauce with soy and no butter this time round. I also added half a bag of frozen green beans to the macaroni as I cooked it, and then when combining everything at the end, all I had was a handful of shredded pizza cheese (mozzarella) and a half hand of colby jack, this still was great...

Later, I dropped the sausage due to costs, and went just hamburger.. still good. Adding Fiesta mix and California mix veggies in for the green beans,

but for some reason, no veggie works with the dogs....

other than the onions and peppers.

Yes, you can feel and hear your arteries clogging, but it tastes good to me...

La

Counting Coup on the Coops - A poem of the open road

To the brotherhood of the road
its still called by that name
even though few still use CB's,
you know when the coop is open
by the pile up of eightteen wheelers
at the Flying J's, Petro's and TA's.

For when the house of the scales
is open for its business
those overloaded are stopped
by the fines they can't pay.
Fines made by idiot hostlers
shippers and loaders, all on union pay.

Oh, you still hear the term
from the older guys, or young ones
lured to the road by old movies.
The cant of the seventies
and terms like smokey, pigpen
double nickel and Colorado Koolaid.

Sooner or later, one group or the other
will give ground in some way
either the deadline looming
or overtime banned by a governor
will let one side count its coup,
as the big rigs keep rollin' night and day.