Macaroni and Cheese Showdown

This year I've been asked to make macaroni and cheese for the family Thanksgiving dinner. Those who regularly read my blog know that I don't like doing things in the same old way and this side dish would be no exception. I looked over the Food Network website and found 2 promising recipes. One was from Alton Brown and the other was from the show The Best Of. As a control to my experiment to find out which was the best, I also prepared to make a box of deluxe mac and cheese.

If you look at the recipes, you can see that a lot of different cheeses are necessary. Because of this, I started my day by making a trip to the West Side Market because I knew that I would be able to get all the cheeses I needed, in the portions that I needed, at a good price.

So there are all the ingredients I used to make the 3 batches of mac and cheese. There is a whole lot of cheeses (all shredded or chopped by hand except for the bag of sharp cheeder, there is a better sharp cheeder in the green bowl), onion, bread crumbs, salt, pepper, oil, mustard powder, macaroni, and the cheese packet (I use that term loosely).

To speed things along, I boiled all of the macaroni needed for the 3 batches at the same time. It was drained from the water and set aside. I made the easy deluxe batch first which only required that I mix the stuff in the pouch with the macaroni. I put into a baking dish and topped it with buttered bread crumbs. The other two recipes were fairly simple; the only unique thing they required was that a roux be made (which is easy, just follow the directions). These were also topped with bread crumbs and baked. The Alton Brown recipe called for panko bread crumbs and the other used regular bread crumbs.

Since I was tasting the sauces while I was making them, I already had a good idea in my head as to which one I preferred. But I didn't want to be the sole decider so I had my parents sample all 3 batches. They agreed with my choice.

The winner: The Best Of.... recipe.

We all found this one to have the best flavor. It had a very smooth texture and the cheeses blended well with each other. The one from Alton Brown wasn't bad, but just not as good as the winner. So that is the one that I will be making for Thanksgiving dinner.

Potato Salad

Here is a quick note about a potato salad I made a few weeks ago for our annual branch picnic at work. The recipe came from Food Network (namely, Easy Entertaining) and can be found here. I changed the recipe a bit by using both yukon gold and red skin potatoes and by omitting the capers. I added fresh basil and some italian seasonings to replace the capers.

It was super easy. The only thing I would do differently is to cook the potatoes longer. They were still a little hard. The different greens added layers of flavor and made it a very unique potato salad. I think I will be trying it again soon, and I will post an update.

Birthday Party = Lots of Food

Saturday, April 1st, was my 25th birthday and my uncle's 55th. To celebrate I invited the whole family up to my house. The plan for the party was a casual get together with lots of good food and good drinks. I think I succeeded.



The food plan was to have a wide variety of appetizers. There were simple snacks like chips and vegetables (with homemade dips) and then slightly more elaborate hot foods. The vegetables were all purchased fresh from the West Side Market on Friday morning and I washed, cut, blanched (the ones that required it), and arranged them all. The hot foods consisted of skewered chicken (with either a Thai peanut sauce or an Italian basalmic sauce), mini hamburgers, sausage cheese balls, savory parmesan bites, and mini-new potato bites. A few of the foods have links to the Kraft Foods website where I got a lot of my inspiration. The plan for the vegie tray was in my America's Test Kitchen cookbook (which is highly recommended!) and the skewered chicken and mini-burgers were my own creations.



Everyone really liked the mini-burgers and they were the first food to run out. To make the burgers I used an 80/20 beef to which I added some French onion soup mix and some bacon fat (the bacon was required for the potato bites and bacon fat adds a lot of flavor so I figured why not splurge). I cooked the small burgers on the griddle until they were mostly done then placed each patty on a brown-and-serve roll that had been cut in half and topped with colby cheese. The burgers were then tossed into the oven to finish cooking and let the buns brown up. The end result was some really tasty little burgers.



The chicken was fairly simple too. I cut up breast meat into strips and marinated them in either the peanut sauce or the balsamic sauce. The peanut sauce had peanut butter, peanut oil, water, ginger, sesame seeds, soy sauce, and a few other spices. The balsamic sauce was a combination of balsamic vinegar, olive oil, water, salt, pepper, rosemary, and spices. Both batches of chicken marinated overnight. In an ideal case I would have grilled the chicken but since I was making a lot and didn't have the time to stand by the grill I baked the skewered chicken. Everyone seemed to really enjoy these too.



There was a wide variety of drinks for the party but the one that stood out the most was a new rum by Bacardi. It called Ciclon and is infused with Agave Tequila and Lime. When I saw it at the store it looked interesting so I picked up the bottle. And as it turns out, it tastes really good. I thought it was best mixed with a lemon lime soda but my dad preferred it as a shot. He was encouraging others to give it a try too.

And I almost forgot to mention the cake. As I continue to master my skills at cake baking I made this cake. The whole cake was iced in buttercream icing and then I colored a bit of the icing blue for decoration. The border around the cake came out looking nice but my hand writing with icing needs major work. One evening I should put together a small batch of icing and just practice writing. But, back to the cake; the cake is half chocolate and half vanilla and was filled with vanilla pudding (the cooked variety, not instant). The pan I used was an 11x14" pan which I think is a half-sheet size. Everyone enjoyed it and many went back for seconds (or thirds).

By the end of the evening very little food (and Ciclon) remained. There was one piece of the parmesan bites and some vegetables left as well as some cake. I was wore out, but it was worth it. I think everyone had a fun time and that was my goal.

Homemade pierogies (just not made in my home)

I wanted to post at least something this weekend so I thought that I would show another batch of homemade pierogies. This batch comes from a lady who regularly visits my Dad's work and makes the pierogies as a side business (I think...). He had ordered both potato and cheese and potato and onion and had forgotten which color twist tie corresponded to which type; but luckily for me, he gave me a dozen potato and cheese.

Like the previous ones (see back in November), these ones do not need boiled and are just pan fried with some butter.

I feel bad posting this since all I did was fry them in the butter, but I knew that I wanted to have some sort of an update this week. These are right up there with the ones that I helped make previously, but I preferred the fillings in the earlier ones.

Be sure to check back next week when I should have a lot to talk about. I'm throwing a birthday party for me and my uncle (both born on April 1st) and I plan on making most of the food (and the cake) from scratch. Wish me luck!

Review: Ready to Eat (Microwaved) Green Beans

So I saw in these advertised in the grocery circular and decided that I would give them a shot. It turns out that they are pretty good. The green beans are pre-washed (the bag says triple washed) and to cook them you only need to pierce the bag and microwave for 5 minutes. I added the slivered almonds and some kosher salt to mine since they were a little bland right out of the package.

The color on the beans was amazing. They remained bright green throughout the cooking process and present really well. And what's even better is that they were actually cooked the whole way through and still green. Usually at restaurants the bright green beans have only been blanched and are too crunchy for my tastes, that wasn't the case here.

All and all, they're pretty good. I grew up eating canned green beans and for the difference in price (these were on sale for $2.50 whereas you can get a can of canned beans on sale for about 50 cents) I will probably continue eating the canned ones for everyday meals, but if I'm making a fancier meal or having people over for dinner, I will pick up these ones. They look great on the plate and taste well too.

Herbed Brie en Croute and Sausage Bites

I was invited to a dinner party this past weekend and was asked to bring an appetizer or a dessert. After having a Brie en Croute over the holidays I wanted to try to make one on my own and figured this would be the perfect opportunity to do so. Since the package of puff pastry contains two sheets and only one was needed for the brie I looked around and found a recipe for the Sausage Bites.

The Brie en Croute that I had at Christmas was done in a way to make it more sweet. It was cooked with walnuts and cinnamon and I think some sugar. For the one I made I decided to go more savory. I found this recipe on the Campbell's website which included parsley and almonds. I changed it slightly by using an herbed brie (since the grocery store was out of plain). It came out really well and wasn't hard to put together. My only problem was that the flavor of the parsley didn't blend that well with the rest of the ingredients. When I make this again I will substitute something else for the parsley.

And then since I had the extra puff pastry, I hunted around until I found this recipe for the Sausage Bites. Since the only ingredients were puffed pastry and sausage I decided to give it a try. These were really simple although a little messy. Everyone was a little hesitant to try these until they found out that the center was Bob Evan's breakfast sausage. After that they went rather quickly.

I was very happy with how both of these turned out even with the parsley issue. The only change I would make in the future is to not use parsley. There is a good chance that I will make these again.

Christmas Eve (almost) Dinner

Each year my family gets together with my Aunt and Uncle for a Christmas dinner. We usually try to have the dinner on Christmas Eve, but due to their work schedules, we celebrated the day before Christmas Eve.

The dinner this year was excellent. The menu was salad with a raspberry vinaigrette, standing rib roast, a potato casserole, roasted winter vegetables, and bread. And plenty of wine. My aunt prepared most of the meal with my brother contributing the potato casserole and I contributed the roasted winter vegetables. Everything was delicious (especially the rib roast).

The roasted vegetables included butternut squash, carrots, turnips, parsnips, and yams. They were baked in an italian dressing and parmesan cheese. I was slightly disappointed with them since even after a long bake some of the vegetables were still rather hard (the carrots mostly). The vegetable flavor was really good, but I would have been happier had they been easier to eat.

For dessert we had my Aunt's famous rum cake. As a neat fact, she said that she has been making this same cake for the last 30 years as an anniversary tradition for her and my uncle. I really enjoyed this dessert, but everyone says that my already being slightly intoxicated led me to like it even more. I recorded the recipe into my cell phone as a voice memo (which I still need to copy down). When the right occasion calls for it, I will try my hand at the rum cake.

Pierogies!!!

This past weekend I went to my first ever pierogi making party. Even though I had to drive 2 hours to get to the festivities (which for me is quite a challenge), I am had a great time. My friend Naladahc has posted a recap of the party on his blog (just click on his name).

We made 4 different types of pierogies: potato and cheese, kapusta (a polish sweet and sour kraut), beef and dill, and some blueberry dessert ones. Nala had made all of the fillings prior to the start of the party (except for the blueberry which was canned pie filling).

We started by making the dough which consists of flour, salt, egg, water, and sour cream. The dough was then rolled out with the help of a pasta roller. We tried rolling some by hand but got much better consistency with the pasta maker. Once rolled out rather thin we cut the dough in circles and handed them off to be stuffed. I got the rolling technique down pretty well so I mostly worked on that. Once all the dough was rolled out everyone went to help fill.

After the pierogies were filled and sealed they were boiled for about 5 minutes then quickly frozen. Of course we had to try some to make sure that they tasted good so we pan fried them in butter and onions.

So far I've tried all 4 combinations and they are all great.

It was a very time consuming project but wasn't that difficult. I might even try to make some on my own if I can get my hands on a pasta roller.

Double Crusted Quiche

This again is a case of necessity/frugality leading to invention. I had a surplus of eggs and a box of pie crusts about to go bad and I didn't want to throw them out. I also didn't want to make another dessert. The simplest thing I could think of was to make another quiche. I don't know why people these are a fancy food. Quiche is one of the most simple breakfast type foods that I know how to make.

So anyway, this one has ground pork and broccoli. Since I put a top on it, I skipped the cheese. I figured there was more than enough fat in the double crusts and that cheese would not be necessary. I don't recall all the spices I used when cooking the pork but I know there was salt, pepper, onion powder, and I think basil and some other stuff. I basically went through the spice drawer and put in a bit of everything that I think sounded good. I also did an egg wash on the top on the top crust.

I baked it at 350 degrees for approximately an hour at which point the crust was golden brown. I stuck a knife in the center and no liquid seeped out which was my indicator that it was done.

Its good. I will probably have it for dinner this evening and continue snacking on it over the weekend.

Pumpkin Soup w/ Pumpkin Cornbread

I was in a pumpkin mood last night. To better put that, I was in the mood for pumpkin last night. As I said in earlier posts pumpkin a great fall flavor and I will use it as often as I can.

Last night's creations were a simple pumpkin soup and pumpkin-pecan cornbread.

The original recipe for the soup called for a can of condensed cream of potato soup. I was hoping to find a low-sodium variety and when I could not, I substituted it for cream of chicken. As a side note, I'm not monitoring my sodium but I think you should always be aware of how much you are ingesting. The rest of the soup consisted of pumpkin, cream, seasonings, and water. I added more seasonings than the original recipe called for since I knew that the reduction in sodium would reduce the flavor. The soup then simmered for about 30 minutes. Its a creamy soup and doesn't have much texture but does have a good flavor. I wouldn't serve it for a main dish, but as a side it would be great.

The pumpkin-pecan cornbread muffins were made from scratch; it too was a simple recipe. Flour, corn meal, leavening, and salt are mixed with pumpkin, brown sugar, oil, and eggs until blended then chopped pecans are folded in. Then the muffins are baked until they look done. Although a bit dry, the cornbread had great flavor. I tend to like my cornbread a little sweeter so in the next batch I will probably increase the amount of brown sugar and possible dust the surface of the muffins with sugar before baking.

Spinach Bread

I was in a bread baking mood this weekend and since the first batch did not work out as planned, I'm glad I made this one as well. This is a basic white bread with chopped spinach baked within. I found this recipe off the foodtv website and since I had a large bag of fresh spinach I thought I would give it a try.

The original recipe directed that it be done by hand. I used my stand mixer which made it pretty simple. The only out of the ordinary process was that you first have to wilt the spinach and that the water you used to wilt the spinach goes into the mix.

This dough rose very well and very quickly (verifying the fact that I did indeed kill of the yeast in the previous recipe and not that my yeast was dead to begin with.) I baked it in a silicone loaf pan which is why it looks wider than a typical bread loaf. [I didn't even think about this fact until my cousin questioned what pan I used to get a loaf that was wide.]

This bread turned out really well. There is a slight spinach flavor to the bread (if I remake this, I would add more spinach the recipe called for.)

it ended up being breadsticks. . .

My original plan was for this to be a loaf of white bread. However during the yeast proofing process I believe my water was too hot and I killed off the yeast. The dough came together rather well but would not rise. Since I didn't want to throw the dough away I stretched it onto a cookie sheet and rubbed it with olive oil, italian seasoning, and parmesan cheese. Then I baked it until it looked done (I honestly don't remember how long it was in the oven).

They aren't the best breadsticks but they are alright.

I learned my lesson about the temperature of the water thankfully before I started the next loaf of bread.

Rustic Potato Soup

I want to begin this entry by thanking my father for the suggestion to make potato soup. He said that when he was a kid his parents would make a big pot of potato soup from time to time and that he really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I wont be able to give him any of this soup since I won't be seeing him for at least another week; but he can read this post and see the picture and maybe I will make another batch at his house sometime soon.

Yesterday morning I went grocery shopping and since I had planned on making soup I remembered to buy a leek. But, I forgot to get any milk product thicker than skim. That evening when I started looking up recipe ideas I found that about all needed either heavy cream or half and half or some other thick milk product. After becoming frustrated with the lack of usable recipes (and I was not going back to the grocery store) I decided to just start cooking and see where things went.

I began by browning chopped leek in butter in a big stock pot. Once the leeks were cooked, I added 2 cans of chicken broth (low sodium), some chopped garlic, and a bunch of seasonings (parsley flakes, bay leaves, black pepper, and some other stuff that I will have to look up). I let this come to a boil and then added half of the potatoes. These potatoes were scrubbed and cut into small pieces with the skin still intact. The stock pot was then reduced to a simmer.

In another pot I boiled the rest of the potatoes (they were peeled) in water. Once these were fully cooked, the water was drained off and they were mashed. I then added the mashed potatoes to the stock pot.

At this point the soup looked alright, but still lacked any kind of creaminess. I then remembered that I had some powdered milk and thought that it might do the trick. I slowly added the powdered milk to the simmering soup (stirring the whole time) until I was happy with the consistency. At that point I let the soup simmer for about 45 minutes so that all the potatoes were cooked and that was it.

This was my first time making potato soup and I'm very happy with the outcome. My original plan was not to make rustic-style soup, but that's how it came out and I'm alright with that.