"Decadent"

Sometimes when I daydream, I imagine my life in 10 years, or the feeling of my earning my first paycheck, or crazy scenarios involving a guy who's going to whisk me away on a noble steed...whoops...reel it in, girlfriend. But 80% of the time, I'm imagining some new recipe I can experiment with.

I hadn't made macaroni and cheese in ages, it seemed. Which is pretty close to the truth..2 years is a long time to not have made macaroni and cheese considering how simple it is to throw together. I've never made a Gruyere Mac simply because it's too damn pricey for my grad student budget. But upon a recent peruse at my boy, TJ's, I noticed a Gruyere Cheddar. I bought a small block and took it home to sample the flavor and melting qualities: a-mazing! Definitely worth the trip back for a bigger block, some cremini mushrooms, an onion, and a dream. When you're making a béchamel always remember to pick up a melty kind of benign cheese. Since I wanted to keep my sauce a creamy white, I opted for Monterey Jack instead of an extra sharp cheddar, which sometimes adds a funky aftertaste when paired with super powerful cheeses and tends to melt gritty.

So here it is guys and dolls...

Cheddar-Gruyere, Caramelized Onion, Cremini Mushroom, what-the-hell how about some Bacon, Mac and Cheese

For the béchamel (aka cheese sauce)


1/2 stick butter
3 Tbs flour
2 1/2 - 3 cups milk (I used 2%)
3 cups of cheese (Cheddar Gruyere and Monterey Jack)
salt, pepper, paprika, nutmeg (sprinkle of each)
1/2 tsp ground mustard

Over medium heat, melt the butter, sprinkle in the flour, and cook the two together for a couple minutes to get the raw out of the flour. Add the milk and stir, stir, stir. The mixture will seem super runny at first but it thickens up quite quickly. Drizzle in more milk if you find it's too tight. Turn the heat off and dump in the cheese - whisk until melted and creamy.







For the mix-ins

1 cup sliced cremini mushrooms
1 1/2 cups onion, thinly sliced
2 slices thick-cut bacon
1 Tb butter
splash of white wine, cooking sherry, or marsala

Couldn't be easier: Heat a couple Tbs of olive oil and start the onion on medium-low - let this get nice and brown and caramel-y. Add your mushrooms and sauté until cooked through, then the butter and wine. Stir until the liquid is cooked out and set aside to fry up your bacon. To be honest, you could cook the bacon and then all the onions/mushrooms in the bacon grease. Did I seriously just suggest you do that? Geez, good thing I'm not dating a cardiologist-to-be or anything...he'd never let me cook for him again.

For mac and cheese I like tiny, ridge-y pasta - I wanted to go Classic Mac so I opted for elbows. A little trick I do is drain the pasta and let it sit, pour a couple ladles of the cheese sauce into the same pot and let that heat up, and start adding the pasta a little at a time. Add more cheese sauce or pasta until you have a consistency you like. I added half the mix-ins and served with the other half on top, but if I were to do it again I wouldn't mix anything in - I would have liked to keep that creamy texture and I think the flavors of the toppings would pack more of a punch if they were kept separately.

**FYI: this makes a LOT of cheese sauce - just spoon the extra into a plastic Tupperware and freeze until you want to be naughty again. That's called planning ahead, man.

OMacG! Smoky Mac and Cheese with Caramalized Onions

The following recipe was inspired from something I saw on the Rachel Ray Show the other week. Rachel termed hers French Onion Soup Mac and Cheese and used Gruyere cheese. I found that I could purchase double the amount of cheese by using a type other than Gruyere, which is a little pricey.

I knew I had to use cheese with an edge since I was cutting Gruyere which has a twang to it. I decided to go for body and creaminess instead - so I went with a hot pepper cheese and a smoked Gouda. Very good decision when paired with the sweet onion mixture.

The second thing I am quite happy about is my decision to use a very very small pasta - one I'd typically throw into an Italian soup. Not orzo or anything - you still need a little bite. The cheese sauce permeated every single nook and cranny and I noticed I didn't have to use as much sauce to get a cheesy flavor. HUGE money saver because you can literally make double!

To start, slice 1 large onion and 3 cloves of chopped garlic and start frying it on medium heat.

Let it caramelize low and slow and then add 1/2 tsp sage, sprinkle of salt, pepper, 1/4 - 1/2 cup of cooking sherry, and about 1/2 cup of beef stock. Let this cook down, then add another 1/2 cup of beef stock or enough to thin it out. Stir in about 1/2 tsp of cornstarch to thicken the mixture and set aside after it looks like the picture below.

Boil your pasta - I used a pound. Make sure to salt your water, too!

Then start on the cheese sauce by melting 2 Tbs of butter and 1/4 cups of flour. Whisk together for a few seconds, then add 2 cups of milk - maybe even 3. Stir until thickened - it will look runny and then all of a sudden come together. Stir in your cheese (turn the heat down to medium low). I used a whole package of both cheeses, so it made a lot (about 2 1/2 cups of cheese total). Whisk until creamy, then add a good couple of squeezes of Dijon mustard.

Add the onions and store half in a container (I freeze this so I have more later) and mix the rest in with your pasta. I like creamy mac and cheese, so this is where I ended the show. But you can always cover with a little butter/breadcrumb mixture and bake at 350 for about 20 minutes.

A little trick I use to maintain the creaminess of the pasta when I reheat it is that I add an extra squirt of mustard after I microwave the leftovers. This acts as a binder and adds an extra punch of flavor. I also sprinkle with a little more pepper before serving.

Oops...forgot - that's still in the fridge?

Over Thanksgiving my mama took me to Trader Joe's and I was finally able to buy some real cheese. Oh how I love cheese. What's really wonderful is that I am no longer an overweight child so I can make myself an ooey gooey, buttery grilled cheese with (almost) no guilt and without having to dab the oil off the top before I eat it. Oh those days...

Anyway, the weekend after they left I was in my room going over slides of the respiratory system and I suddenly remembered I hadn't used the cheese yet. Oh no. Had it gone bad? Fortunately not and so I got to work making a cheese sauce to beat all cheese sauces.

I am always trying to perfect my cheese sauce - it really has to have a lot of flavor. That's key for me. So cheese and spices are very important. I always try for a semi-hard, semi-soft, and soft/tangy variety. I didn't have goat cheese one hand, so I used about a half cup of sour cream. Next a whole block of pepper-jack, and finally, a block of Trader Joe English Cheddar with a tiny bit left over for me to snack on because there is nothing as sinfully satisfying as biting into a block of cheese when no one is looking.

Too cute - tiny Tupperware for tiny cheese :0

Here's the recipe - enjoy and try experiment with your own combos.

"Good 'Ole English, nummy nummy cheddar!" in the words of Mouse on the Mayflower

- one large block pepper-jack cheese (I find the TJ brand is most flavorful and it super cheap for the amount you get)

- one block English Cheddar

- 2 cups milk

- 3 Tbs butter

- 2-3 Tbs flour

- salt, pepper, chili powder, red pepper flakes

- 2-3 Tbs heavy cream

- 2-3 Tbs ricotta

Start by making a rue. Let the butter melt under medium high, add the flour and cook quickly, stirring with a whisk. Add the milk and spices and let thicken - turn back the heat to medium. This takes about 5 to 7 minutes.

The bechemel (butter, flour, milk combo) should be thick enough that a run of the finger leaves an imprint on the back of a spoon.

If you mixture is too runny, add a slurry of 1/2 Tbs cornstarch and 1Tbs milk. Next, take off the heat and add the soft cheese and finally the pepper-jack and cheddar.

After making to sauce, you can actually freeze it for as much as a month. Let it cool to room temp before wrapping well and throwing into the freezer. When you are ready to use, try the "defrost" setting on your microwave till it's malleable, then finish reheating on the stove. Use shell pasta because it grabs the sauce nicely and cover with a breadcrumb/butter mixture before heating it in a 350 degree over for about a half hour. If you're like me and like a creamier consistancy, forego the oven, grab a bowl, and get to picking out the cheesiest shells ;)