the BIGGEST

i have the BIGGEST craving for luby's today. i want the luann platter of my youth: fried chicken with mashed potatoes and macaroni & cheese, a butter roll, and an iced tea.

i would substitute the chicken for fried okra in my adult life.

processed.

blake's updated luann platter includes green vegetables. he's so grown up.
well, we ate the luby's dinner, 10 of us (mostly texan). apparently the fried chicken tasted like it was actually from luby's. i wouldn't know about that, but i did fry it myself.

here's what we ate; the food with the asterisk (*) were actual luby's recipes.
fried chicken*
macaroni and cheese*
mashed potatoes
steamed broccoli
jalapeno cornbread*
cloverleaf rolls*
salad, with the ever-present iceberg lettuce
sweet tea
blackberry and peach pie
icebox pie*

there was also pumpkin pie and sweet potato pie, and a lot of ice cream, whipped cream, and cool whip. i am not sure i have ever had this much processed food in my house at one time. luby's calls for a lot of dry milk powder. and that mac and cheese calls for american cheese, which was a shopping disaster in and of itself. let's just say that i bought the one with the most milk and milk products, not the ones with oil and corn syrup.

before and after of the chicken:

pre-made pie shells have all sorts of things in them that i would prefer not to eat; the word "hydrogenated" appears immediately in the ingredient list. i went to the fairway and bought organic ones by wholly wholesome. you can also get them gluten-free, spelt, or whole-wheat.

when you buy pre-made pie shells, you get two shells. i figured that meant i needed to make 2 pies. i cut up 4 peaches and i pint of blackberries, mixed it with 1/4 cup sugar and approximately 1 tbsp of flour. i added ginger and cinnamon, mixed it all together, and put it in the pie shell. it looked like this:
i cooked it at 350, stirring it every now and again for close to an hour, i think. it was a hit.

i also bought a box of saltines, but i have no idea why. thank god they last forever; apparently they will survive a nuclear attack. i feel so prepared.

more on luby's.

ok, so i didn't think this would turn into two posts.
1. a co-worker of mine allowed me to copy pages from her luby's cookbook last year. i have never made any of the recipes before. they just might give me a heart attack and make my house smell like grease for years. blake has suggested that we have a luby's night. i promise to let you know the outcome of the madness.
2. luby's has excellent macaroni and cheese. yes, you can feel your heart stop a little. in 1998 or so, i nominated it in the houston press "best of" food awards; it was a write-in, and it won!
3. there is nothing organic or healthy about luby's. it just reminds me of my childhood.