Mom's Macaroni Salad -Guest Post From Jodi Ambrose

Well, my daughter started Kindergarten yesterday, and I have a little announcement to make. For now, I've decided not to go back to work outside of home full time, but instead I am going to be food blogging/recipe developing full time! This means lots of new recipes to share with all of you in the coming months! But first, I have to get myself into a schedule and there isn't any school on Friday or Monday for Labor Day and next week I desperately need to audit myself. You see, I've been making some money from sponsored posts and the ads on this blog this year, but I have done a horrible job of keeping track of what I made from where and what I spent where! I am extremely grateful for my guest poster this week, Jodi Ambrose, she's has brought two recipes to share with you this week! Jodi isn't a food blogger, we "met" through our blogs, I think her's is fabulous! Check out Jodi Ambrose Blog. Then she wrote a cookbook and asked me to contribute, which was great! Today she is sharing her mom's macaroni salad recipe, and it sounds fabulous! Here's Jodi.

 

With Labor Day less than a week away, I thought I’d share with you my two easiest-to-make foods that go great with whatever you might be throwing on the grill.
The first is the absolute, hands-down best macaroni salad I’ve ever eaten. It’s mom’s recipe and I’ve enjoyed it every summer since I was a little girl.
One of my favorite things about this salad is that it doesn't have a bunch of weird junk in it. I think sometimes people get so obsessed with making food all fancy and complicated that they lose sight of what makes it taste so good—simplicity.
This salad has a clean, crisp, summer taste to it. It is one of my all-time favorite things to eat while sitting in the backyard and watching the chickens play as the sun goes down.

Mom's Macaroni Salad

 

 Image credit Gourmet Kosher Cooking  

Stuff you'll need:
1 one-pound box of elbow macaroni
½ - 1 green pepper
4 good-sized tomatoes
1 large cucumber
½ - 1 medium-sized, sweet onion, depending on how onion-y you like stuff. Don't use a yellow or red, they are way too potent—look on the label of the onion for the word "sweet". If you can’t find a sweet onion, look for the flattest, squished looking onion you can find. As the produce wizard at the store shared with me, the flat onions are sweeter than the round ones, so go with that if you need to.
¾ - 1 cup of mayonnaise* (maybe more)
Salt and pepper, to taste
*I use Kraft Mayo with Olive Oil™ as I can’t tell the difference between it and regular mayo, but it has way fewer calories and less fat than the regular kind.

Putting it all together:
1. Cook the macaroni according to the directions on the box.
2. Once it's cooked (don't overcook it) dump it into a colander and thoroughly rinse it with cool water.
3. Empty the macaroni into a large bowl.
4. Cut the tomatoes into small, bite-sized pieces and add to the bowl.
5. Peel the cucumber and cut into small, bite-sized pieces and add to the bowl.
6. Cut the green pepper into large chunks (I do this because I don't want to bite down on a piece of green pepper, so keeping the chunks large helps me avoid actually eating one, but it does add a nice flavor to the salad—you can cut it any way you want) and add to the bowl.
7. Dice the onion into very small pieces (you don't want any big bites of onion either, but you do actually want onion in your mouth) and add to the bowl.
8. Add about ½ the mayonnaise and stir. Continue to add the mayo until it's got enough for you. Some people like tons of it, some people don't.
9. Add salt and pepper. Taste it. Add more salt and pepper as necessary.
10. Refrigerate for at least a couple of hours so everything has time to chill. If you can, refrigerate it overnight. It is at its absolute best on the second day.
11. Before serving, make sure to stir and taste-test it one more time to make sure it has enough salt. It will be bland if it doesn't have enough salt.

You can also find Jodi here, you might want to order her cookbook!

www.jodiambrose.com

 

DISCLAIMER: This recipe is credited to Jodi Ambrose (and her mom, of course!). The photo is credited to Gourmet Kosher Cooking due to Jodi's camera not working. Rants From My Crazy Kitchen makes no claim to the photo.