My “Garbage Plate” inspired Recipes

I've been eating garbage plates for years. Around the Rochester area, you can’t swing a cat without finding variations on the garbage plate. They call ‘em trash plate, sticky-icky plate, compost plate, junkyard plate, and many others. This Yelp link references 211 locations in the Rochester area where one can acquire a garbage plate or variation thereof. My variation is not an attempt to copy any of those recipes. I had just eaten enough of them to know what I wanted to make. I’ll walk you through the method to my madness. When I started making them a couple of months ago, I would just buy the mac salad pre-made at Wegmans. Last week, they didn’t have the pre-made tub, so I got a quart at the deli. this week, they had none at all. So, I made my own for the first time. It came out so delicious, I may never buy pre-packaged mac salad again.

For my variation, there are 4 main components:

Macaroni Salad
Potatoes
Meat Sauce
The Prize

Macaroni Salad

Dice the following:

2/3 One large Red Onion 2/3 One large Red Onion *
2 celery stalks
1/3 Red Bell Pepper *
1/3 Green Bell Pepper *

* Save the rest for the Meat Sauce

Boil up a box of macaroni. I used the colored spirals.
Dump the boiled macaroni into a colander.
Rinse with cold water for a couple of minutes.
Shake the colander well and dump the mac into a casserole dish, or just use the same pan you boiled the mac in.
Mix all ingredients.
Add mayonnaise with a wooden spoon. After 4 or 5 dollops, mix. You know what it should look like. Don’t overdo it on the mayo.
Squirt a couple of squirts of yellow mustard, mix, cover, and refrigerate.

Potatoes

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. I usually use most of a 5 pound bag. Last weekend, I used red potatoes, skin on.
Cut the smaller potatoes into quarters, and the larger ones into the same size.
Sometimes, I put the potatoes in a bowl with a little olive or vegetable oil and spices, like Montreal Steak seasoning.
Shake it up, and put on a cookie sheet. Hopefully, your cookie sheet has sides that will keep the oil from spilling out.
Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, turn over and bake for another 30 minutes or so.
In my experience, an hour is pretty standard time for them to be fully cooked.

Meat Sauce
One Cup cooked Rice
I like to use the Royal Blended Rice (Click for details)
One pound fried and finely chopped ground beef
1/3 diced red Onion (from when you made the mac)
2/3 red bell pepper cut into strips
2/3 green bell pepper cut into strips
a standard sized jar and a half of your favorite BBQ/meat sauces
1 large can of beans

Cook the rice, set aside.
Fry the ground beef, add the onions, red and green pepper strips and fry for 3 minutes or so.
Add the beans and BBQ sauces. Pay attention here as you’ll want to decide how watery you want your meat sauce.

The Prize

Standard, traditional garbage plates usually have a couple of cheeseburgers, hot dogs, or chicken breast. But, why stop there?
Lately, I’ve tried chicken tenders, scallops, lobster tail, and turkey breast.
Next time I make the plates, I want to try Shark steaks.

Putting It Together

Start, with the mac salad on one side of the plate, and the baked potatoes on the other
Ladle a scoop of meat sauce, put the Prize in the middle, and ladle another scoop of meat sauce.