Posts tagged casserole
Macaroni with 4 Cheeses
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So as you all know, I am a fan of Macaroni and Cheese and Mac n Cheese recipes. While there is such a thing as a bad dish of it, there are soooo many combinations and opportunities for fabulous ones! Before they flip the switch on the chair, there are two things I am requesting. First, this Macaroni and Cheese (on the finest of China, of course!) and a slice of the Kicking Key Lime Pie! Okay, okay…the whole pie. HEY! I’m dying I should get as much as I want! *side eye* After those two, I will repent and go in peace. 
Anyway, this recipe calls for making a béchamel sauce. Basically, you’ll be making a roux (some type of fat i.e. butter, shortening, oil + flour) and then combining that with milk and cheese. Piece of cake!
- Ingredients
Macaroni & Cheese:
4 oz grated white Cheddar cheese
4 oz finely cubed Fontina cheese*
4 oz grated Gruyere cheese*
8 oz grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, or other good-quality parmesan cheese (about 2 c)
1 lb penne pasta (or your preference such as elbow)
1 tea minced garlic
7 T butter
4 T flour
2 c half and half
3/4 tea salt
1/4 tea ground white pepper
Topping:
1/2 c bread crumbs (fresh if possible)
1/2 oz grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, or other good-quality parmesan cheese
2 tea dried parsley
1/4 tea of white pepper
*Note: I get my cheeses from Publix’s deli and I rarely find the Fontina and Gruyere hard enough to get a good grate out of them. They are much softer than the cheddar and parmesan. When you ask for them at the counter, ask for a large brick of each instead of sliced cheese.
- Directions
In a heavy, medium saucepan melt 4 tablespoons of the butter over low heat. With whisk in hand, add the flour and combine. Cook, stirring constantly, for 3 minutes. It will look like corn meal and will be wet but thick.
Increase the heat to medium and whisk in the half and half little by little. (Big splash, whisk, big splash, whisk…) It should take you about 5 minutes to whisk it all in. There should never be a point when the liquid isn’t instantly absorbed into the flour/butter mixture. Take your time. As you’re adding it, it will start looking like the paste we used for the paper Mache projects from elementary school. Unlike in school, please try to resist the urge to eat it we need it for the dish. O_o Lol Cook until thickened, about 4 to 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Remove from the heat, season with salt, pepper and 4 ounces of the grated parmesan. Stir until cheese is melted and sauce is smooth. Cover and set aside.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Fill a large pot with water and bring to a boil over high heat. Add salt to taste and, while stirring, add the macaroni. Return to a boil, reduce the heat to a low boil and cook for about 5 minutes, or until macaroni is very al dente (slightly undercooked). DO NOT OVERCOOK! The macaroni will continue to cook in the oven. (IMO, one of the worst things you can do to a mac n cheese is to overcook the noodles; that and leave out the cheese. lol) Drain in a colander and return the macaroni to the pot. Add 2 tablespoons of the butter and the garlic and stir to combine. Add the béchamel sauce and stir until well combined. Set aside.
Using the remaining tablespoon of butter, grease a 3-quart baking dish or casserole and set aside.
In a large bowl combine 4 ounces of each, the parmesan, cheddar, fontina and gruyere cheese. Toss to combine.
In another small bowl, combine the topping ingredients and set aside.
Depending on the size/deepness of your dish, you may be able to do three layers which I think works better. However, my casserole dish (pictured) is very shallow and wide so I only have 2 layers. You’ll be able to tell once you spread a third of the noodles in the dish and seeing if it completely covers the bottom or not. If not, switch to two layers….still amazing don’t worry. So after you have your first layer (completely covering the bottom) add a 1/3 (or 1/2 if doing 2 layers) of the mixed cheeses. Go on to your next layer of noodles, followed by the next layer of cheeses…..etc. Once all of your macaroni is in the dish, cover with the topping mixture.
Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, or until the macaroni and cheese is bubbly and hot and the top is golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow it to rest for 5 minutes before serving.
Voila! That is it! I defy you to find one that is better….but please do because I want it!!!
Murdering Mac and Cheese
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On most days of the week, I send my sister off with food to help her (and a few of her fellow RN buddies) get through the long night shifts. She doesn’t know it, but I leave my phone on just so I can get the call from her telling me how awesome the food was. Last night, I sent her with a new Mac n Cheese recipe I tinkered around with. She saw me as I was packing the food and I could tell that she was a little skeptical about it. It was understandable. After all, it was a white sauce recipe, involved rigatoni pasta (extremely large, ridged, tubular noodles) and panko bread crumbs. A far cry from the bright orange and yellow dish with macaroni noodles to which she’s accustomed. To add insult to injury, when she questioned the “green stuff” I’d mixed in, I told her that I thought a few scraps of the uncooked collard greens from my mom’s dish would be a “good touch”. You should’ve seen her face!! lol. I could not bring myself to tell her that it was actually parsley. In spite of my laughter, I took her scrunched up nose as a challenge.
I got my phone call around 1:42 a.m., pretended that I hadn’t been sleep since 10 and listened. A smile crept across my sleep-deprived face as she recounted how she began apologizing to her friends for my experimentation on them; promising that there was a bottle of hot sauce on hand to mask my mistakes if needed. She said that she was cursing me for the embarrassment she was sure to suffer even up until she placed it in the microwave. She watched its rotations with indifference (more…)
You can’t have ham without yams!
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This recipe comes to you by way of my boss. She makes this for our holiday party every year and it is ALWAYS a hit. I doctored it up a little with vanilla, cream and cinnamon to give a little more fierceness ; ) but it was still great as it was.
While doing the meal planning with my friends at work we discussed having mashed potatoes vs sweet potatoes and I was the only one to insist the lunacy of NOT HAVING YAMS with our ham!! I was really passionate about it and realized they were all looking at me like I was crazy, lol. But really, mashed potatoes? Come on….
Ingredients:
- 5 large mashed sweet potatoes (approximately 6 cups)
- 2 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 4 eggs, lightly beaten
- 2 teas. Pure vanilla extract
- 1 1/4 cup milk
- 1/4 heavy cream*
- 1 tea. cinnamon
- 1 tea. salt
- 1 cup melted butter
*you can definitely use all (1 ½ c.) milk if you don’t have cream.
Topping:
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 2/3 cup flour
- 2/3 cup melted butter (salted)
- 2 cup chopped pecans (one 6 oz. bag.- try to get the pecan halves (instead of pre-chopped) and chop yourself. The closer they are to you cracking them open yourself, the fresher and better. And the lack of uniformity in the pieces gives the dish a real homemade feel in my opinion.)
Preparation:
Boil the potatoes until fork tender. Peel and mash. To the bowl with the mashed potatoes, add the beaten eggs, milk, cream, cinnamon, salt, vanilla, brown sugar and melted butter. Pour into a buttered casserole dish. In a separate bowl, mix the topping ingredients together and sprinkle over dish. Bake at 350° for 30 to 40 minutes, until hot and browned. (I ended up baking mine for an hour because of the depth of my pan (2 inches), so check it and make sure that it’s hot.)
NOTES: I am going to work on cooking for two, but in the meanwhile, this recipe can easily feed 12. Please halve it, lol. Literally, cut the measurements for the entire recipe in half. I have a conversion page in the works and will do my best to make them more suitable for a regular sized family and not the one I grew up in. : ) Additionally, baking the potatoes would have been better because I noticed that my boil water was reddish brown in the end and I was sad b/c I knew that I’d lost some of the good, natural, sweet potato flavor. (However, I did make the mistake of piercing one and it fell open so it could have just been the product of it not having it’s protective skin for the duration of the cooking)
YUMMY! THAT CRUST IS SICK!! No marshmallows needed, Donyale. I promise. ; )
