High Class Mac & Cheese

Or as Dennis calls it, "Mac & Chee." Saves so much time.

I got this recipe from a website called FoodGawker. I don't know anything about it, except that judging from the name and the part of the site I was at, that it has a lot to do with looking at pictures of food. Or judging food by how good it looks in those pictures. Either way, I saw this page that was the "Most Favorited All-Time" of FoodGawker's picture/recipes. The pictures are fantastic! They make mine look like dog food. Delicious dog food!

I call this high class mac & cheese because it uses cheese other than Velveeta. Not that there's anything wrong with Velveeta, but I am a cheese connoisseur (I wish) so I love getting "nice" cheeses when I can afford it. This recipe calls for some specific cheese that I don't even know how to get, so I made some substitutions. It's cheese, for cryin out loud! It all tastes great and gets melty when you heat it up so I say if it tastes good, I can substitute it.

Ingredients
8 oz penne pasta (half a box)
2 cups of cheese sauce (see recipe below)
1 oz cheddar, grated
1 oz Havarti, grated
1/2 tsp chili powder

The way this recipe is set up was kind of confusing to me. I had to scroll back and forth which I despise (!) but never fear, I am going to try to fix this issue. Maybe. I'm just going to try to write it the way I wish it was written. Don't get your hopes up too high though.

First, cook your pasta. Get a pot of water boiling and pour half of the box into the pot. Stir it a little, set the timer for 9 minutes, then start your cheese sauce. Here is where I interject that now would be a fine time to preheat your oven to 350!

Ingredients for Cheese Sauce
1/4 c butter
1/3 c flour
3 c milk
14 oz cheddar, grated
1 oz gorgonzola, grated
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp chili powder

Melt the butter on medium heat in a large saucepan. And I do mean large - you will be adding all of your ingredients to this pan. In hindsight, a pot might be better. Once the butter is melted, slowly add the flour and stir for 2 minutes. This mixture is called a roux aka a thickener for sauces.

Add the milk one cup at a time, stirring constantly until it is thick, about 10 minutes. The mixture is now called a béchamel sauce, which is a white sauce used in many Italian dishes. You didn't know you would be learning today, did you!?

 

Béchamel!

Remove from heat and stir in the cheeses, salt, garlic powder, and chili powder until it is all nice and melted together. Set aside.

 

Cheese sauce. Nomnomnom.

Now hopefully this process did not take longer than 9 minutes. Otherwise, your pasta will have overcooked! This is why you set the timer. Well, I dunno about you but this is why I set the timer, anyway. So you should drain your pasta and rinse it with cold water. Then mix 2 cups of the cheese sauce in a medium bowl with the pasta.

 

You wish you could multitask this well.

BEWARE! I say 2 cups! The whole mixture is 4 cups. Why the recipe says to make 2x the amount needed, I don't know. But I made the mistake of pouring it all into the bowl. This is what I was talking about with the recipe being confusing. I didn't want anyone else to make that mistake and have to fish 2 cups of cheese sauce out without getting any penne. It was really hard, man!

Ok so now you butter your 8x8 Pyrex pan and pour your mixture into it. Sprinkle the rest of the shredded cheese and chili sauce on top and pop it in the oven for 20-30 minutes. I picked 30 and it was awesome.

Pre-oven.

 

Post-oven. What a difference 30 minutes makes! (at 350)

Thanks to Joe at My Cooking Quest for the recipe. Here is the original link. Don't forget to lift your pinky when you eat it.

Scrambled Eggs with Sausage Biscuits & Gravy

An easy one, and a two-parter. What did you do to deserve this? You can thank Mere. Normally I probably wouldn't have put this recipe online, but one of her friends demanded that I put the breakfast up and that Mere's picture appear on the blog. So, feast your eyes on Mere.

Anywho, scrambled eggs. Not hard to make, but I do have my own way of doing it. It might be the same as everyone else's way but who knows.

Ingredients

2 eggs

1/4 cup milk

shredded/sliced cheddar

salt & pepper to taste

5-6 drops of Tabasco (optional)

This is all guesswork (for 1 serving) except for the eggs, because I usually just eyeball the amounts. If you have the patience to shred your cheddar cheese, good for you. If you are like me, I cut a few slices and break them into small pieces then toss them in. I mix up the eggs with a fork, using it like a whisk. Toss a pad or 2 of butter into a pan, use the fork to coat the pan with the butter, then pour the mixture into the pan.

Try to resist the urge to mess with the eggs too much. Just let them be for a few minutes, then try to flip the entire mixture over if you can. The key is minimal contact! If you make these eggs well, you won't need any condiments. I love em.

Now for the Sausage Biscuits & Gravy, a favorite for Dennis. He introduced me to them and they are so simple yet utterly delicious. All you really need is a pound of breakfast sausage, some flour & milk, and a package of biscuits (unless of course you want to make your own from scratch).

First, put the biscuits in the oven and while you're waiting for them to bake, you can prepare the sausage & gravy. Just cook the sausage however you normally would - break it up in the pan and stir it occasionally. Once the sausage is done and you have a decent amount of grease in the pan, add 2-3 tbsp of flour and pour milk in until it covers the bottom of the pan (try 1 cup and work your way up from there if you are uncertain). Stir the mixture around until a gravy starts to form.. it shouldn't take more than a few minutes.

And that's it! Dennis likes to spread his biscuits around the plate and smother them with the sausage gravy, whereas I like separating my food into quadrants (as evidenced from the picture above). Happy breakfasting!

7 Layer Dip

To be perfectly honest, I shouldn't call this a 7 layer dip because I don't use them all, but I'll include my version as well as my mom's (the REAL 7 layer dip).

Ingredients

1 can of refried beans

1 12 oz. tub of sour cream

guacamole

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese (or more)

chopped jalapenos

halved cherry tomatoes (optional)

chopped black olives (optional)

1 packet of taco seasoning (optional)

I am not really giving a good description of the amounts because they are all relative to your tastes. This dip is impossible to mess up so it doesn't matter if you have too much sour cream or whatnot, because people are just going to eat around the parts they don't like anyway.

You'll need a shallow pan or dish (not too shallow though). You could use one of those 8x8 Pyrex dishes and it would probably work nicely. I put the refried beans at the bottom because they are the most dense & it is easier to spread the other layers on top of it. I use a spatula to spread it out until it coats the entire bottom of the dish. Don't worry about getting it perfectly flat, it will taste the same in the end!

Then I put the guacamole down. I didn't put an amount for this one because I have seen it in a tub as well as in a sealed plastic packet, so whatever form you find it in, just get one and that should be enough (or anything close to 12 oz. is always a safe bet). I recommend putting dollops of it evenly around the dish so it is easier to spread out without moving the layer of refried beans underneath. 

Now the next layer is the sour cream. My mom mixes a packet of taco seasoning in with the sour cream before spreading it. Dennis doesn't like taco seasoning so we just use plain sour cream. Again, drop a few dollops on top of the guacamole to spread it around more easily.

Now spread the shredded cheese on top of the whole mix. Easy enough. At this point, I usually spread the jalapenos on top and call it a night. However, the last few times I have made this, I have found that I favor the tomatoes more and more so they go on with the jalapenos. However, I draw the line at black olives. If you like them, spread them on top with the tomatoes and jalapenos.

There you have it! This dip is great for parties when you have to bring a dish. In fact, my friend Wally doesn't like cake so I made this for him for his birthday one year. He asked me to use ground beef instead of refried beans. The result tasted great but it was kind of hard to dip & the chips kept breaking. In the future, if I'm going to add ground beef I would mix it with the refried beans.