Macaroni and Cheese
All day long today, I planned to cook a pork tenderloin for dinner. I did a pretty large shopping trip after work - and forgot to buy a pork tenderloin.
I got home, put away groceries, and looked into the fridge. Plenty of cheese. Time for a good ol' batch of Macaroni and Cheese.
I can honestly say that I have never - ever - bought boxed Mac & Cheese. Ever.
We never had it as children growing up - my mom made mac and cheese from scratch to feed the six kids - and because of the jobs I had in restaurants, it just never occurred to me to buy it.
And I still don't.
I've tasted it before. That's been impetus enough not to spend money on the stuff. I don't see the reason for it.
But real Macaroni and Cheese?!? Food from the gods...
At its most basic, it's a thin white sauce with cheese added, mixed with cooked elbow macaroni, topped with buttered breadcrumbs, and baked. After the cheese is added to the sauce it thickens nicely.
Very simple.
Tonight, I took it a bit further by adding diced ham and peas.
I cooked up a pound of elbow macaroni and ended up with enough mac and cheese to feed the neighborhood. I made a separate casserole for Victor's mom that we'll bring over tomorrow, and Victor has lunch for days...
And we had leftover biscuits.
Here's a recipe from Gourmet Magazine that's pretty close to what I do. I add a few shots of Tabasco and a few shots of Worcestershire sauce. I'll use whatever breadcrumbs are in the house - we always have them in the cupboard.
Macaroni and Cheese
Gourmet | August 2007
Gina Marie Miraglia Eriquez
The toasted crumbs on top have a cheesy crispness, and the pasta beneath is creamy and rich. Kids will appreciate the individual servings, but the recipe makes plenty, so why not pour the extra into a baking dish to feed the ravenous parents?
Yield: Makes 20 servings
Active Time: 35 min
Total Time: 1 1/4 hr
ingredients
For topping
- 1/2 stick unsalted butter
- 2 cups panko (coarse Japanese bread crumbs) or 3 cups coarse fresh bread crumbs (from 6 slices firm white sandwich bread)
- 1/4 pound coarsely grated extra-sharp Cheddar (1 1/2 cups)
- 1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
For macaroni and sauce
- 1 stick unsalted butter
- 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 5 cups whole milk
- 1 pound coarsely grated extra-sharp Cheddar (6 cups)
- 1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
- 1 pound elbow macaroni
preparation
Make topping:
Preheat oven to 400°F with rack in middle.
Melt butter, then stir together with panko and topping cheeses in a bowl until combined well.
Make sauce:
Melt butter in a heavy medium saucepan over medium-low heat and stir in flour. Cook roux, stirring, 3 minutes, then whisk in milk. Bring sauce to a boil, whisking constantly, then simmer, whisking occasionally, 3 minutes. Stir in cheeses, 2 teaspoons salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper until smooth. Remove from heat and cover surface of sauce with wax paper.
Make Macaroni:
Cook macaroni in a pasta pot of boiling salted water (2 tablespoons salt for 4 quarts water) until al dente. Reserve 1 cup cooking water and drain macaroni in a colander. Stir together macaroni, reserved cooking water, and sauce in a large bowl. Transfer to 2 buttered 2-quart shallow baking dishes.
Sprinkle topping evenly over macaroni and bake until golden and bubbling, 20 to 25 minutes.
Chicken and Biscuits
Yesterday it was 80°. Right now it's 48° outside. It's been cold and damp all day. It's the perfect excuse to turn last nights leftover chicken into a pot pie. Of sorts.
This was just what the weatherman ordered! Hot and creamy with cheesy-dill biscuits on top. Perfect cold-weather fare.
This is the sort of meal I just throw together based upon what's in the 'fridge. I had actually planned to do a BBQ's pork, but the chicken was there and the weather wasn't really conducive to BBQ.
I sauteed onion and celery in some butter. When it was looking good, I added flour, mixed it well, then slowly added about a quart of chicken stock. (The chicken stock came out of the freezer - I have more simmering to replace it with.)
When it had thickened a bit, I added some salt and pepper, a bit of poultry seasoning, and some rosemary.
Next I added the chicken from the carcass, cooked pasta (I didn't have any flat or wide egg noodles so I used a couple of handfuls of open partial boxes) and some frozen mixed vegetables.I always have frozen nixed vegetables in the freezer because you just never know when you'll need them. They really are convenient.
Heat went to low and I made the biscuits.
You can use your favorite baking mix but I made these using self-rising flour. Into the flour I added butter, eggs, dill, and cubed cheese. I then added heavy cream until I got the consistency I wanted.
This is why it's difficult to actually write recipes, sometimes. I didn't start with a set amount of anything. There was maybe 2 cups of flour left in the bag so I dumped it into a bowl and went from there.
I used a small scoop and dropped the biscuits onto the boiling filling and baked it for about 18 minutes at 425°.
And the important part of that sentence is boiling filling. The biscuit needs to cook from both the top and the bottom. If it went on a cold filling the filling would not heat up fast enough to cook the biscuit and it would be doughy on the bottom - and over-cooked on top. Start with a hot filling and put into a hot oven.
We had lots of leftovers so this may keep me from eating hot dogs all day tomorrow while Victor is in New York shopping and otherwise having fun.
I get to have a knee MRI and see a Urologist.
Guess who is going to have the most fun!
Leftovers
Yes, we eat leftovers.
More times than not, Victor has them for lunch, but once in a while we start getting a bit of a backlog and it's time to go to work.
I've been craving the pasta dish Victor made Saturday and there was still risotto from Friday. Throwing food away is not an option at our house.
The pasta was easy. I heated it up just as Victor did originally. Sauce in the pan, laid out the slices, a bit more sauce on top, cover, and into the oven.
The risotto took a bit more work.
I knew I wanted risotto cakes but they can be a pain to make. Risotto doesn't necessarily cooperate when one tries to form it into patties. I used a scoop and formed the patties, dredged them in flour, dipped in egg, and then coated in bread crumbs.
True to form, they didn't react well to the initial flour, but handled the subsequent egg-dip and bread crumbs like a pro.
I then sauteed them ("sauteed" sounds so much nicer than "fried") in olive oil in a nice, hot skillet. When they were done I put them into a nice hot oven to make sure they were nicely heated through.
It was just what I wanted. I could eat that pasta seven days a week, and the risotto cakes were perfectly crunchy on the outside and perfectly creamy on the inside.
Perfect for what has been a cold, damp day.
Risotto cakes make a great side dish and really aren't that difficult to make. I purposely didn't add anything to the flour or the bread crumbs. I just wanted the crunch on the outside - I didn't want to take away or compete with the risotto filling.
Give 'em a try next time you have some leftover risotto!
Super Sunday Sustenance
The game is on the TV. I'm not actually watching it. It's been painful. Not the football itself, the musical performers.
Pardon me while I rant for a moment...
I am not a rah-rah-flag-waver but... The Star Spangled Banner is not a pop song. The notes should be sung as written. It is the NATIONAL ANTHEM and is not open to your personal off-key interpretation. And... If you're going to sing the national anthem in front of a few bazillion people. please try and remember the words. Sheesh! That was bad.
So enough of that... for the moment...
The Super Bowl. Yawn.
I'm not a fan of either team, but I am rooting for Green Bay. I dislike them less than Pittsburgh. It's really hard to get excited about the big game when your team isn't playing. I usually just care about the pool points, but I'm not even in a pool this year. Double yawn.
But, we did have to eat, so I decided that we should at least have some Festive Football Food today.
We started this fun food-fest with cocktail franks wrapped in puff pastry. Really.
One sheet of puff pastry topped with a bit of yellow mustard and one package of little cocktail franks. Into a 425° oven for 20 minutes.
Next was focaccia. Victor made this one. He makes the Better Homes and Garden's Pizza Dough. It comes out great every time.
Better Homes and Gardens Pizza Dough
Ingredients
- 2-3/4 to 3-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 pkg. active dry yeast
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1 cup warm water (120 degrees F to 130 degrees F)
- 2 Tbsp. cooking oil or olive oil
Directions
1. In a large mixing bowl combine 1-1/4 cups of the flour, the yeast, and salt; add warm water and oil. Beat with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds, scraping bowl constantly. Beat on high speed for 3 minutes. Using a wooden spoon, stir in as much of the remaining flour as you can.
2. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead in enough remaining flour to make a moderately stiff dough that is smooth and elastic (6 to 8 minutes total). Lightly grease a large bowl; place dough in bowl and cover with a damp towel (make sure the towel does not touch the dough). Let dough rise in a warm place until double in size (30 minutes).
3. Punch dough down. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll into a 16×12-inch rectangle. Place in a greased 16x12x1-inch baking pan. Let rise 20 minutes.
4. Top with toppings of choice and bake at 375° about 25 minutes.
This time around he topped it with sun-dried tomatoes and fried peppers. I served it up with bowls of Friday's Mulligatawny.
As the day wore on, so did we. Time for more snacking...
This time it was nachos. I mean... what's football without the ultimate in junk food, eh?!?
These were extremely gooey-good!
The first thing I did with these was fry my own tortilla chips. I have a deep-fryer. I have to use it now and again...
I fried up a half-pound of ground beef and then added a can of chili. Yes. A can of chili. Hormel Hot Chili, to be exact. I had bought it for when Victor was in Dallas, but since I had made a batch... It's been on the shelf collecting dust.
So I put half of the chips in the pan, added half the beef and chili mixture, and then a heaping helping of shredded Mexican blend cheese. Another layer of chips, chili, and cheese, and it went into the oven for about 20 minutes at 350°.
When it came out, I topped it with salsa, guacamole, sour cream, and sliced black olives.
It was a total mess. I loved every sloppy bite of it!
It's getting towards the end of the game, both sides are trading touchdowns... Time to get serious and watch the end.
Turkey Soup
Lobster one day, soup the next. It's just the way of things around here.
But hi-brow or low-brow, it's always fun.
Tomight's dinner came completely out of the freezer. Well, almost. The carrots were fresh.
I had a small container of turkey soup from Thanksgiving, a small container of turkey gravy - also from Thanksgiving, and a container of chicken stock from whenever.
All three went into a big pot. I let it come to a boil, added some shell macaroni and a couple of sliced carrots.
I warmed up the bread from a couple of days ago and dinner was served.
It was the perfect for the weather - getting cold outside, again - and the perfect meal to balance the food-a-thon we had yesterday.
Oh. And there's more cheesecake for dessert.
Chicken Florentine with Boursin Sauce
I really like Boursin cheese. Not necessarily as a stand-alone cheese, but for all the things it can be used for.
My two favorite ways to use Boursin is in mashed potatoes (outrageously good) and as a sauce. A bit of Boursin melted with a bit of heavy cream or milk makes the perfect sauce for vegetables, beef, chicken... Outrageoulsly good.
For tonight's dinner I started by sauteing a small chopped onion with some finely chopped mushrooms. When the onions were properly wilted, I added a bag of frozen chopped spinach, garlic powder, salt, and pepper.
While that was heating, I took one whole boneless chicken breast (both halves) and pounded it to a uniform thickness.
I spread about a third of a cup of ricotta cheese on top and then about a cup or so of the spinach mixture.
I rolled it up, put it in a greased pan and into a 350° for about 40 minutes.
To serve, I placed more of the spinach filling on the plate, put slices of the chicken on top and then added the Boursin sauce. Whole-grain rice finished the plate.
And I bought dessert tonight because for the remainder of the evening I am going to be playing with my brand-new Adobe Creative Suite 5 Master Collection. 15+ programs I will never fully know how to use. But I'm gonna have fun with it no matter how much I don't know!
Be afraid. Be very afraid!
Spiral-Sliced Ham & Potato Pancakes
Every now and again I have to get a bone-in ham so I can get a ham bone. Lentil, navy bean, or split pea soup is the real reason for having a ham in the first place. I loves me soups.
And I like ham.
I picked up a quarter-ham (which is still way too much ham for just the two of us) and then played clean-out-the-refrigerator for the rest of dinner.
We had leftover mashed potatoes from a few days ago that I specifically asked Victor to save so I could make potato pancakes. He laughed and said his Uncle Rudy always wanted the leftover mashed potatoes to be saved for the same reason - and never made them. The not so subtle implication was that I wasn't going to, either.
He was almost correct. I had forgotten all about them until Victor was looking through tupperware for lunch.
He found The Potatoes.
I immediately announced we would be having them for dinner! It was almost as if I had planned it all along. We both knew I hadn't.
But I did make potato pancakes for dinner with the ham!
To about a cup and a half of potatoes, I added a hefty couple of tablespoons of flour and 1 egg. A pinch of salt, pepper, and garlic powder, mixed well, and they went into a hot skillet with a bit of olive oil.
The brussels sprouts were merely cut in half and sauted.
Tomorrow I think I will bring Victor's mom over a bit of ham when I do her shopping and package a bit up for the freezer.
I think Victor should make lentil soup with the bone on Tuesday. He just finished his fresh pasta for tomorrow...
Sweet Potato Casserole
This is a perfect example of how thought-process-to-meal actually works, sometimes...
I was going to make a cassoulet of sorts for dinner. A quick version. We were decorating and I just wanted to get something in the oven I didn't have to think about. I had a pork tenderloin and a couple of Hungarian sausages that were thawing, pulled down the beans, crumbs at the ready...
And then I opened the 'fridge for butter. And saw the leftover dressing.
The cassoulet started morphing into something completely different. ::: insert Monty Python tagline here :::
There were two big sweet potatoes in the potato basket. I started thinking of layering things...
Into the casserole dish went a layer of stuffing. A bit of gravy went on top just to keep it moist. Atop that went the sliced Hungarian sausages. The pork tenderloin went back into the 'fridge.
I peeled and sliced one of the sweet potatoes and layered it on top. I drizzled it with about a quarter-cup of maple syrup, sprinkled it with salt and pepper, covered it, and put it in the oven at 350° for about an hour and fifteen minutes.
I purposely used the sausage instead of turkey (or the pork tenderloin) to make it seem less a Thanksgiving leftover and more a stand-alone casserole. It had the flavors of fall - with just enough of a twist to make it unique.
I can see a lot of variations on this theme.....
Clean-Out-The-Refrigerator Risotto
The end of the culinary week is here. Grocery shopping (and Pasta Monday!) is tomorrow. That means I should really use up the things that are in the house...
It's actually pretty easy to do. If it's hot out, I make salads. If it's cold, soups and casseroles. It's really nothing more than taking a disparate bunch of items and uniting them with a common item, be it a salad dressing, a spice, a broth, sauce, or gravy.
And yes, it really is that basic.
Risotto, at it's most basic form, is rice and liquid. Add some cheese. Add some vegetables. Add some meat or seafood. Add all of them. The end result is still rice and liquid - sometimes with stuff mixed in with it, as well.
And that is how I approached tonight's dinner.
I started by dicing a couple of carrots and about 8oz of mushrooms. Into my most-favorite Le Creuset braiser with a bit of olive oil. The pan is getting close to 30 years old. It is perfect for so many things, but it is stellar for risotto. It's flat-out one of my most favorite cooking utensils.
Next into the pan was about 10 ounces of diced ham. I added a pat of butter and a cup of Vialone Nano rice. I had heard that both Vialone Nano and Carnarioli rices were superior to arborio in making risotto, so I picked up a box of each to see. I've only used the Vialone Nano thus far, and yes, it's really good - but not worth three times the price of the arborio. Granted, I haven't made a classic risotto dish with it, yet, but my discerning palate isn't discerning three times the price.
I stirred the rice, cooked it until it was translucent, and then started adding broth. I made it the traditional way, adding a ladle of broth, letting it absorb, adding another... It took about 25 minutes. I added a cup of frozen peas, an ounce of grated parmesan, and a couple ounces of grated cotija cheese. As I said earlier, this was a clean-out-the-refrigerator dish.
It was all the things it was supposed to be... creamy and flavorful with lots of different textures. It was definitely a good cruise-into-fall dish.
Tomorrow is Pasta Monday. Victor has already made a fresh pasta - tagliatelle - for tomorrow's dinner.
Maybe I'll bake some bread.....
Chicken and Pumpkin
What to do when you have lots of pumpkin puree in the house? Start using it in fun and creative ways! Like a Pumpkin BBQ Sauce.
I really went international with this one... I started with the pumpkin puree and added a bit of Banana Sauce from the Philippines and Matouk's Calypso Sauce from Trinidad and Tobago. To round things out, I added a bit of Gate's BBQ Sauce from Kansas City.
It was spicy hot. The Calypso Sauce is a scotch bonnet mustard sauce, the Banana Sauce is a sweeter-than-ketchup sauce but with a similar flavor profile, and the Gates BBQ Sauce is just good BBQ. It made for a great combination.
I schmeared it all over the chicken and then oven-roasted it for about 30 minutes at 425°. They were big breasts.
Brussels sprouts - the last of the stalk - were oven-roasted with a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper. They were perfect in their roasted simplicity. Red whole-grain rice finished the plate.
The sauce really was good. Even with the heat of the calypso sauce, the pumpkin came through.
It's given me an idea about a pumpkin chipotle bbq sauce.
Stay tuned.
Cauliflower and Bean Soup
I was at the store yesterday shopping for Victor's mom when I espied a display of cauliflower. Humongous heads of cauliflower. Cauliflower on steroids heads of cauliflower. For 2 bucks. I had to get one.
A head of cauliflower this size is like those huge stalks of brussels sprouts - a serious commitment for two people.
Not being commitment-shy, I grabbed one.
I think when I first saw it I thought "soup" although a dozen or two recipe ideas have filtered through the little gray cells. Au gratin to cheese sauce and everything in between...
Soup won.
But I did do a slightly different spin on it. I soaked a pound of cannelini beans last night to make a bean and cauliflower soup, because, well... gee... that 900 pound head of cauliflower definitely wouldn't feed the two of us... (I do wonder about myself, sometimes...)
But I digress...
I actually wanted a bit more substance than mere cauliflower and I didn't want to add a ton of cheese or cream - my two normal go-to ingredients for cauliflower soup. And that bag of cannelini beans was right there sitting on the shelf...
Cauliflower and Cannelini Bean Soup
- 1 small onion, diced
- 2 links good-quality andouille sausage, diced
- 1 pound cannelini beans, cooked and drained
- 2 quarts chicken stock
- 1 huge head cauliflower
- 1 8 oz brick light cream cheese
- salt and pepper, to taste
Saute onion and diced andouille until onion is translucent. Add stock and bring to boil. Add cauliflower florettes.
Cover and simmer until cauliflower is cooked and mushy.
Add drained beand and coarsely puree using an immersion blender. Make it as smooth or chunky as you like.
Add cream cheese and mix until smooth and cheese is melted.
Check for seasoning and add salt and pepper, if deseired.
The soup was t-h-i-c-k and really filling. Perfect cold-weather fare. Bread still warm from the oven finished the meal - and me.
The andouille added all the spices the soup needed. The main reason I recommend a good-quality andouille. You don't need to add anything else. The beans (and the cream cheese) added the silkiness a plain cauliflower soup would lack, but the cauliflower flavor still came through loud and clear.
It was the best of all worlds.
So we now have soup to last us for days/weeks/months. I'm glad the freezer has been getting emptied.
Time to add a few more containers.....
Baseball Food
Giants baseball.
Words I do have to admit I'm not used to saying in late October. But I'm saying it loud right now! Damn, this is fun!
We had season tickets to the Giants for years - from Candlestick to Pac Bell Park and loved going out to the games.
So now we're 3000 miles away, watching on TV - seeing our former season ticket seats on the telly - and wishing we were there in person to root on the home team.
But we aren't.
So... next best thing is to make up some San Francisco Ball Park food for dinner.
And the perfect excuse to use our new french fry/appetizer holders from our friends Kate and Lori!
The Giants are famous for their Garlic Fries. There is not a vampire around that ballpark for miles and miles. And miles. And what else says San Francisco Ball Park Food like the Stinking Rose's 40 Clove Garlic Chicken Sandwich?!? I don't know the exact ballpark recipe, but I have the restaurant's recipe, so I adjusted it for putting between bread.
The Stinking Rose 40 Clove Garlic Chicken
You heard it right. 40 cloves! But don’t let that number scare you, because they add just the right amount of zest and aroma to make this one of The Stinking Rose’s most popular dishes!
- 1 Tbsp. Butter
- 2 Tbsp. Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 2-3 lbs. Roasting Chicken, washed and cut into pieces
- to taste Salt and Freshly Ground White Pepper
- 4 Tbsp. Fresh Rosemary
- 1 Cup Flour
- 40 Cloves Garlic, Peeled
- 1 Cup Dry White Wine
- 4 Cups Chicken Stock
- 1/2 Cup Heavy Cream
1. Heat butter and olive oil in a deep, heavy skillet.
2. Season the chicken with salt, pepper and rosemary. Toss in flour.
3. When the pan is hot, but not smoking, add the chicken, skin side down.
4. Sauté chicken until golden brown on both sides. Remove from pan.
5. Add garlic cloves and sauté until light brown.
6. Add white wine and chicken stock. Return chicken to pan.
7. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes.
8. Remove chicken and keep warm, turn heat to high and reduce liquid by 66%. Remove to blender, add cream and puree sauce. Adjust seasoning and serve over chicken.
I did it slightly different...
I used boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into strips. I browned them, took them out of the pan, added the garlic, then chicken broth, cooked it down, added the cream, cooked it down, added the chicken, put it on rolls. I didn't need to add the flour and didn't add any wine, either. It was for a sandwich.
For the fries, I bought frozen garlic fries. Cheating to a degree, I'll admit, but we don't really care for the garlic seasoning that comes with them, so I minced garlic, sauteed it with a bit of olive oil and when the fries were done, coated them with the homemade garlic. It wasn't nearly as gooey, sticky, and smelly as the ball park version, but they worked.
And the fry holders worked really well, too! They are also deceptively large! You can fit a lot of fries in one of those cups. They're a lot of fun!
So it's minutes away from the start of game 2 of the World Series. Last time the Giants won a World Series was 1954. I was only a few years old and they were still in New York. They have never won as a San Francisco team.
This is their year!
Go Giants!
