Mac 'n' cheese

So, this reference on Smitten Kitchen to a Martha Stewart mac 'n' cheese recipe had been haunting me for weeks. Thank you very much for tormenting me. I found a great opportunity to make it though - I wanted to make some food for Mr. & Mrs. Elle as they spend the rest of their lives unpacking in their new home. This, paired with some salad and a rotisserie chicken seemed to help.

First of all, here is how much cheese you'll use - it's a lot. Something like 4 1/2 c of cheddar and 2 of gruyere:


Make a roux - butter and flour


Gather your milk - again, quite a lot - 5 1/2 cups



Slowly add the milk to the roux, stirring constantly


Season the otherwise blah milk mixture - cayenne, nutmeg, salt, pepper


Then the cheese adding begins....lots and lots of cheese...


Meanwhile, cook a pound of elbow macaroni


Then add it to the lovely cheese mixture


Pour into a greased casserole dish (or in my case, two of them). Notice at this point how runny the mixture is - it is like cheesy soup. I resisted the urge to add more noodles.


Top with buttered bread crumbs and bake until golden. At this point, I was amazed - where did all the cheese sauce go?


Into the noodles of course and thickened up - we had this with leftover pork chops and salad in our house.


This was good - I'll admit that - but I think I was a little heavy-handed with the Gruyere. It had a little too much of the nutty taste. That being said, Mr. R hearted it. I think my problem with homemade "adult" mac 'n' cheese is that it doesn't hold a candle in my heart/tastebuds to the Holy Grail of mac 'n' cheese. I think ultimately fancy macaroni might be too much for my plebian tastes. But this was good, don't get me wrong. Just not as amazing as I thought it might be.

Birthday dinner extravaganza

I instructed my lovely husband to prepare a meal of food for me on Saturday night to celebrate my birthday (a day late). We decided on crepes with a chicken/ham/mushroom filling, building off an Emeril recipe.

Here is a lonely little crepe in the pan.
And here the crepe joins all its crepe friends on the crepe plateMeanwhile, R made a bechamel. Look at him!
Post-bechamel, he got some mushrooms and garlic and ham sizzling up.
Then mixed in the cooked chicken, stock, and cream.
Then he filled all the crepes with the lovely filling and squeezed them in the baking dish.
Hmm. What to do with this lovely pile of Gruyere??
And poured the now-cheesy bechamel over top.
And put the whole lot in the oven to bake.
And serve. And slam.

Birthday gift of meat and cheese

Miss L gave me a glorious gift of meat and cheese from the lovely Usingers company, up in ol' Wisconsin.

Here we have the package, newly opened. Miss Daisy made short work of that wrapping paper the next day, FYI. Behold - three sausages - beef s'lami, beef summer sausage, and summer sausage of indeterminate meat source. I've tried the latter and it was delish. I've also wielded the handy knife!

And don't forget the cheese! Three kinds! I've only tried the cheddar, but I give it a loud HUZZAH! HUZZAH!