If you make chicken-fried steak for dinner, then it definitely needs mashed potatoes. Daniel is also correct in dumping the corn. Sides could be mashed potatoes with cream gravy, and either baked beans or green beans.
Maker’s Mark is fine for mixing. It’s a good sipper, too, but mixing with it isn’t a sin, like using the Woodford Reserve would be. Sam Adams will make a fine beverage.
As long as you keep it simple, home-made tomato soup is fine. A little basil is nice, and how I do it as well. Just don’t get too fancy. Cheddar will work on the sandwiches, but I’ve found that if you don’t use easy-melting American cheese, the sandwich gets toasted before the cheese melts, and I have to give it a bit of a nuke to get it the right texture. YMMV.
Campbell’s Tomato Soup, rather than Heinz Tomato Soup. is probably more wide spread in American cooking experience. Not a whole lot of difference though, really. Home made Tomato Soup is . . . well I don’t know anyone who grew up having it at home.
There are a thousand and five recipes for Tuna/noodle casserole. Most involve cream of mushroom soup from a can, Chicken of the Sea chunk light meat tuna, and macaroni. Top with cheese. Quintessentially bland, comfort food from our childhoods. I can’t eat it. Jazz it up with Ricotta, Parmesan, onion, and some good herbs, and it ain’t half bad, though.
Biscuits and sausage gravy with breakfast, or Cream Chipped Beef on Toast are certainly very American. Also contain nearly visible concentrations of salt, saturated fat, and cholesterol. That and the coffee, and you should get a Automatic Emergency Defibrillator to keep in the dining room. I love that breakfast. Had it yesterday, in fact, cooked in my own kitchen. I had poached eggs with mine!
Ditto the mashed potatoes. The only side to go with chicken fried steak is mashed potatoes and gravy. Around here, a typical “starter” would be a tossed salad with ranch dressing.
Chicken fried steak is also a breakfast food, but it is just fine for dinner as well. Serve iced tea to your friends who prefer a non-alcoholic beverage. Make sure the beer is served COLD. It is my understanding that the English serve beer warm. I cannot imagine a more disgusting thing. The beer must be served as cold as possible without its freezing. In my corner of the world, beer is drunk from a long-neck bottle or from a frosted mug. If light, unbreakable containers are required (like at the beach), then cans are allowed. Some beers are sold in plastic bottles, but I won’t touch those.
Warm brownies and ice cream would be fine, though kind of a summer-y treat. For winter, I’d still go with warm apple or pecan pie.
So what kind of English dishes would go well with American tastes?
That was a favorite dinner in college. I used wide egg noodles rather than macaroni, but 'roni works too. A can of cream of mushroom soup, a can of tuna, and a bag of noodles and I could feed me and my three roommates for under two bucks. Good, cheap eats. Mom would add bread crumbs to the top to give it a crispier texture.
You are getting a lot of hints for Southern food in this thread. Which is fine and dandy - BBQ is pretty Southern, but is eaten all over the U.S. Chicken Fried Steak is only eaten all over the U.S. by transplated Southerners.
I’ll tackle the Midwestern church lunch. Warning, this is sort of the steak and kidney pie of American cooking.
Tater Tot Hotdish (or Casserole if you aren’t in Minnesota)
Jello
OK, and people who are channelling some weird past life.
When I was pregnant, in Minnesota, I craved chicken fried steak - I’d grown up in the South. Its really hard to find chicken fried steak at a restaurant in Minnesota (and I wasn’t up to cooking it at home). I finally found it at some national chain sort of place.
I didn’t notice if it’d been mentioned, but discussing this thread with Mr. Bunny last night, he was shocked and appalled that I did not put in a suggestion for a B.L.T. as the lunch course.
American cuisine is highly varied, and there are plenty of places in this country where you can get basil and olive oil in your tomato soup, along with a grilled cheese sandwich. Not only are we varied by region, we’re varied by recent immigrant populations and by the growing foodie movement. If you want to make your tomato soup with basil, there’s nothing inauthentic about that. BUt making it from a can is sort of like deciding to make a Japanese meal by opening a packet of Top Ramen. It may be authentic, but it’s not the best of the cuisine.
Given what others said about chicken-fried steak, I’d stick with it, do mashed potatoes with gravy, and green beans. The cookies and milk is totally gonna drop the authenticity thing; if you’re cool with that, then more power to you. I really like the brownies-and-ice-cream idea, though: it’s easy and delicious, and brownies are terribly American.
I don’t think you need a starter: this kind of meal in the US would probably not come with one. If it did, it’d probably be a salad.
Which is a good point - if you want cuisine, that’s a little different than what most Americans eat fairly regularly. I’ve never had tomato soup at home that isn’t out of a can or a box (I’ve had it in restaurants).
Meatloaf - is meatloaf an American standard thing across most regions - and American?
My semi-annual primer on American cheese. First, by definition, the “American” type cheese is always processed; in this case, processed means that the cheddar-like cheese has been melted and then formed, to give it a more uniform consistency, to make it easier to slice thinly, and a better melting ability (the three reasons why American cheese was invented).
If it’s labeled simply American Cheese (e.g., Kraft Deli Deluxe), it’s made only of cheese and emulsifying salts. McDonald’s restaurants uses a sharp version of American Cheese on their sandwiches.
Further down on the palatability scale, American Cheese Product (e.g., Kraft American Singles, Velveeta) contains as little as 51% cheese, while American Cheese Food (e.g., Cheez Whiz) contains less than 51% cheese.
Beware!
All said and done, I will be slightly heretical and recommend that in the war between “traditional” and “taste”, I would come down on the side of Martha Stewart’s recipe, above, and use a slice of mild or medium cheddar, and a slice of Monterey Jack cheese. And here’s a good recipe for fresh tomato soup. No, traditionalists, it doesn’t taste like canned soup.
I agree with the comments above re gravy is atypical for a baked potato; milk and cookies are for children after school, not typical adult desserts; and corn on the cob and potato is one starch too many.
Apple pie with vanilla ice cream or a slice of cheddar cheese on top, or brownies with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top, are simple and more typical American desserts. Pineapple upside-down cake will give a nice retro-1950s finish to your dinner.
I think for Southern desserts, its Red Velvet Cake. Another candidate would be pecan pie (eaten, as far as I know - all over the U.S. - Red Velvet Cake is generally a Southern thing).
