Queso Blanco

We had a little "Mexican Thanksgiving" with Nick and Erica over 4th of July weekend... aka we again made too much food for the 4 of us in the form of beef and chicken fajitas and way too much queso.

I tried making queso blanco for the first time. The recipe was really straightforward but I think it really needs more kick. It also got REALLY thick after just a few minutes off the stove/no stirring so I think it needed more milk or something but its a nice recipe to start from...



Since I'm not in love with the original recipe... here are a few others along with it for other options:

recipe 1
recipe 2
recipe 3
recipe 4

New Year's Eve Mac & Cheese

For the second year in a row, we headed over to the Stanley's for dinner on NYE. Mike and I decided to stay in this year and relax instead of going to a party. Dinner + Dexter with the Hubs was a great end to 2010!

I brought mac & cheese and got some great comments on it! (Hearing people liked your food is such a great feeling!) I wasn't planning on putting the recipe up so I didn't take any photos... I have been really bad at taking photos the last week or so but here's the recipe -


Mac & Cheese

1 lb. favorite noodles (pick something that will hold the sauce... I used shells this time)
1 stick butter, unsalted
4 cups milk (I had 2 cups 2% and 2 cups whole on hand)
1 smashed garlic clove (optional)
1/2 cup flour
6 cups grated cheese (I had 3 cups sharp cheddar, 2 cup sharp white cheddar, and 1 cup of Romano at home)
Garlic bread or croutons

Boil noodles in salty water until just under al dente (they will continue cooking in the oven). Drain and set aside.

Pour milk into saucepan and warm over low heat. Melt the stick of butter over low heat with the smashed garlic clove. Increase heat to medium low, remove garlic and sprinkle flour over butter, stirring to incorporate. Cook flour & butter 2 to 4 minutes until the flour has been absorbed and the mixture is a golden color. Whisk in warmed milk and let sauce thicken (mine took 12 to 15 minutes). (Stir often during the thickening process.) Take pot off heat and add in grated cheeses. Salt & pepper to taste.

Pour noodles and cheese sauce into buttered 9x13 pan. Bake at 350 for 15 to 20 minutes until bubbly. While baking, put garlic bread or croutons into food processor and pulse to desired consistency. Sprinkle bread crumbs on top of mac & cheese after baking. Put back into oven on top rack to brown the breadcrumbs, this should only take a few minutes. Pull out of the oven once the top is browned. Don't burn the roof of your mouth when you take a scoop right after you pull it out of the oven :)

*And yes, it sounds like a lot of milk and cheese... however, to get a thick and creamy sauce, they are both needed! Don't be scared. Just make a mental note to either hit the gym or not eat the whole dish yourself :)

10th Dish of Christmas 2010 - Mashed Potatoes

Another one of Mike's favorites is mashed potatoes. I got this recipe from my Cooking Light cookbook...

3 lbs of potatoes
salt & pepper
3 tbs chives
6 oz. white cheddar (recipe actually calls for goat cheese)
2 tbs butter
1 cup 2% milk

Boil potatoes until tender in well salted water. Drain and smash along with butter and milk. Stir in cheese and chives. Salt & pepper to taste before serving.

9th Dish of Christmas 2010 - Corn Maque Chou

Growing up, my Aunt Brenda always made corn maque chou during the holidays. I'm not a fan of corn, however, Mike is so I made this as part of our Christmas dinner. (This recipe only makes 2 to 3 servings)

3 ears of corn
1/8 cup diced tomato
1/8 cup diced onion
1/8 cup diced green bell pepper
enough vegetable oil to cover bottom of saute pan
salt & pepper to taste

Peel husks from corn and pull away corn silk. Scrape kernels into a bowl using a knife. Using the back of your knife, scrape all of the "juice" into the bowl also.

Pour vegetable oil and tomato/onion/bell pepper into small saute pan over medium heat. Cook for 5 minutes, until vegetables are tender. Pour corn into saute pan and stir. Cook covered until corn is cooked through (may take up to 30 minutes). Salt and pepper to taste before serving.

Cooking for a Guest!

My bestie came in town for our first ever guest stay at the new house. (Too bad the guest room wasn't finished!) We did some shopping, watched the Aggies get a win over Nebraska and had lots of yummy food!

Friday night I made these maple-oatmeal scones from Ina Garten. YUM! My recipe made way more than her estimated number of 14 scones so beware, and maybe cut in half if you only want a few. I had enough for Laura, Mike, myself, a goodie bag for Ann and her roommate as well as her sister Virginia. I even brought extras to work on Monday! I really enjoyed munching on these throughout the weekend and they were a cinch to make.

new mixer courtesy of some super nice co-workers!

Mike and I cleaned and got the house as presentable as we could, stuffing half-emptied boxes in closets and freshening the guest bath with some white hydrangeas. We've got a lot more work ahead of us (I'm referring to it as botox for the house as opposed to actual plastic surgery haha) but my parents, sister and boyfriend are visiting this week for Thanksgiving so I think we'll have plenty of helping hands to fix up the minor things and help with painting.

Saturday we had a yummy lunch (with cakeballs) at a local deli/bakery called Outta the Oven. We headed to meet Ann, her roommate Alicia and sister Virginia at the Etsy market. We were a bit disappointed... it was really crowded and hot! Hoping for a better selection in the spring. That night we went to Danny and Mitzi's to hang out with other Aggies and watch the game.

Sunday, Laura and I went on a mission to find cute boots. Super successful! She also helped me pick out a couple of things for the house.

We ended the weekend with a dinner of all Giada recipes - Turkey Milanese (made with chicken instead), potatoes with pancetta and an arugula and tomato salad with lemon and olive oil.

are we oinkers or what?

What a great weekend!

Black-Eyed Basmati Salad

I made this Guy Fieri recipe for black-eyed basmati salad this week for a quick side to go with grilled tilapia and green beans. It was a pretty easy recipe... I had all of the spices/liquids as well as a can of black-eyed peas in the pantry and just had to pick up the fresh veggies and basmati rice at the store. I didn't take the time to make the recipe with dry beans but if you have the time, that would be good too! The rice salad has a really light flavor and lots of crunchy veggies (red onion and red bell pepper) to give it a fresh taste.

I liked the recipe overall but will tweak the dressing recipe just a bit... it needs just a little something extra... can't quite put my finger on it just yet. (I also go to use the handy salad dressing emulsifier I picked up at Williams Sonoma after a cooking class. The spout is big enough at the top to let the cilantro and minced shallot to flow through. Plus it has lots of vinaigrette recipes along the side of the bottle with ingredient measuring lines.)

Comfort Food - Mac & Cheese Carbonara

A good friend of mine played nurse for her mom recently. To help make their weekend easier, I made a dish of ulta-comfort food - mac and cheese! But not just any mac and cheese, grown-up mac and cheese with garlic and pancetta. YUM. I got the recipe from Throwdown with Bobby Flay. Here is the full recipe.

I've got a few comments for the recipe... first, one food network website user said it cost them $80 to make this recipe. Yikes. Don't do that. Buy the cheeses that you like and that are in your budget. Lots of assortments of cheese will give you a great flavor for way less than $80.

Second. Temper the eggs before you pour it into the milk/flour mixture. (You temper by first adding a small amount of the hot liquid to the eggs stirring constantly. Do this two or three times until the eggs themselves have warmed up a bit. Then you can steadily pour the egg mixture into the large pot of milk/flour. If you pour the eggs straight into the hot liquid without tempering, you'll end up with sort of scrambled eggs in your liquid.)

Third. The cheeses. Like I said before, buy the ones you like or use what you have on hand. I happened to have sharp white cheddar, smoked mozzarella, and parmesan in the fridge. I picked up a small block of mild cheddar and had enough for the amount of cheese in the recipe.

Lastly, it took my mixture 12-15 minutes to thicken to the point of being a sauce... much longer than the recipe called for. Just be patient... my arm is totally sore today from stirring but it was well worth it!

So back to the story. I made Mike and I a really small dish so we could eat a little of the mac and cheese and I packed the majority of it in a foil container and gave it to my friend for the weekend with her mom. I had my bowl with a green salad... the mac is RICH so just pair it with something a bit lighter for a great meal. This dish has great taste. The garlic really made the dish for me. Here are a few pictures!

garlic cooking

the cheeses



pre-baking

the dish i made for mike and i.

we must have a mouse ;)

a mouse named katie... don't judge

Mashed Potato Skins

I made this easy side dish for Labor Day BBQ at the Stanley's. Get the recipe from Rachael Ray here. This was such an easy dish... no need to even peel the potatoes! Another good thing about the recipe is that its pretty versatile. Want to use turkey bacon? Go ahead. Don't like green onions? Don't add them. Want to add roasted garlic? Throw some in. Make it exactly the way you like your potato skins or baked potato. (Just try to work with the basic ratios given in the recipe.) I happen to love white cheddar and green onions on my potato and Mike loves the bacon so I stuck to the recipe as written. Perfect to adapt to the menu for your next pot-luck, picnic or bbq!





And, I got to use the great casserole carrier that my mom MADE for me. It keeps the dish warm and helps prevent me from burning myself on it while getting it into the car. Love it and my crafty mom!

Warm White Bean and Steak Salad

I saw this recipe on Mexican Made Easy on the Food Network. (Get it here.) It was a really yummy, quick and light (even though there was steak involved). The only thing I did different was to actually warm the beans in a small saute pan on the stove before putting them in a bowl with the other salad ingredients. Just a note - the rinsing and draining of the beans is super important - it cleans a lot of the excess starch and salt off the beans. We also got to use the cast iron pan again for the steak. No steak photos but here are the beans...

Ribs, Cornbread & Cake

I saw this awesome recipe on the Alexandra's Kitchen website and have been saving it for the 4th of July weekend. It really couldn't be easier and is so YUMMY. The claim of best and easiest ribs is totally appropriate. Even though they are cooked in the oven, they still come out smokey, tender and delicious. And the cornbread... thick and light. Just a hint of sweetness.

We had Nick & Erica over for dinner and made this recipe for ribs and cornbread as well as a salad and this brown sugar pound cake with maple and peach syrup from Martha Stewart (I omitted the walnuts from the recipe).






You should definitely make this next time you are in the mood for some bbq!

Cooking with Leftovers: Baby Spinach

I love baby spinach... there are so many things you can add this to... a sandwich, salad, quesadilla filling, lasagna filling etc. However, the bag only comes in one size, giant. Therefore, I'm constantly stuck with half a bag of leftover baby spinach that inevitably goes bad before I can use it. This issue came up again last week when I made chicken, mushroom and spinach quesadillas for my weeknight dinners. I had to use up a good amount of spinach before it went bad so I tried this Giada recipe, penne with spinach sauce.

I did make a couple of changes to the recipe... I can't really get on board with whole wheat pasta so I used Ronzoni Smart Pasta instead. I also substituted feta for goat cheese, reduced the amount by half and used no-fat cream cheese.

The pasta turned out really good! Its good warm or cold. I'm having it this week with some garlic-herb chicken!

Cooking with Something New: Broccolini

"Broccolini is a green vegetable similar to broccoli but with small florets and long, thin stalks." per Wikipedia, reliable source, I know! ;)

I'm trying to eat more (and new) vegetables. I'm not a huge fan of broccoli but I was trying to incorporate it into things I was cooking but with little luck. I kept thinking the taste was a bit overwhelming and wanted it more tender. And, I also don't see the point in just smothering it in cheese in order to consume a vegetable. I watch a lot of cooking shows and they seem to use a lot of broccolini. We picked some up last time we were at Central Market and I cooked it using this recipe from Epicurious.

The recipe could have used a bit more seasoning but overall it turned out pretty tasty. I was pretty surprised that I didn't totally hate it (I'm pretty picky... probably not surprising to anyone). The stalks come out really tender and there's a lot less of the pieces that get stuck in your teeth. Most important, the flavor is a lot milder than regular broccoli which is good for me!

Seventh Dish of Christmas - Creamed Mushrooms

The picture of these Smitten Kitchen creamed mushrooms was too good to not try the recipe! I made the brioche (see previous post), topped with chive butter and brought the creamed mushrooms to the annual Christmas Cocktail party. I think it turned out pretty good!



Good job on the party girls!