Cheesy Orzo

Did you get an instant pot yet? I admit, I don't use it as much as I thought I would but the other night when we had guests for dinner and a tiny window with which to get dinner ready, I used it. We also sous vide our meat for dinner so it was really hands off!

This cheesy orzo was sooo flavorful. Pretty much the best updated mac & cheese I've ever had.  My 3yo wan't a fan even though she said it was good she didn't want any. My 18m loved it!  So good.  Run don't walk to get the ingredients to make this tonight!

Recipe here and below. I used asiago cheese instead of parmesan and didn't measure exactly cause more cheese is always better, right?

Ingredients:
1/2 onion chopped
3 small cloves of garlic chopped
2 T butter
2 t olive oil
8oz orzo
2 Cups Chicken broth
1/2 t salt
1 C mozzarella cheese
1 1/2 C asiago (or parmesan) cheese
1 Cup whole milk or half & half (I used milk)

Directions:
1. Turn the instant pot to saute and add butter & Olive oil.  Add onions and cook until translucent.
2. Add garlic and cook for 30 seconds
3. Add chicken broth and salt and bring to a simmer stirring. Add orzo. Put the lid on
4. Turn off the instant pot and set to manual, high pressure, 4 minutes.
5. Once the 4 minutes is up and it switches to warming, turn to quick release and wait for the button to pop. Open the lid, stir in cheeses & milk, salt to taste, serve immediately

Emeril's Baked Macaroni and Cheese

I've been craving Mac & Cheese for days. Normally I would just make the old standard, but this recipe appealed to me because it was half the size as my recipe, it had bacon in it, and it looked creamy after baking--something Joey misses from my regular recipe.

This was a pretty quick dish to make--the most time consuming part was shredding the cheese and trying to make the bacon crispy (did not achieve this). We were very impressed with the creaminess. This recipe serves four adults as a main course. I didn't use the Parmesan the recipe called for and just increased the amount of cheddar.

Ingredients:

3 slices bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces

1/2lb elbow macaroni

8oz sharp cheddar cheese, grated

4oz Monterey Jack, grated

1/2 t salt

1/4 t cayenne pepper

1/4 t nutmeg

12 oz evaporated milk

3 small cloves garlic, minced

3 eggs

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 475

2. Heat water over high until boiling, add macaroni and cook for 6 minutes, drain, noodles will be undercooked. After draining, return noodles to pot and set aside.

3. Meanwhile, heat a small frying pan over medium. Add bacon and cook until crispy, about 10 minutes. Add garlic and cook 30 seconds more. Turn off heat and, with a slotted spoon add bacon mixture to macaroni.

4. In a large bowl, whisk together eggs and milk. Add salt, cayenne and nutmeg. Add cheese and macaroni mixture and stir well to combine.

5. Pour mixture into an 8x8 or 9x9 pan. Bake for 12 minutes until sauce is bubbly. Remove from oven and let sit 10 minutes before serving.

Comfort and Warmth

Creamy Macaroni and Cheese

Dubliner Cheese

You've all seen it in the store and passed it up. It's too expensive you tell yourself. What if I don't like it? And then one day, you fight yourself and give in.

You place it in the fridge because you can't use it for just anything. You save it for a special occasion. It sits there waiting patiently. Finally you dare to open it, you taste a little and are overwhelmed by the strong nutty taste. You vow to use the rest "in something." You put it back in its place in the fridge.

Soon you decide to make a new recipe for Mac & Cheese you read about in your new cookbook. You remember that Dubliner cheese you have in the fridge (and when you gave in you bought a 2 pound block at Costco, so you have plenty) and realize it is perfect. You sort through the other essentials already in your pantry. Dinner for free you think! And you thought it was an indulgence to buy the cheese in the first place.

The mac and cheese was great! I loved the step by step picture instructions in the book. It is possibly the first time I have made a successful roux. The Dubliner cheese actually may have not been the best choice by itself. Since the recipe calls for a whole pound of cheese, I'd go half and half with something a little milder and the Dubliner. The Dubliner also made it totally white so it doesn't look as good for you as when there is some color in there. The recipe calls for 2 heaping teaspoons of dry mustard, and I could taste the mustard. So I would reduce the mustard to maybe 1 and 1/2 t or less. It was a strong mustard flavor that kept hitting me throughout. I did not do the final baking stage, I served it right out of the pot and boy was it creamy! I would make this again following my suggestions above.

The Recipe

100th Recipe! Another Twist on Mac & Cheese

This post marks the 100th post for this blog! I think that the only recipe worthy of this spot is another twist on Mac & Cheese. Sure there is nothing as great as Grandma Bev's classic, but it is always fun to try something new when it comes to this classic comfort dish.

Joey and I recently watched Tyler's Ultimate on the food network and were moved by his Ultimate Mac & Cheese with Bacon. Everything on his show is called "The Ultimate" but this really seemed special. We headed over to Costco for some cheap cheese in big packages. We chose Tilamook Vintage White Cheddar cheese which has a very extra sharp cheddar flavor. When buying the bacon for this recipe, it is important to buy bacon that is not too fatty to impart the particular flavors.

This recipe uses thyme as a flavoring, but recently we haven't been fans of thyme so we substituted basil (since we already had some). I think the thyme really might have added more. I thought this Mac & Cheese had a very earthy flavor but it just didn't seem cheesy enough to me. Joey, on the other hand, loved this dish when it came out of the oven.

Ingredients

• Kosher salt
• 1 pound elbow macaroni (cavatapi is the new macaroni in our house)
  
• 4 cups whole milk
• 2 or 3 sprigs thyme(we used 1 large bunch of basil)
  
• 4 cloves garlic, smashed and divided
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 5 1/2 cups shredded sharp white Cheddar
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 4 slices bacon, cut crosswise into thin strips (More Bacon!)
  
• 1 large onion, diced (we only used half an onion and that was plenty, I might use shallots next time)
  
• 2 garlic cloves, smashed
• Leaves from 1/4 bunch fresh thyme

Directions

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the macaroni and cook for 8 to 9 minutes, until al dente. Drain.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

In a small saucepan heat the milk with the thyme sprigs (we used basil) and 2 garlic cloves. Melt the butter in a large, deep skillet over medium-high heat. Whisk in the flour and cook for about 1 minute, stirring constantly, to keep lumps from forming.

Strain the solids out of the milk and whisk it into the butter and flour mixture. Continue to whisk vigorously, and cook until the mixture is nice and smooth.

Stir in the 4 cups of the cheese and continue to cook and stir to melt the cheese. Season with salt and pepper. Add the cooked macaroni and the parsley and fold that all in to coat the macaroni with the cheese mixture.

Scrape into a 3-quart baking dish and sprinkle with the remaining 1 1/2 cups cheese. Bake for 30 minutes, or until hot and bubbly.

While that bakes, heat a saute pan. Add the bacon, render the fat and cook until crispy. Add onion, garlic (while it says smash, we recommend dicing) and thyme leaves and cook for about 5 minutes to soften the onion. Season with salt and pepper.

To serve, scatter the bacon mixture over the mac and cheese. Use a big spoon to scoop out servings, making sure you get some of the smoking bacon mixture on each spoonful.

Quick Microwave Mac

This morning we were out of portable breakfast foods, and not being one to even like breakfast, I considered my options. I decided on a quick Mac & Cheese dish. After making this at work, I found that it worked surprisingly well, resulting in a creamy, cheesy dish that didn't disappoint my tastebuds. It had all the things that a satisfying breakfast does - flavor, warmth, texture, fulfillingness.

Quick Microwave Mac

Ingredients:
Tupperware container
Microwave
leftover pasta noodles, any shape
1/4 C cubed cheese - I used Cheddar and Fontina
Fork

Directions:
1. Add cheese and pasta to a tupperware container, set lid on top diagonally but not closed allowing for air to escape
2. Microwave on high for 45 seconds. Stir with a fork, replace lid diagonally, and microwave an additional 10 seconds on high.
3. Remove from microwave, stir, and place lid on tupperware securly. Let sit for 2-3 minutes.
4. Eat!

Rustic Mac & Cheese

I was hankering for some mac and cheese but the eggy casserole we usually make seemed too heavy for the hot weather. So, I was browsing Tastespotting and discovered something new.

The one thing about mac & cheese is that people are always trying to add breadcrumb topping to give it a little crunch. But it isn't supposed to be crunchy! It should be velvety creamy pasta in the end. The other thing is that everyone wants to add several cheeses. But, do we really taste all those cheeses at once? Is it necessary?

This recipe called for Fontina. I was at the regular store and discovered the stuff to be a pricey $6 for 5 ounces. However, we were on a trip to Costco and discovered that 1 lb of Fontina was $6! What a savings. I had thinking maybe I should just substitute another cheese like white cheddar or mozzarella. After we tasted the fontina, we thought it tasted just like cheddar with a slight hint of swiss...so next time...

At the store I chose Campanelle shaped pasta. It is like a little flat piece of past rolled into a flower/cone shape (they are translated as Bells). We liked them because they were easy to fork and had that night ribbed texture on the side.

I received these rustic Italian caserolle dishes for my birthday a couple of years ago and have always thought they would be fun to use for something like this. I finally had my chance, the recipe called for a 9x13 pan but this was far more fun.

Oh and the Mac & Cheese? It was delicious! Creamy and velvety with a subtle hint of cheese flavor and light enough for an 80-degree day.

Rustic Mac & Cheese adapted from "The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook"

Ingredients
8 oz shredded Fontina
1 C heavy cream
1 lb pasta, any small shape
pinch nutmeg
salt
4 T butter

Directions
Preheat oven to 350
1. Cook pasta in boiling water 2 minutes less than al dente according to package instructions.
2. While pasta is cooking, warm cream in microwave one minute and keep covered. Shred cheese. Grease baking dish (9x13).
3. Dice butter and place in a large bowl. Drain pasta and stir until coated with butter. Add cream and cheese. Stir until cheese starts to melt. Add nutmeg and salt to taste.
4. Pour pasta mixture into casserolle. Bake for 20 minutes until sauce is bubbling. Serve immediately.

How to Fix Mac and Cheese

I made some Mac and Cheese on Friday and it was...weird. The recipe was called Cheesy Macaroni and Ham. I omitted the ham, but I should have omitted a couple of other ingredients as well. There were three things added to the dish that made me worried--but I figured that they would all fit together well in the end.

They did not.

The ingredients that worried me were Sour Cream, Nutmeg, and Dijon Mustard.

The Dijon Mustard was a huge flavor in the pasta, and not a very welcome one. The mustard overpowered the cheese! Mustard Pasta is not a taste sensation. Nutmeg was a flavor that I could pick out despite the overpowering mustard and it was a little odd. While apple pie may be served with cheddar cheese, pumpkin never is and the nutmeg brought back memories of pumpkin pie and pumpkin pie with cheese sounds disgusting. The flavor of the sour cream didn't come out nearly as strongly, however, it did add a little bitter aftertaste.

So we ate the dish anyway, but there were mounds of leftovers that I really didn't want to go to waste. I decided to go back to my roots and remembered Grandma Bev's love for no recipes. I decided I would fix the dish if I could.

I pulled out a small casserole and mixed together a little egg and sour cream (I was out of milk and this seemed like a viable solution). I then added a couple scoopfuls of mac and cheese to the casserole. I topped this concoction with a handful of shredded cheddar being sure to fill in any gaps. I added a little bit of shredded mozzarella. Then I put a few thin pats of butter on top and baked for 15 minutes.

The result was a glorious cheesy hot and bubbly mass of golden delicious pasta and cheese easily masking the taste of the disastrous mustard.

Mac and Cheese - The Individual serving

I love Grandma Bev's Mac and Cheese, but I don't really need to make the whole 9x13 pan every time I'm craving the gooey golden goodness. I mean I REALLY don't need it because it would just be up to me to eat it all, and that is not necessary.

So, last night, I did a bit of an experiment. Recently, I acquired two small Corningware individual casseroles with lids. They were just the thing for my experiment. I decided to use the leftover noodles I had from dinner to make a revised single-serving version of Grandma's Macaroni and Cheese. I ended up making two single servings because I remembered that I would be celebrating someone's birthday at work and therefore I might as well surprise her with a free lunch.

I was a little worried about the proportions of the dish because I didn't exactly know how to measure it out and when the 9x13 recipe calls for 2 eggs and you are only making 1/4 of the recipe, how can you really split an egg? So, I improvised, and the results were glorious.

Grandma Bev's Mac and Cheese - Individual Servings
Makes 2 Individual Servings
Ingredients:
1/4 C Skim Milk
1 Egg
1/4 C (or more) Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese, cubed
1 T butter, cut into mini cubes
1 C small pasta noodles of your choice, cooked and drained (I used whole wheat rotini-healthier!)
1/8 t. salt
1/8 t. pepper

Directions:
Whisk together egg, salt, pepper and milk in small bowl. Add cubed cheese and coat the cubes. Add pasta to coat.
Pour mixture between two small oven proof dishes
Scatter cubes of butter throughout each dish
Bake at 350 for 15 minutes until eggs are semi-solid.
Eat, or store in the refrigerator and reheat for 1-2 minutes on high until cheese is bubbly.

Why Mac & Cheese & More?

This Mac & Cheese recipe was passed down to us by our Mother/Grandmother, Beverly. As long as I can remember Mac & Cheese always had a reserved space at the farm table we would all gather at to eat. It was the favorite dish of all & one of those things that you knew if you didn't help yourself to a generous scoop, you would be sorry, because, when you would go back for seconds it would be too late!

Here is the recipe:

Macaroni & Cheese

3 cups elbow macaroni
1 tsp salad oil
1 egg beaten in bottom of measuring cup and add milk to make 1 1/2 cups
3/4 lb cheddar cheese (sharp) cut into small pieces

Add macaroni to boiling water along with salad oil. Cook until al dente. Drain.

Mix macaroni, egg/milk mixture and cheese in a greased casserole, reserving a bit of the cheese to sprinkle on top.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until knife comes out clean.

**When there was left over mac and cheese, Grandma Bev much preferred reheating in a skillet with a little butter – she would break it up into relatively small pieces and just fry it up. Or you can throw in the microwave.