baked mac and cheese with broccoli

I got a sweet mac and cheese cookbook in December, and I finally made a recipe from it tonight! the book is: Macaroni & Cheese by Marlena Spieler.

As usual I made some modifications. I ended up using all 4 burners at a time and a lot of pots and pans to get this one done. It's not actually that simple, but super worth it. Her recipe is called "Yankee Doodle Dandy Baked Macaroni & Cheese" and I took a tip from the bottom and did a broccoli addition.

Here's the basics:

Under cooked one box (12 oz) shell pasta and set aside. It's find if it cools off.

Grate a buttload of cheese. I went with 14 ounces of Grafton Cheddar, 6 ounces of Cabot Monterey Jack, 3 ounces of crumbled chevre (the recipe calls for blue cheese crumbles, but I'm not a blue cheese fan, so I went this route instead) and half a cup of parmesan (I bought the grated kind cause I was lazy.

also cut up a head of broccoli into little florets. bowl water and cook the florets for about 2-3 minutes and then drain. they should be bright green. set aside.

in a pan melt 3 tablespoons of butter and saute half an onion and 2 cloves of garlic (all chopped) for a few minutes (they don't need to be super cooked, just good and aromatic.)

Then split the cheese into two bowls. 3 ounces of cheddar, 3 ounces of jack and 2 tablespoons of parm in one bowl. All the rest of the cheese in the other bowl (this bowl with a ton of cheese, including all the goat cheese, goes in the sauce).

Now you have to make bechamel. Heat 3 cups of milk (I used 2%, but whole is also good. But no skim. It needs fat!) until they are hot (but not boiling). in a separate large saucepan, melt 3 tablespoons of butter, when it is melted sprinkle 3 tablespoons of flour into it. mix and let cook for 1-2 minutes and don't burn it!!! then add the hot milk to the butter flour sitch. Add a bay leaf. cook while stirring for about 7 minutes so it starts to thicken. Don't boil though! use a whisk to stir/delumpify.

take the bechamel off heat. stir in 1 tablespoon of dry mustard and 1/2 teaspoon of paprika, a sprinkle of salt, and a liberal amount of cracked pepper. take out the bay leaf Now add the big bowl of cheese to the bechamel and stir. Now add the garlic/onion/butter mixture, stir that in too.

melt 2 tablespoons of butter in the same pan you already did the garlic/onions in. add 1 cup of plain breadcrumbs and combine with the butter over heat.

Now you can put it together! It's kind of like a lasagna. The recipe calls for a 1.5 qt pan (basically a loaf pan) which I think is way too small. I went with a 3 qt casserole and that fit perfectly.

sprinkle some of the cheese from your reserve bowl on the bottom of the casserole. then add 1/3 of the pasta. Then add 1/3 of the cheese sauce. then add some broccoli. then add more pasta, then more sauce. Repeat. I only had enough broccoli for 2 layers. I made the top layer broccoli though, and then on top of the top broccoli layer I sprinkled the rest of my reserve cheese, and then topped it all with the buttery breadcrumbs.

Put it in the oven at 375 degrees F for 25 minutes. We served it with kale salad and rolls. good combo.

here's a look in reverse:

late night hungry (peas, cheese, noodles)

I got home from Portland Pride tonight and was lazy for a good long time because I had eaten around 4:30. Eventually I decided to get off my ass and make something to eat. While I was in Portland I had purchased a half pound of Maine's award-winning cheese: City of Ships from Hahn's End. I wanted to eat a little of it.

I put some water on and cooked up half a box of elbows. I melted a third of a stick of butter on medium heat and then put in two handfuls of frozen peas. I stirred a bit until the peas seemed mostly unfrozen. Then I crumbled up just a little of the cheese (3 tablespoons?) and dropped it in with the peas and butter. I stirred constantly with a wooden spoon until the cheese melted. Finally I added about half the drained elbows into the saucepan with the peas etc, tossed, and added some salt and pepper.

mild, satisfying, yummy.

warm? rice salad

Inspired by Antonia on Top Chef, a funky recipe on 101Cookbooks, and the beautiful, beautiful lettuces that I got in the first farmshare distribution yesterday, I decided to make salad. With rice.

First I put on the rice - I picked a wild rice/red rice blend. It takes about an hour to cook, so be read to be in it for the longhaul.

While the rice was cooking, I prepped the rest of the cold parts of the salad:
Several large handfuls of greens from Stone Soup Farm, a sliced orange sweet pepper, a handful of chopped cilantro from the farm, a halved and sliced avocado.

then I put a little olive oil in a skillet and put a peeled and sliced kohlrabi and two sliced summer squashes (all from the farm) in on medium heat for a few minutes, until they were still firm, but cooked.

Finally, I made dressing. 2 shallots diced finely (from last years farmshare), olive oil, aged white wine vinegar, a big dollop of Grey Poupon, and salt and pepper. Just keep messing until it tastes good. - usually you need either more vinegar or more salt.

When the rice was down, I stirred it in its pot to let it cool enough that I could touch it, and then I put half the rice and half the hot veggies in the salad bowl and poured all the dressing over it. Finally, I tossed with my hands. And then added more rice because half the pot wasn't enough.

On the plate, adding some parm was a nice addition. Best eaten outside while drinking red wine.

(also, I am going to try it cold for lunch today ... wish me luck!)

slightly spicy asparagus risotto and tomato salad

Apparently gina marie and sarah emily are more fun than I am when I'm cooking ... this is them having fun in the kitchen :)



When I was making the penne last week, I was seduced by asparagus at the store, and also bought fresh tomatoes - forgetting that I needed canned ones! In order to deal with this problem, I decided to retry my chard risotto recipe but this time with asparagus - and spiced up a little because i had a cold and needed to clear my sinuses. The tomatoes had to go too, and I didn't want them to muddy up the risotto, so I raided the fridge for random things with which to make a salad. Sarah emily took the pictures, and wanted to make the point that gina marie was stirring and sarah emily was helping by drinking beer.

First, the risotto:

I chopped a white onion and the rest of the garlic in the house (equivalent of 3-4 cloves - they were little baby garlic pieces! I popped them in my soup pot with the bottom coated in olive oil with 4 shakes of my new favorite spice (from the pea soup recipe!) smoked paprika, and 4 shakes of cayenne. I stirred and put it on low heat.



Then I got started with the asparagus. I had almost a whole bunch of it. I cut off the the woody stems (more cut off on the thick ones, the thin ones you can just trim), and then cut what was left of the asparagus into about 6 pieces (each about a half an inch? I'm bad with measuring.)

I popped them into a saute pan covered with some olive oil and put it on low heat, stirring occasionally until the asparagus was a very bright green. Then I shut off the heat and let them sit in the pan.



When the onion-garlic-spices mixture had cooked for about 5 minutes and seemed soft, I added half a cup of risotto rice and stirred. Then I added 4 cups of vegetable stock (apparently the boxes come in 4 cup portions, so I used an unnecessary measuring cup - but how was I to know!) and turned the heat on medium high.







As the risotto cooked down, gina marie did a good job of stirring constantly, which meant we could keep the heat pretty high and the risotto wouldn't burn. when I tasted the rice and it was soft and done, I stirred in all the asparagus, just long enough to get it hot - less than a minute - and then turned off the heat on the risotto. The risotto was served with lots of parmesan cheese and with...

tomato salad:

gina marie chopped about 3 not-so-awesome supermarket vine ripened tomatoes. I stripped a small handful of cilantro and about 6 leaves of basil and chopped them up.



Then I peeled and chopped a carrot I found in the fridge, and combined the chopped herbs, carrots, and tomatoes. Finally, I made some dressing by whisking about 2 parts olive oil to one part balsamic vinegar with a generous pinch of salt and about a half a teaspoon of cracked pepper. I dressed the salad just before serving.

We seem to have forgotten to take any pictures of the tomato salad. we ate it too fast.

Here's the risotto.

Sometimes sarah emily pretends to pour honey on it:




Sometimes it is in its bowl:

vegetarian tacos

That is the one picture I remembered to take. I wanted to make the point that there were a *lot* of ingredients.
---
I have been meaning to post about vegetarian tacos for ages - it's a signature dish of mine that, as usual, I got from my dad. Every time I would make them though, I forgot to take pictures.

I was all set when I made them last night (with some help from kristen and gina and margaritas from susan) before bluegrass at Cantab to take pictures so I could post. And I did take one picture. And then completely forgot about it (blame the margaritas).

I will try to post the one picture tonight, but in the meantime, I will post the recipe, since I don't make it that often. The thing about tacos is that they have a very dynamic cost/benefit analysis. They are waaay not worth making for one person, but the amount of work to make it for 6 or 8 people is almost the same as to make it for one person. So I like to do it for parties. Plus good leftovers.

Most of the taco process is just chopping. Everyone likes their own stuff for tacos. This is my basic list of cold accoutrement...

chopped fresh tomatoes
chopped scallions and cilantro mixed in a bowl
lettuce sliced into strips
grated extra sharp Cabot cheddar
home-made guacamole (kristen made it. it was excellent)
sometimes sour cream, but I don't think it's necessary

For the hot stuff:

one can of vegetarian refried beans (or refried black beans, of you're not doing whole black beans) - spread into a dish and put into the oven for a good long time at about 400 degrees.

once can of black beans, rinsed and drained. I heat this over the stove with 1/3 of a diced red pepper, and sprinkle some chopped cilantro over it at the end, because it's pretty.

tofu. This is the "meat" of the dish. I actually generally don't like tofu, but I think this is pretty good. To do it:

Grate half of a large, peeled carrot.
Dice one medium yellow onion.
Press one block of extra firm tofu. (To press tofu, I wrap it in paper towels and gently but firmly apply pressure, putting on more paper towels as they become soaked. Some people use cloth towels and lay a big book on top of it. whatever floats your boat!).

Start by saute-ing the diced onion in a liberal drizzle of olive oil. I use a stainless still skillet.
when the onions are about halfway to translucent, I add the tofu. You want to "scramble" the tofu - so you want the pieces to be rough, not diced, and not to little so that they get mushy. I usually cut the block in half with a knife, and then tear each half into three or four pieces with my hands and then drop it into the skillet. Then I use a spatula to roughly chop it up some more while mixing it with the onions. Let that cook until the onions get closer to translucent. Then combine the grated carrot into the skillet with the spatula. about three minutes later, you can add 2/3 a packet of taco seasoning (I usually use Old El Paso) and 2/3 cup of water. stir and let simmer on low heat until the water is absorbed, stirring occasionally.

In the meantime, you want to heat an 1/8 inch of corn oil in another skillet over very low heat. You will know the oil is hot enough if flicking a little water into it the water "jumps" back out. When the oil is nice and hot (turn on the hood vent - hot oil smokes and will set off your fire alarm!) use tongues to drop a corn tortilla in the oil. wait two seconds, flip the tortilla, and after about 3 more seconds, pull it out. when the tortilla is in the oil it should bubble and hiss a bit. If it doesn't it's not hot enough. Lay the tortilla on a stack of folded paper towels, and press down on the top of it with another stack of paper towels. This absorbs the oil so the tortillas aren't too greasy. when the towels are saturated you will need new ones, or else the oil won't get absorbed and the tortillas will stick to the paper towels and break. now fold the tortilla gently in half and set it on a platter.

Once you have your tortillas fried and your tofu has absorbed all the water, you are ready! put everything in pretty containers on the table and let people take what they want.

I am about to go eat my leftovers for lunch now!

(it's vegan without the cheese!!!)

chard risotto -- vegan (or not!)

I bought some rainbow chard at the stop and shop yesterday because it looked good and seemed right for the season. I knew I was making dinner today, but had no idea what I would make! At work I looked up recipes that had swiss chard and I was thinking I wanted to make soup, but most of the chard soups had anchovies in them - and I wasn't interested in making that tonight. But then I found a list of recipes including chard and abelandcole.co.uk - and it had a cool risotto recipe in it in addition to a soup with anchovies, so risotto it was! The recipe is here: http://www.abelandcole.co.uk/content/recipes/chard.htm#recipe6 - all of the chard recipes are on that page, and it made me want to try some more!

First I took a bunch of rainbow chard and cut out the stems - I'm saving them for later - but not sure what I'm doing with them! then I tore it in large pieces and put it in a colander and washed the leaves.

Then I put the chard leaves still with some water on them in my saute pan and turned the heat on medium and put the lid on. Every so often I used some tongs to stir it around.

I chopped an onion and sarah emily chopped 4 cloves of garlic. I added those with two shakes of powdered cayenne pepper to a soup pot with the bottom covered in olive oil. I put the heat on medium low and stirred.

Once the chard was cooked I spooned it into a bowl to cool. I deglazed the pan with some white wine so that I could take advantage of the chard juice that was left over.

when the onions looked soft I added half a cup of risotto rice and stirred it in so that it was coated with the oil and onions and garlic and cayenne. Then I poured my delgazing wine from the saute pan over it and added 4 cups of vegetable stock to the pot. I turned the heat up to medium high until it bubbled.


While I was doing that, sarah emily chopped the now-cool chard into small pieces. after about 40 minutes, with occasional stirring, the rice started to seem cooked and it really thickened up - I was worried it wasn't enough rice - but a little goes a long way! when it was thick but still a bit liquid-y I stirred in the chard and added some pepper. after about 3 minutes it looked hot and good and it was ready!

I set out some fake and some real parmesan and the four of us ate everything. it was really pretty good!

superbowl dip

We had a superbowl party, and in its honor I made a big casserole dish full of many-layer dip. This is pretty infinitely modifiable.

Preheat the oven to about 350 degrees F.

in a casserole dish of some kind:

spread one can of vegetarian refried beans across the bottom

spread a jar of salsa over the beans

tear two corn tortillas into pieces and spread evenly over the salsa

spread a large container of premade guacamole over the salsa

sprinkle a bag of shredded cheese (sharp cheddar is good) over the guac

spread a can of black beans over the cheese

tear two more corn torillas and spread them over the beans

spread a container of sour cream over the tortillas

chop one large tomato and spread over the sour cream

spread another layer of refried beans over the tomatoes

sprinkle another bag of shredded cheese over the top

put it in the oven for about 45 minutes.

take it out and let it stand for about 5-10 minutes so that it solidifies either dip chips right into the dip or use a spatula/cake server to but hunks of dip on plates for mobile chip dipping


This recipe is infinitely modifiable. I think this version could use more cheese maybe more salsa, maybe less sour cream. more black beans and a layer of mango salsa would change it up completely.

Another option is to add the guacamole and sour cream after it has cooked or put them in separate containers. I like them in it though.

Breakfast in Skurdalen, from the one who makes it.

Sarah emily posted a bit about breakfast in Norway. The breakfast that she and others have eaten that I make in the cabin in Skurdalen (pronounced, roughly, "skrewdallin,") is influenced by the smorgasbord-y breakfasts common in scandinavia, the bread, cheese and eggs that they consume constantly, and my dad's awesome cooking skills, straight outta southern california.

Basically, the key is, use everything in the little cabin refrigerator, including whatever is left of last night's fish dinner. It's important to have at least one hot "centerpiece" - this is to satisfy the American in me.

Usually, it's potatoes. To make the potatoes:

scrub a buncha little potatoes (you can peel if you want, but I never do) - either red or white
cube the potatoes
cube one small-medium sized onion
finely chop or crush 4 cloves of garlic
put a 1/4 stick of butter or (for vegans, lactards, and the rest of the butter-averse) a bunch of oil (vegetable or olive) in a frying pan
add onions on medium heat
add garlic
saute about 2 minutes
add in potatoes
stir pan with spatula every 1-2 minutes
dice 1 red, yellow or orange pepper (optional)
dice 1 zucchini (optional)
(you can add pretty much any vegetables you have, they will change it up a little, I have found peppers and zucchini particularly satisfying, but carrots, broccoli, etc can also be good - or you can skip the extra veggies altogether and just revel in starchy goodness)
after potatoes have been in pan for about 10-15 minutes, add zucchini and pepper
add salt & lots of pepper
add garlic powder if you feel like it
cook - stirring often to avoid burning, and adding more butter/oil (especially necessary when using butter) whenever it seems prudent.
you can now be done, if you wish. Vegans must finish here.

optionally, you can scramble/fry an egg into the potatoes.
to do this, whisk an a few eggs, and optionally, some milk in a bowl.
pour the mixture over the potatoes and stir it around.
it's done when the eggs are cooked to your liking.

AND/OR

add cheese!
you can grate it or just break off hunks. In Norway I almost always use gulost (yellow cheese - which is sort of like a mild cheddar) or jarlsberg (a mild swiss-like cheese) for this.
add chunks of cheese liberally with the heat on medium low and stir until it melts.

when the potatoes are done, put them in a brightly colored bowl with some kind of ikea utensil for serving.



Moving on from the potatoes,
another key element is the boiled egg.
you need an egg cup for everyone
boil the eggs to their liking (softer is better for this purpose).
put each egg in an egg cup.
when it's time to eat the egg, tap your knife on the side of the egg near the very top to crack it a little, and then slice off the top.
if you like, add a little salt and or pepper to exposed egg.
now using your little bitty spoon, scoop the egg out of it's shell to eat it. you can eat it off the spoon, or you can put it on bread as part of your smorbrod assembly.

which brings us to smorbrod, the real heart of the breakfast. "Smor" in Norwegian, means butter. "bord" means table, thus, smorgasbord, buttertable. smorbrod is what norwegians eat for breakfast and lunch - butterbread. basically, you take some bread - usually a pretty heavy one with lots of seeds and stuff in it, and you spread some butter on it, and then you spread more stuff on it. the "smor" (butter) has come to mean more than just bread, so the smor is the spread, whatever you spread on it, and that's what we but on the smorgasbord (spread table!)

Here are some typical things for the smorgasbord:

bread, sliced in a basket sitting next to the toastmaster (person sitting next to the toaster is the toastmaster. they toast bread on request for the rest of the table) you might have a graabrod, very rough bread, "loff" (pronounced "loof") which is yummy white bread, solskinnbrod, which is sunshine bread and has sunflower seeds, and whatever other bread you baked or picked up at the bakery. Also in the breadbasket there may be Wasa crackers or other breadlike objects that you can spread things on.

cheeses. set them out on a wooden board with a knife and a cheeseslicer (norwegian invention!). I usually but out all the kinds of cheese in the fridge, usually at least one yellow cheese, one brown cheese (usually geitost, a brown sort of sweet caramelly goat cheese - geit means goat), something kind of creamy and/or stinky, and then whatever else you picked up.

veggies. usually a tomato (tomat), a pepper (paprika), a cucumber (agurk), put on a board with a paring knife so people can slice their own. these are key.

meats/fishies. salami or other sliced meat, any leftovers. often I poach the fish (fisk) that we catch in the lake, and if you make it nice the night before it's very yummy the next day. sometimes I reheat it by sauteeing it in a little parsley butter (persillesmor) just before breakfast. (there is no microwave at the cabin, which is why the food always tastes better). also, jars of little fishes, brined and pickled - herring mostly. These are not my favorite, but sometimes I put them out so folks can try. Norwegians also like to eat little shrimps (reker) and breakfast. I can't usually afford it, but smoked salmon is also a biggy. and yummy. sometimes also there is bacon, but the norwegians have nothing to do with that :).

Boiled eggs. I know we already had them in our eggcups, but it's important to also have them hardboiled for peeling and putting in the eggslicer (another norwegian invention!), which then makes perfect smorbrod slices.

also key are butter, jams (syltetoy) (the norwegians are big on blueberry), nutella or other chocolate (sjokolade) spread.


then everyone sits down with their hot beverage, their cold beverage, and gets started on their eggcup, the bread gets toasted, people have some potatoes, and then the spreading begins. At this point it is also key to *make your lunch* - which you do by spreading your bread (all open face sandwiches in norway) and then putting a piece of wax paper between each piece of spread bread. then you wrap it in more wax paper - or if you're modern like me, a plastic bag.

then you go swimming in the lake and fall asleep with your book on your face.

salsa salsa salsa...

Sometimes you don't just want to eat plain salsa.

There are two things that you can do. one is kind of gross. both taste really good.

This first one I learned as an exchange student at Mt. Holyoke. The girls there get all crazy at about 3am because there are no boys there. They get a wild look in their eyes and start screaming "Queso!! Queso!!"

Then they take a block of velveeta and a jar of salsa
put them in a bowl
and put it in the microwave.
stir.

Now dip things in it. yummy. mmmm cholesterol.


The much classier salsa I like to make is:

1 can of black beans, drained
1 ripe avocado, chopped
2-4 tablespoons of that salsa in the back of your fridge that you need to use
stir.

dip away. This keeps ok for the next day too. You can also add other things... chopped carrots, cilantro, canned corn, whatever you need to.

let's talk about vegan cheese

I have only ever had one vegan cheese product that I liked. I like the "Grated Vegan Topping" in the purple salt-shaker sized container. the other few I have tried are all real gross or weird or just not worth it.

I stopped eating most dairy products because they made me congested and I think my body has to work too hard to process them. Cutting down on cheese has been good for my congestion, weight fluctuation, amount of energy, and avoiding processed foods (lots of dairy products, weirdly). I really miss cheese though.

Ironically, parm is probably one of the more innocuous cheese products - hard cheese are usually minimally problematic for the lactose intolerant, you don't eat as much of it as, oh, cream cheese on a bagel, or giant blocks of cheddar in the woods, and it has a lot of bacterial breakdown goodness. It's weird then that it is the only thing that I have found an acceptable (I wouldn't make risotto with it) substitute for.

Does anyone have any recommendations for cheese substitutes? or suggestions for what I should eat when I'm splurging? (I've been eating a lot of mint chocolate chip ice cream. oops.)