Dijon mustard gives this creamy and cheesy hybrid dish some tang. A really hearty bowl of comfort! We named this to honor a great LGBT leader Michael Callen. Read about him after the recipe.
What a combination of the great tastes of chicken soup and mac & cheese. Yet since this does not use a cream sauce but rather one based with potato you will find it a tad healthier.
Ingredients
1½ c. macaroni
3 slices bacon, cut up onto pieces
1¼ lb. boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cubed
1 small onion, chopped
1 small red bell pepper, chopped
2 cans diced potatoes
6 c. chicken stock
Kosher salt + pepper
4 tbsp. unsalted butter, divided
2 tsp. Dijon mustard
1 small head broccoli, cut into small florets (about 4 cups)
8 oz. extra-sharp cheddar cheese, grated (about 2 cups)
Sliced fresh chives, for garnish
Directions
Do your cutting. Chop the bacon, set aside.
Chop the onion and red bell pepper, cut up the chicken, cut the broccoli into florets.
In a dutch oven on the stove top, cook up the bacon pieces until done and releasing the grease. Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon to a paper towel.
Add the chicken pieces and cook, stiring about 7 - 9 minutes until starting to turn a nice golden color. Remove to paper towels.
Add the onions and red pepper and let cook 3 – 5 minutes. Remove to paper towels.
Add about 1 cup of the chicken stock to deglase the pot, stirring the brown bits from the bottom with a wodden spoon. Add rest of stock and the drained cans of diced potatoes. Bring to a simmer for 20 – 25 minutes. Stir ocassionally so nothing burns to the bottom.
Check to make sure the potatoes are mushy and carefully with an emersion blender, puree this into a creamy base.
Keep this simmering as you add the uncooked pasta, chicken, and bacon. Let simmer for 3 – 5 minutes then stir in the broccoli and the onion mix. Let that cook for another 5 minutes until tender. Stir often so nothing sticks to the bottom.
At this point the macroni should be just about cooked. Remove from heat and let the soup stand for 1 minute. (this prevents the soup from breaking).
Stir in the mustard and gradually add the cheese by spoonfuls until melted and smooth. (if you add it all at once you will get oil dropets)
Taste and adjust with salt and pepper.
If you wish, garnish with extra cheese.
What a hearty, healthy bowl of comfort! So honored to serve this to my Master Indy.
socialslave
To satisfy and restore.
To nourish, support and maintain.
To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,
to nurture, assist, and sustain
…..I cook!
Please buy slave's cookbook:
The Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes by Dan White http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTM via @amazon
Michael Callen
“He was one of the omnipresent, one of the titans.”— Tony Kushner
As a composer, singer, writer and AIDS activist, Michael Callen played a major role in shaping America’s response to the epidemic.
Callen was an AIDS activist before there was an AIDS movement. From the time of his diagnosis with Gay-Related Immune Deficiency in 1982, he was involved in virtually all of the positive responses to the epidemic, including the self-empowerment of People with AIDS; the invention of safer sex; the community-based research movement; development of prophylaxis for major opportunistic infections; and the establishment of buyer’s clubs providing low-cost access to both experimental and approved AIDS treatments.
Callen coined the term “people with AIDS” (PWAs) to replace the early characterizations of PWAs as AIDS victims, thus laying the foundation for the PWA “self-empowerment movement.” Callen emphasized that people could live with AIDS and continue to make significant contributions to society despite their diagnosis.
Michael Callen was born 1955 in an Indiana suburb of Cincinnati. He earned a degree in music in 1977 from Boston University. After graduation, he moved to New York City to pursue a career as a singer. Though Callen realized he was gay as a teenager, he did not explore his sexuality until his years in Boston and New York; and when he did, he did so with gusto. He became a self-described and unapologetic "slut."
Initially diagnosed with GRID (Gay-Related Immune Deficiency) in 1982, Callen became an early AIDS activist and threw himself into understanding the disease. His overarching focus was one of survival, believing hope was a crucial factor in living with AIDS. Callen worked closely with his physician, Dr. Joseph Sonnabend, a virologist from South Africa. He was convinced that GRID was sexually transmitted. In 1983 Callen co-wrote one of the first guides on safe-sex practices, “How to Have Sex in an Epidemic.” This was the first guide to safe sex. The advice in the pamphlet, based on the concepts of his doctor, has become the accepted standard of risk reduction. Thus Callen has been rightly called the “Father of Safe Sex!
Recognizing the physical, psychological, and political harm of arguing for gay me to cease all sexual activity, Callen took a moderate approach: gay men could have sex, but in ways that mediated risk. Gay people were becoming more widely accepted and attaching shame and negativity to sex — what some referred to as an “anti-sex” approach — could have damaging consequences.
He was one of the few people during the early years of the epidemic to argue against a diagnosis of AIDS as an automatic death sentence. In his 1988 article, “Not Everyone Dies of AIDS,” published in the Village Voice, Callen wrote:
“Believing that I could survive was probably the precondition necessary for my actual survival. Unlike many other people with AIDS who considered themselves, in playwright Larry Kramer’s phrase, merely ‘ticking time bombs,’ my AIDS world view admitted from the first at least the possibility of recovery… Having hope won’t guarantee that you’ll survive AIDS, but not having hope seems to guarantee that you’ll succumb quickly.”
Callen joined with a fellow person with AIDS Richard Berkowitz and partner Richard Dworkin to write an essay entitled "We Know Who We Are: Two Gay Men Declare War on Promiscuity” for the New York Native.
What the men referred to as “promiscuity” was the frequent backroom, unprotected sexual encounters that dominated the gay sexual culture of the time and place. In the post-Stonewall Riots and gay liberation years, the popular belief was that sex was a revolutionary act, and more sex was equivalent to being more liberated. Callen argued that gay men needed to rethink their attitudes toward sex and relationships.
He was also a strong writer on the politics of sexuality. His essays appeared regularly in newspapers, magazines, journals, and books, including The Village Voice, The New York Native and Outweek.
In addition to his political work, Callen was a popular singer and composer in the gay community. Callen’s AIDS activism had a major influence on his music, as reflected in his solo album, Purple Heart (Significant Other Records, 1988), which The Advocate reviewer called, “the most remarkable gay independent release of the past decade.”
As a member of the gay a cappella group The Flirtations, he toured internationally and recorded two albums, The Flirtations (Significant Other Records, 1990) and Out on the Road (Flirt Records, 1992).
Callen’s song “Living in Wartime,” an AIDS battle cry from Purple Heart, was featured in the original production of Larry Kramer’s play The Normal Heart. Callen also wrote, along with Oscar winner Peter Allen and Marsha Malamet, “Love Don’t Need a Reason,”
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wlwCTqFeUk), which Callen sang at numerous gay and AIDS-related events, including the New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles AIDS walkathons and the 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights; and on network television programs, such as the Geraldo Show.
The song has been covered by numerous gay men's choirs as well as the Peter Allen Broadway musical The Boy From Oz (1998).
Shortly before his death from AIDS-related complications in December 1993, Callen completed vocal tracks for 48 new songs. Twenty-nine of these compositions have been released as a double CD, titled Legacy, which garnered four Gay & Lesbian American Music Awards, including Album of the Year and Best Recording by a Male Artist. Legacy, recorded with the help of such prominent musicians as Holly Near, Cris Williamson, David Lasley (James Taylor), Greg Wells (k.d. lang), Fred Hersch, Arnold McCuller (Phil Collins) and Steve Sandberg (David Byrne, Ruben Blades) are a testament to Callen’s commitment to the gay and lesbian community as well as his own passionate struggle for gay identity and selfhood.
