Macaroni and Cheese – My Way

It’s almost Thanksgiving my FAVORITE day to cook!!  This year I am sharing the kitchen with my BFF, Stephanie and for the first time to share the kitchen…My mom and I have a difficult time doing that.  We both like to have the kitchen to ourselves when we cook.  But, I so love Stephanie’s cooking AND it is her house – LOL – why not!

I want to fix Turkey & Dressing – posted that recipe already and here goes for the Mac & Cheese.  I posted this recipe previously so I am just adding a list of ingredients and I will be putting bread crumbs over mine this time and adding an egg.  Once again I do not measure but I will try to give some measurements…You can always add a lil cheese or reduce it if you are not a big cheese person.  Or you can add different cheeses if you have some in particular that you favor. Part of this comes from my grandmother and it has changed a bit.  Interestingly, the first year I added sour cream to mine, I visited my sister for Thanksgiving that year and she was doing the same thing.

Ingredients:

Elbow Macaroni or Rotini Spiral (I like the spiral better for the look)

Cheese (sharp cheddar, colby, and jack) about 2 cups each

Butter

Milk

1 egg

1 cup Sour Cream

Flour

Salt & Pepper to taste

White Sauce

My grandmother taught me to make this for mac and cheese.  I use it for other sauces as well.

Put 3T of butter in a pot and melt on medium heat.  Add about 3-4 heaping forkfulls of flour and mix well stirring continuously until it is smooth.  Pour about 2 -3 cups of milk and cook until it thickens. Add your cheese, reduce heat, continue to stir until the cheese has melted.  Add a little salt and pour over the macaroni.  If you want the sauce a little richer, use half and half.  If it turns out too thick, just add a little more milk.

Mac & Cheese

I make mine a little different from the way I was taught – but it’s pretty basic. I will use just about any thicker pasta, shells, macaroni, spiral, and sometimes I mix them depending on how much I have available. The picture is the actual mac& cheese I made a few months ago -  looks good huh.

Pasta (cook until it is soft – not until it is completely done) rinse it and place it in a  bowl that is twice the size of the amount of pasta.  Cheese (colby, sharp cheddar, jack, mexican shredded) – I buy the first three in brick form and depending on the amount – I will use at least half of each.  Grate it.  We like it cheesy.  I make the white sauce, add half of the cheese into the white sauce after it thickens.  Pour the sauce mixture over the pasta in the bowl, salt, pepper, and at least a cup of sour cream, and add the rest of the cheese – mix it. I will put some of the shredded cheese in the bowl as well.  Once it is mixed well, I pour into a glass dish and spread grated cheese over it.  Now if you really want to add a little extra, put breadcrumbs on top as well for a different touch.  Bake for about 45 mins – 1hour.  I like it a little brown as you can see on the picture.  Yummy.

Tip:  If your sauce seems runny, you could add an egg which will kind of bring it all together. I think it also keeps it from being dry.  Sometimes I add an egg and sometimes I don’t.

I think I am going to post our Yeast Roll recipe next…watch out for it…Yes, you too can make rolls from scratch!

Homemade Cornbread Dressing

Thanksgiving is my most FAVORITE day to cook.  I thought I would share my dressing recipe – not quick but I like it.

My grandmother always saved left over cornbread, and the ends of white bread.  As I perfected my dressing each year I dropped the white bread.  I always save left over cornbread through the year and keep it in the freezer.

A KEY ingredient to this recipe is fresh sage.  My sister grew sage and we would all receive it from her.  I still have much of what she had, so I am grateful.  Eventually, well pretty soon, I am going to have to start growing it myself.  If you have fresh sage, you have to hang it upside down to dry it out.  It makes a HUGE difference in taste.  Do not use ground sage…it just does not work well..Trust me (I have done it and it was not good)..An alternative would be to find sage leaves..most of the time you can find that in the grocery stores near the Hispanic area with the other seasonings.

Another KEY ingredient is the cornbread.  If you don’t have old cornbread and/or you need more…Bake Jiffy cornbread a few days ahead of time if you can.  Let it sit out, or inside the oven to dry out as much as possible…Mrs Cubbisons cornbread dressing can be used to fill in…it WILL change the taste..I only use it if nothing else is available.

Prepare the dressing AT LEAST  one day ahead of time…TWO days if possible.

This is one of those times I cannot tell you what to measure.  If you are using two boxes of cornbread…I would say the bellpepper, celery, onion – should be about 3/4 cup each.

Ingredients:

Corn Bread

Milk

Eggs

Bell pepper

Celery

Onion

Garlic

Seasonings:  pepper, seasoned salt, thyme, old bay

1 stick of butter

In a skillet saute’ bell pepper, onion, celery, and garlic with a stick of butter or two if you are making a lot of dressing for about 5-7 minutes on medium heat. You want them to be opague and soft.  Add the seasoning in the mixture as well while it is cooking. Take the dried, brittle sage off of the stem and grind it in the palm of my hand. Put hands together and grind in a circular motion and add to the celery mixture as it is cooking.

While that is cooking, by hand crumble the cornbread in a large bowl. When the celery mixture is ready, pour it into the cornbread mixture and stir.  I would taste it at this point and make any adjustments of more seasoning, more sage.  Once it’s where  you like it, add 1 to 2 eggs and mix.  Remember it depends on how much cornbread you have.  Add about 1/2c of milk or less, just add a little bit at a time until you have consistency that you prefer.  I like mine to not be completely stuck together as if you could be put into a ball.  I like for it to still be in a crumbly state for lack of a better description.

Once it’s complete, put in a plastic bag and put it into the refrigerator.  When the turkey is ready and seasoned and it’s time to cook…stuff the turkey with the dressing.  Do not put it in the turkey and then put it in the refrigerator, that is not safe…only put in the turkey right before you put it in the oven.  Put any left over dressing in a glass dish to be baked later.  As the turkey cooks, put drippings from the pan into the extra dressing to add moisture and flavor. When you bake additional items, bake the dressing for about 30-45 minutes – again depending on the amount.

Enjoy and Happy Turkey Day!!

Great Pasta Dish

I don’t have a name for this dish yet.  If anyone has suggestions after reading this, please let me know…

I had a taste for spaghetti – kinda.  As I started to look for ingredients needed, I realized we only had a small, 4 oz can of tomato sauce.

Then I thought about meat loaf since we had potatoes and I could make masked potatoes.  For some reason that just did not feel exactly right but I wanted the taste…..I wanted something with pasta and cheese….I came up with what you see in the picture!  It tasted better the 2nd day!

Alternatives:  this dish could be fixed with no meat, shredded chicken, ground turkey – I fixed it with ground beef – I think I will try shredded chicken next time. I would also add about 1/2 cup of zucchini as well to add volume and flavor – especially if I was fixing this with no meat…

This will take about 1 hour to fix.

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Ingredients:

1 lb ground beef (lean)

whole wheat penne pasta

8 oz can of diced tomatoes with garlic & herb

4 oz can of tomato sauce

2 cups of shredded cheese

5 cloves of garlic (need about 1 tablespoon minced)

fresh spinach

1/4 cup of bbq sauce

1/4 cup of chili sauce

1/2 cup of bell pepper

1/2 cup of onion

1/4 tsp of red pepper flakes

2 T of olive oil

Non Stick Spray

3/4 cup of fresh mushrooms

1 package of meat loaf seasoning

Seasonings:  italian, thyme, old bay, seasoned salt, fresh ground pepper,

Process:

In a large pot saute’ bell pepper, onions, and garlic in olive oil for about 2 minutes.  Add ground beef or whatever meat you want to use.  If you use chicken, boil it and shred it first.  Brown your meat and season it.

While the meat is cooking, boil your pasta until it is almost done. When it is ready, drain and rinse with cool water, set it aside.

Pre-heat the oven at 350 degrees.

In a bowl, mix the tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, bbq sauce and chili sauce.

After the meat is cooked, add the sauce mixture to the pot with the meat in it, and cook for about 15 minutes on a medium heat stirring occasionally.  Add 3/4 of the cheese, and mushrooms.  You can also add parmesan cheese as well.   I used a cheddar/jack mixture of cheese and parmesan. Mix the fresh spinach into the meat  sauce AFTER has finished cooking, just before adding the pasta.

Add the pasta to the pot, mix well and turn the pot off.  Spray a glass dish with non-stick spray.  Pour the ingredients from the pot into the glass dish.  Sprinkle with the remainder of cheese. Bake for 30 -45 minutes at 350 degrees.

Serve with garlic bread and salad…Yummmy