Category Archives: beans, slaws, quiches, mashers, and casseroles

Jan 28 8 comments
beans, slaws, quiches, mashers, and casseroles, pastas, nuts, and grains

Macaroni & Cheese

For the past two days I’ve been holed up in my apartment, sick.  Yesterday I took in way more Criminal Minds/Gilmore Girls than is probably healthy (though they may cancel each other out) and got winded chasing down the UPS man who was trying to drive off without delivering our new computer.  That’s right, ladies & gents, this recipe is coming at you from our brand new 27″ iMac, dubbed Admiral Adama.  And yes, we named our beautiful new computer after Edward James Olmos’ character on Battlestar Galactica.  We’re nerds.  We’re also planning on naming our puppy Starbuck.

Anyway I am incapable of just being home sick because I always feel I should be doing something.  So I made macaroni and cheese.  Because I didn’t feel good and I wanted the creamy, sweet and spicy goodness that homemade macaroni and cheese can be.  Plus, once the computer was delivered I decided to wait for Dan to get here to set it up so taking pictures of cooking and fantasizing about them on the giant HD screen was as close to feeling good as I could get.  And, naturally, promptly after sticking the dish in the oven I collapsed on the couch, exhausted.

Homemade macaroni and cheese is a pretty simple meal.  Not nearly as simple as opening a packet of powdered cheese and dumping it straight into boiled pasta, but you know, easy compared to making your own bread or some of the other things I encourage you to do here on a regular basis.  In fact, I would venture a guess that the majority of you could pull this off on a weeknight.  Or you could make it ahead and freeze it.  What I’m trying to say is that I made it while dying of the flu* so it shouldn’t be a problem for you to pull off anytime.  Just some shredding, boiling, combining, and baking.

I’m going to go ahead and admit that editing these photos was way more of a pleasure than cooking, or even eating, this dish.  I mean, this computer (and it’s giant screen) has had me making a stream of exclamations that sounds more like a “that’s what she said” joke than anything else.  But I can’t help myself, I’m totally enamored and expect to fall further in love once Dan and I have figured out the logistics of sharing a computer.  That, naturally, will be the hard part.

This could be because I’m almost as much of a computer nerd as I am a food geek.  In fact, sitting in front of it’s giant screen right now and thinking how much more I like this than editing on the couch with my 15″ MacBook, I’d venture to say that really only pie could beat this feeling right now.  Anyway, back to my disjointed and rambling post.  This recipe is, as I said, easy.  But also delicious by all mac n’ cheese standards.  It’s creamy, filling, sweet and a little spicy, with just the right ratio of gooey inner cheese to crunchy outer cheese.  I use spices such as paprika and nutmeg to give it a different flavor profile, but feel free to tweak it to your wants and needs.  It’s great for curling up in front of the tv and watching your favorite bad shows, perfect for this time of year when your body is TIRED OF THE COLD but they’re forecasting snow.

*I may not be literally dying.  It just feels like it. {drama queen} Also, if you look closely at the last picture, you’ll see Edward J. Olmos on the far right of the screen.

Macaroni & Cheese

1 lb penne pasta

1 1/2 cups white cheddar cheese

1 cup extra sharp yellow cheddar cheese

1/2 cup parmesan cheese

4 tbsp flour

4 cups milk

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1 small lemon, juiced

1/2 stick butter

Shred all of your cheese.  Measure out all your spices.

In a sauce pan, heat milk & cream over low/medium heat.  If the pan gets too hot, the milk will curdle.

In another pan, melt butter.  Whisk in flour, making sure there are no clumps.  Slowly whisk in warm milk mixture.  Remove from heat and add 3/4 of all the cheeses and the spices.  Continue to stir until cheese has melted and formed a sauce.  The sauce should be thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

Boil your pasta 3-4 minutes until slightly cooked but still very firm.  Preheat your oven to 350.

Drain your pasta and pour into casserole dish.  Pour cheese sauce over and stir slightly to coat.  Top with the remaining cheese, spread evenly over the top.  Bake for 35 minutes, or until the pasta is tender and the cheese has a nice brown crust.

Nov 19 0 comments
beans, slaws, quiches, mashers, and casseroles, holiday, vegetables

Potatoes Au Gratin


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I am a devotee of the potato.  Mashed, twice baked, casseroled, churned into pies, fried, you name it I love it.  One of the things I receive a lot of comments about how my family puts mayonnaise in their mashed potatoes.  Which I get, kind of, because mayo gets a bum rap, but how is it any different than putting sour cream or even whole milk in your potatoes?  We’re all trying to achieve the same thing people, creamy carby goodness.  Or in this case, one notch above- cheesy creamy carby goodness.

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The phrase “au gratin” refers to a technique where a browned crust is created with breadcrumbs or, in this case, cheese.  Potatoes au gratin are (in this recipe, at least) scalloped potatoes layered with different types of cheeses, topped with cream, and baked in a shallow dish for an extended period of time.  The end result is a crunchy top and layers of soft, gooey, incredible potatoes.  This is the kind of dish that you’ll want to make in your big casserole dish.  Because this is exactly the type of dish that my sisters and I would eat in bed while watching an entire season of Celebrity Mole the day after Thanksgiving.

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Don’t forget, springing this recipe onto your springpad, either from b&s or my springpad page, will automatically enter you to win $100!  And if you’re feeling generous, spring all my thanksgiving 2009 recipes to help me win $500!

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NEW FEATURE:  Finally, a solution to the desire to print, email, & share our recipes has arrived.  If you scroll down, just below the instructions and before the comments, you’ll see a row of icons.  Run your mouse over them and they’ll jump up to full size, revealing their function.  Enjoy!

Potatoes au Gratin

for a small casserole dish. for a larger one, double the ingredients.

5 yukon gold potatoes

1 cup heavy cream

2 garlic cloves

1 cup shredded gruyere cheese

1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese

Peel & slice potatoes, putting them in cold water after their sliced to prevent discoloration.

Shred your cheese. In a small casserole dish, layer potatoes and cheese until you are out of both, ending with a generous layer of cheese.

In a sauce pan, scald cream with the whole garlic cloves. Right before the casserole goes into the oven, pour the cream into the dish. Pour it along the edges so as not to disturb the layers.

Bake at 350 for 1 1/2 hours.

Nov 18 1 comments
beans, slaws, quiches, mashers, and casseroles, holiday, vegetables

Bacon Wrapped Green Beans


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When I was trying to come up with a good appetizer for this year’s Thanksgiving spread, I thought about what dish I wanted to spice up, what ingredients I wanted to use and what I wanted to pass over.  Last year, I decided to skip over the calorie-heavy favorite, the green bean casserole, in favor of other dishes.  Instead, I made apple cider green beans, which I loved but were not a complete head over heels crowd pleaser.

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I thought about other holiday favorites, and realized everything I thought of had one thing in common- it was wrapped in bacon (or prosciutto).  Perfect!  Green beans roast well because they’re a very firm vegetable, and their flavor is strong enough to stand up against bacon.  I decided to pair it with a glaze, something that would play well with the essence of bacon but also tie the dish in with the rest of the meal.  Thanksgiving is, after all, about blending dishes.

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I prepared this side dish as part of a larger meal for Springpad’s 2009 Thanksgiving competition.  Because of this, I wanted this dish to have notes of flavor in common with the other dishes in my spread.  The marinade on my roasted mango and habanero turkey was roasted mango, roasted habanero, and orange juice.  So I made a glaze for the green beans out of brown sugar and orange juice.  The orange juice tied the flavors in with the turkey (and the cranberry sauce).  I used sugar to thicken the glaze, brown sugar in particular because it’s richness compliments the bacon.  The end result was scrumptious, leading Dan to suggest (not for the first time) that everything in life is better wrapped in bacon.

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Don’t forget, springing this recipe onto your springpad, either from b&s or my springpad page, will automatically enter you to win $100!  And if you’re feeling generous, spring all my thanksgiving 2009 recipes to help me win $500!

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Bacon Wrapped Green Beans

2 cups fresh green beans

1/2 lb bacon

1/2 cup orange juice

1/2 cup light brown sugar

Toothpicks

Snap the ends off of your green beans.

Preheat your oven to 400. Cut each slice of bacon in half. Bunch together 5 or 6 green beans, and wrap a piece of bacon around them. Secure with a tooth pick. Repeat until all the beans are wrapped.

Roast for 20 minutes.

While the beans are in the oven, combine oj & brown sugar in a sauce pan. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat and cool.

When the beans are done, plate them and drizzle with sauce.

Aug 15 5 comments
beans, slaws, quiches, mashers, and casseroles

Smoked Mozzarella and Tomato Quiche


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My mother will quite literally laugh out loud when she reads this, but I wouldn’t consider myself a messy person.  Okay, so not only my mother will make fun of that statement.  But, having known truly messy people over the years (and lived with them), I would say that I keep it clean…ish.  Dan isn’t particularly messy either, though he is a pack rat of the highest order.  I usually feel like our apartment is decent.  If we were to unexpectedly die with no time to clean, I wouldn’t be too embarrassed about my mother finding it in it’s typical state.  I mean, unless she checked the baseboards, which really only get dusted when she comes to visit (because she checks while I’m sleeping.  Remind me another time to tell you what she did to my college apartment the week after my tonsillectomy).

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This weekend Dan and I finally faced the reality that was our hall closet, a closet unusually big for a metro-area apartment.  When we moved in it was all organized by a system, but in the past year it has gotten… well, out of control.  It could be the camping gear or perhaps the old television that Dan isn’t quite ready to get rid of yet, but it’s packed floor to ceiling with crap all the way up to the door.  A problem, you could say.

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Since all of our day Saturday was going to be consumed with the frustrating chore of cleaning out the worlds most crowded closet, I thought ahead and made a quiche.  Ever since I saw the movie Waitress (we’re big Nathan Fillion fans) I’ve spent my free time making up pies in my head, as Keri Russell’s character was apt to do.  So, on my way home from work on Wednesday, while trying to figure out what to do with the heirloom tomatoes leftover from a pesto tart and the smoked mozzarella I had bought but wasn’t going to use before it went bad, I thought up the perfect quiche.

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And it was perfect.  I made it Wednesday night while the ingredients were already out, baked it, and froze it.  On Saturday, after hours of trying to make sense of how much crap we’ve accumulated in one short year, we sat down, watched an episode of Firefly, and enjoyed a quiche that was smoky and juicy, light and full of flavor.  With a gin and tonic, of course.

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Smoked Mozzarella and Tomato Quiche

6 eggs

1/4 cup smoked mozzarella cheese, diced

2 cups diced red, orange, and white heirloom tomatoes

1 clove garlic, diced

1 cup milk

1 tbsp dried basil

1/4 cup shredded parmesan

Salt

Pepper

1 pie crust (recipe here)*

* Some adaptations to the pie dough recipe.  No sugar.  Add 1/4 tbsp salt.  Add 1/8 cup shredded parmesan.  Add 1 tbsp dried basil.  Add a pinch of pepper.

Put your dough into the pie dish.  Toss tomatoes with half of the salt, pepper, and basil.  Spread into the dough.

Top with diced mozzarella.

Whisk together egg, milk, parmesan, and the remaining seasoning.  Pour over other ingredients in the crust.

Bake at 350 for 50 minutes or until cooked through.

Mar 29 0 comments
beans, slaws, quiches, mashers, and casseroles

Chicken Pot Pie


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I can thank the Food Network for 70% of my food cravings.  The rest can be attributed to a combination of hormones, food blogs, and advertising.  So last weekends round of Throwdown with Bobby Flay, Good Eats, and Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives left me craving chicken pot pie.  I know that it’s getting beyond casserole season and that before I know it I’m going to be eating only and all fresh vegetables and fruits.  That does not change the fact that I have a few more weekends of weather that makes me crave food that will stick to my ribs.  Probably not good for bathing suit season, but that’s a price I’m willing to pay.

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Usually I prefer a biscuit-top pot pie.  Mostly I’m a huge fan of the biscuit dipped in chicken gravy combination, and that’s the direction I head when I’m making pot pies.  But one of the episodes we watched featured a puff pastry top, which sounded too good to resist.  I also like to throw a few vegetable curve balls into my pot pies.  The tried and true favorites are there- carrots, peas, and chicken.  But I also enjoy adding pearl onions, mushrooms, and sweet potatoes.  I also got the idea to simmer the cream/milk with a whole chipotle pepper from (who else) Bobby Flay.  I love the flavor of dried chipotle, and so when I found whole dried chipotles at the co-op, I knew that it was going to be a good addition.

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I wanted the chicken to have a smokey flavor, but as I live in a one bedroom apartment in the outskirts of Washington, D.C, smoking food is not an option.  So, instead I brushed the chicken with liquid smoke before I cooked it, which works like a charm.  If I understand it correctly the way Alton Brown explained it, liquid smoke is made by trapping smoke that has been created by burning wood in a controlled environment, like a chiminea.  The smoke is trapped and the condensation that is created is diluted (I believe.)  Either way, it creates an authentic smoked flavor in meats and vegetables, and it’s a big coup in apartment cooking.

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This recipe is really easy, I promise.  I suggest you read through the instructions before you start making it because it’s a lot of multitasking.  As soon as you get one vegetable simmering or parboiling, there’s another task to start.  As long as you’re able to focus and think about scalding milk while you chop, you’ll be fine.  And I promise it’s worth it.  It’s bold, spicy, sweet, and savory all the the same time.  And since this type of food is going to be disappearing for the summer soon, it’s a great compliment to an afternoon of basketball.

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Chicken Pot Pie

1 chicken breast

2 cups frozen peas

4 whole carrots, peeled

1 1/2 cups pearl onions

1 1/2 cups cremini mushrooms

1 sweet potato, peeled

2 1/2 cups milk

1/2 cup heavy cream

2 tbsp flour

1 whole, dried chipotle pepper

1 sheet puff pastry, thawed

1 garlic clove

2 tbsp liquid smoke

Salt & pepper

Fresh rosemary

4 tbsp olive oil (half for vegetables, half for chicken)

1 egg

Begin by peeling and dicing your carrots.  Heat oil and garlic, and add in carrots.  Saute five minutes, then add in peas.  

While your peas and carrots are cooking over a medium heat, take out your pearl onions.  If you have never worked with pearl onions before, you should approach them like you would a head of garlic.  Cut off the ends on both sides, and take off whatever skin comes naturally.  Don’t worry about peeling them all the way down.  Dump them in a pot of boiling water, and parboil them for about 5-7 minutes.  Then, strain them, and they’ll be ready to add to the peas and carrots.  In order to get the skin off, just squeeze them a little, and the good part should pop right out.  

While your onions are parboiling, you’re going to scald your milk and cream.  So, mix those two ingredients together over medium heat.  Add in the chipotle pepper.  If your milk comes to a boil before it’s time to add it to the other ingredients, simply simmer it.

After your onions are parboiled and added to the peas and carrots, peel and chop your sweet potato, and bring that to a boil.  You also want to parboil those, so boil them about 10 minutes until they’re medium tender.

While your potatoes are boiling, rinse and chop your mushrooms, and add them to the pea mixture.  

Once your potatoes have joined their fellow ingredients, it’s time to stir in the milk and cream.  You do not want the chipotle to join, so just add in the milk.  I like to add in half the milk, and then add in the rest as the vegetables absorb it.  At this time also add flour, rosemary, salt, and pepper.  

Now that most of your ingredients are happily married, you can bring the temperature down, put a lid on it, and let them simmer while your chicken cooks.  Go ahead and brush the liquid smoke over the chicken, and heat oil in a saute pan.  When your pan is hot, dump your chicken and any liquid smoke left in the bowl into the pan.  Cook your chicken all the way through.  When it’s done, dice it, and add it to the rest of the ingredients.  If your liquid is looking low, you can add the rest of your milk.  

Let the whole mixture simmer while you heat the oven to 350.  Your puff pastry should be thawed (that takes about 40 minutes, so account for that during the preparing).  If you’ve not worked with puff pastry before, it’s super easy.  Let it thaw as it comes in the package, folded.  When it’s thawed, lay it out on a lightly floured surface and make sure it’s all in one piece, mend any cracks. 

When your oven is hot, dump your simmering ingredients into a casserole dish.  Drape the puff pastry over the dish, sealing all the edges.  Brush the top of the puff pastry with egg, and bake for 30 minutes.

Let cool slightly, and serve.  

Serves 4-6