Holiday cooking, part 2 (Mac and cheese attempt)

The topping got a bit burnt in the broiler, but it still tasted pretty good...

     I have been wanting to write this post for a while but a cold and the holidays caught up with me.  I finally (finally) cooked my first macaroni and cheese recipe since I started this blog.  And, the best news is, it definitely has potential!
     I would first like to start this blog with a big thanks to Scott's friend, Pete.  We have been staying over at Pete's house every December for the Christmas holiday.  Pete has been nice enough to take us in and make us feel welcome!  I am very blessed that all of Scott's friends and family have made me feel like I was a part of their family.  So, a big thanks to Pete and everyone else for that!  Plus, Pete was the one who gave me the challenge of cooking macaroni and cheese for his traditional night before Christmas party.  I knew just which recipe I was going to try; Cook's illustrated Classic Macaroni and Cheese.
     In case you don't know about Cook's Illustrated, this is a classic cooking magazine that thoroughly tests every single recipe sometimes hundreds of times until they come up with the ideal recipe.  I had a subscription to their magazine last year and decided to update to their online membership this year so I could have access to all of their recipes.  I quite enjoy Cook's Illustrated, but usually find their recipes a bit too complicated to cook.  I like cooking a little simpler food although am certainly quite capable of cooking a more complicated recipe.  Anyways, I thought I would put their ultimate Macaroni and Cheese recipe to the test.  Here it is:

Classic Macaroni and Cheese


Serves 6 to 8, or 10 to 12 as a side. Published May 1, 2004


Note: It's crucial to cook the pasta until tender--just past the "al dente" stage. In fact, overcooking is better than undercooking the pasta. Whole, low-fat, and skim milk all work well in this recipe. The recipe can be halved and baked in an 8-inch-square, broilersafe baking dish. If desired, offer celery salt or hot sauce (such as Tabasco) for sprinkling at the table.


Ingredients:

Bread Crumb Topping
6 slices white sandwich bread (good-quality, about 6 ounces), torn into rough pieces
3 tablespoons unsalted butter (cold), cut into 6 pieces

Pasta and Cheese
1 pound elbow macaroni
1 tablespoon table salt
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons powdered mustard
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
5 cups milk (see note)
8 ounces Monterey Jack cheese , shredded (2 cups)
8 ounces sharp cheddar cheese , shredded (2 cups)
1 teaspoon table salt


Instructions


1. For the bread crumbs: Pulse bread and butter in food processor until crumbs are no larger than 1/8 inch, ten to fifteen 1-second pulses. Set aside.
2. For the pasta and cheese: Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat broiler. Bring 4 quarts water to boil in Dutch oven over high heat. Add macaroni and 1 tablespoon salt; cook until pasta is tender. Drain pasta and set aside in colander.
3. In now-empty Dutch oven, heat butter over medium-high heat until foaming. Add flour, mustard, and cayenne (if using) and whisk well to combine. Continue whisking until mixture becomes fragrant and deepens in color, about 1 minute. Gradually whisk in milk; bring mixture to boil, whisking constantly (mixture must reach full boil to fully thicken). Reduce heat to medium and simmer, whisking occasionally, until thickened to consistency of heavy cream, about 5 minutes. Off heat, whisk in cheeses and 1 teaspoon salt until cheeses are fully melted. Add pasta and cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is steaming and heated through, about 6 minutes.
4. Transfer mixture to broiler-safe 9-by 13-inch baking dish and sprinkle evenly with bread crumbs. Broil until crumbs are deep golden brown, 3 to 5 minutes, rotating pan if necessary for even browning. Cool about 5 minutes, then serve.

     The truly interesting thing I found about this recipe is that you don't bake it at all.  This goes against all other recipes that I have made for Macaroni and cheese.  I used a cheddar jack mixture since the grocery store didn't have shredded sharp cheddar cheese.  I also ended up using nonfat milk since that was what was in Dot's refrigerator.  I also used Pepperidge white sandwich bread for the bread crumbs and pulsed them in a blender, not a food processor since that was all that was available.
     The verdict?  Quite good, actually!  I was pleasantly surprised.  Unlike other macaroni and cheese recipes that I have made, this one actually did taste cheesy although it was a little bland.  I think using extra sharp cheddar would have made a difference there.  I also think it needed just a wee bit more salt.  I wasn't particularly happy with the bread crumb topping.  To start off with, I burned the bread crumbs in the broiler.  I tried scraping off the burnt bread crumbs (like you do with burnt toast) and found that the bread crumbs underneath weren't really toasted at all.  I think next time I am going to use Panko bread crumbs, as they are a far superior topping than anything else I have found.  The nonfat milk didn't really seem to make a taste difference.  So, I think I am going to try to make this recipe again with a few more modifications.
     The cooking process was pretty easy, although it was a chore to sit there and whisk the whole time!  It makes me wish I had an automatic whisker!  I was quite pleased that it did indeed thicken up to the consistency of cream and the cheese melted quite easily.  However, boiling milk always makes a big mess on the bottom of the pan.  My thumb still hurts from scraping off the bottom of that pan with a brillo pad.  I think I scraped away a bit of my skin!  It was definitely worth it, though!  Other people enjoyed it, too!  Pete's sister (a wonderful cook herself) said it was "excellent."  Yay!

Holiday cooking

     Who would have guessed that your intrepid chef would have found a time or place to cook in her busy holiday plans?  Well, you would, of course!  So, I bring you onto what I hope to be many (well, at least two!) blogs about my cooking over the holiday season.
     I should first mention that these next few blogs will not take place in my own lovely kitchen.  Instead, I will brave the elements (literally!) to cook in a variety of places on the east coast.  My first stop?  Gloucester, MA and the kitchen of my fiance's mother, Dot. 
     I am very fortunately in that I can say I have a wonderfully lovely mother-in-law.  Soon to be mother-in-law, I suppose.  With the typical stigma that mother-in-laws get, I was rather nervous about meeting Scott's mother for the first time four years ago.  Fortunately, Dot is a very down to earth genuinely nice person!  After eating her wonderful cooking, I wanted to give back a little by cooking for her.  Dot doesn't thrive on the spicy stuff (especially green chilies) like Scott and I do, so I decided to do the simple (but delicious) stuffed shells.  It was the first time I had made stuffed shells but knew they had to be very similar to stuffed manicotti which I had made before.  Fortunately for me, they were!  I modified the recipe a little bit (dropped the mushrooms that an online recipe had called for and added ground beef instead).  My recipe is as follows:
STUFFED SHELLS

1 (12 oz) package pasta shells
2 eggs, beaten
1 (32 oz) container ricotta
3 cups shredded mozzarella
6 oz shredded parmesan
1 tbsp parsley flakes
2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground pepper
1 jar of tomato sauce
1 lb ground beef

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cook pasta in boiling water for 8-10 minutes.  Drain and rinse off with cold water.
3. Cook ground beef and drain off fat.
4. In one bowl, mix the beaten eggs, ricotta, 1/2 the mozzarella, 1/2 the parmesan, parsley, salt and pepper.
5. In another bowl, mix the ground beef, tomato sauce and the rest of the cheese.
6. Stuff the shells with the ricotta/eggs/cheese mixture and place in a buttered 9 x 13 baking dish.
7. Top with the meat/cheese/tomato sauce.
8. Bake in the oven for 45-60 minutes until the edges are bubbly.

     That's it!  It's a pretty easy dish to make.  I have become really good at multi-tasking in the kitchen, so I preheated the oven, boiled the water and ground the beef all at the same time.  While those were all cooking, I mixed the cheese (it was so cold!!) and then the tomato sauce.  Stuffing the shells was a bit laborious, but not too bad at all (especially since I rinsed them with cold water so I wouldn't burn myself!).  The baking dish was definitely stuffed (get it, stuffed?  haha!) to capacity and I was a bit nervous putting it in the tiny oven.  I started smelling a burning smell about 40 minutes in, which I theorized was caused by a little bit of sauce boiling over and hitting the bottom of the oven.  Certainly none of the food burned!  And the final verdict?  Delicious, of course!  Best of all, Dot enjoyed it!

Stuffed shells hot out of the oven



Our dinner table

Enjoying my meal

Scott and Dot enjoy theirs

Farmer's market goat stew

     I have been waiting to write this blog post all day.  As a matter of fact, I suppose that I have been waiting to write this blog since Saturday morning.  Saturday morning Scott and I actually both got up early enough to not only go to the Cabrillo Farmer's market in Aptos but spend a whole hour there!  This is quite unusual, as the farmer's market is from 8-12 and usually we can't motivate ourselves to get up and out of the house that early.  What can I say?  We are both not morning people.
     However, this saturday was an exception.  We were both up around 7:30 am and so actually got to spend some time at the farmer's market.  Usually I don't pay attention to the butcher's tent (I'm not much of a meat eater and the meat there is expensive) but today I noticed that they were selling goat meat.  I love goat meat.  Love love love love love it.  It is so much more than beef.  Alas, I don't know much about meat so I asked the lady working there what she would recommend for a man who's never had it (fiances come in handy sometimes).  She recommended the goat leg steak for a stew meat.  "Perfect for weather like this." she said.  Well, that started the wheels a turning and I decided to buy other vegetables to go with a stew.  Potatoes, leek, onion, carrots they all went in the bag.  I decided that since the meat had the bone in I would cook it in the slow cooker for that "fall off the bone" tenderness.
     Fast forward to today, monday.  At about 10:30 this morning I started preparing my stew.  I was pretty excited because I was making the recipe up completely from scratch.  After looking at a few cookbooks, I had a general idea of what I wanted but the particulars and cooking times would fall to me.  First, I took the goat steak and browned it a little.  They always say to brown meat before you put it in the slow cooker for extra flavor.  Then, I chopped up potatoes, carrots, onion, leek and put it all in.  Covered with beef stock and a few herbs added in and there you go! 
     I got to use two new/old things.  First, my brand new large capacity slow cooker.  It has been sitting in a box for months and I am so excited of the opportunity to finally use it!  Second, my hand held food chopper.  I bought this one a long time ago but didn't particularly like it because it honestly didn't do that great of a job.  Well, it still is not as powerful as my food processor, but it was adequate and easier for the task at hand (chopping leeks and onions). 
     So, here's the recipe.  It's not very exact (I kind of eyeballed the herbs) but it sure is delicious.  I am sure you can mess with the proportions a little.

Farmer's market goat stew

olive oil
salt
pepper
goat leg steak (mine was 1.27 lbs)
yukon potatoes, cubed (I used 7)
carrots, sliced (5)
leek, chopped
onion, chopped
beef stock (2 pints)
rosemary (pinch)
thyme (pinch)
bay leaf

1) Heat oil in pan.  Put salt and pepper on both sides of the goat steak and brown it in the pan on all sides.  Put in slow cooker.
2) Chop all the veggies and add them on top.
3) Cover with beef stock and add in the herbs.
4) Heat on high heat for six hours.
5) After six hours, remove the goat steak and start breaking it into pieces.  It should be fall-off-the-bone tender.  Add the pieces back into the stew.
6) Enjoy!  Especially good with sourdough bread and Pinot Noir wine from Salamandre.  Yum!

     There you have it.  My first (okay, maybe not my first) all myself slow cooker recipe.  I am very proud.  I didn't know how this would come out and am very happy to report that it turned out delicious!  The only bad thing about it is that you have to smell it for all those hours while it is cooking!  I hope you enjoy!



Heather and Scott enjoy the meal




A toast (both bread and wine!)