Macaroni & Cheese

This is my friend Jill's recipe. It's handy for playdates and potlucks.


Macaroni and Cheese

3 C. cooked macaroni
1 T. butter or margarine
2 C. Evaporated Milk
3 C. shredded Cheese
1/4 C. finely chopped green pepper (optional)
1/4 C. chopped onion (optional)
1 t. salt
1/4 t. Pepper

Toss macaroni with butter. Add remaining ingredients. Pour into a lightly greased crockpot. Cover and cook for 2 -3 hour, stirring once or twice.


Her notes:
Use any kind of noodles you want. Use whatever cheese you want as long as in melts well. I don't add the green pepper and onion because most people don't care for it.
2 C. of evaporated milk is annoying as it is sold in 12 oz. cans. I make up the difference from one cab with half and half instead of having leftover evaporated milk.

My note:
Watch it on high in the crockpot. I had to turn it down to low after 1.5 - 2 hours because it was cooking too much.

Easy-Peasy Stove-top Mac n Cheese

If you're like me, you tend to prefer the mac n cheese from the box cause it tastes better than the weird stove-top recipes out there and the texture is usually better. But, I'd also rather not have it with all those little extras and in theory it's a simple recipe. So after a little fiddling around I realized that mac n cheese is really just a cheesy white sauce. And so it's now simpler and cheaper for me to make it from scratch. And it truly takes no more or less time than boiling the water for the noodles. So, here is my mac cheese from scratch recipe, sorry if you already know how to do this! It was a revelation to me :)

This is very adaptable to different sized portions. The following sauce recipe covered about a pound of pasta. For a single portion I would start the white sauce with just 2tsp or maybe 1Tbs of fat & flour. The trick with a white sauce is to keep your proportions of fat:flour equal, everything else is just added from there.

(White Sauce:)
3Tbs butter/oil
3Tbs flour
1/2- 1c milk (more for a thinner sauce, less makes a thicker sauce)

1c shredded cheddar. The better the cheese, the yummier the sauce.
salt & pepper to taste
~1lb noodles

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium high heat. Add flour and whisk all the lumps out. Cook for a minute or two til flour has whitened. Gradually add milk while whisking until you've got the consistency of sauce you want. The longer & hotter the sauce cooks, the thicker it gets so a little runny is not a problem. Once you've got the right consistency, remove pot from heat and stir in cheese, stirring til it's all melted. Mix with hot noodles and enjoy!

Bean & Yam Burritos

I came across this when looking for this week's menu. We made them once before and they were fantastic! Most of it is done in the  slow-cooker.

2 med. yams or sweet potatoes

1 large yellow onion

1 green bell pepper

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 large green chile

1 T. olive oil

1 T. chili powder

1 tsp. ground cumin

1 tsp. dried oregano

1 c. frozen corn kernels

1 can kidney beans, drained

4 10-inch flour tortillas

1 c. cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese

1. Cut the yams into 1/2 inch cubes. Thinly slice the onion. Stem, seed, and finely chop the bell pepper. Stem, seed, and dice the greed chile. Set aside with the garlic.

2. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion, bell pepper, garlic, and green chile and saute for 3-4 minutes. Stir in the chili powder, cumin, and oregano and cook for 1 minute more.

3. In a slow cooker, layer half the yams, and then top with half each of the onion mixture, corn, and beans. Repeat the layers. Cover and cook on the Low setting until the yams are tender, 5-6 hours.

4. Preheat the oven to 350. Divide the mixture evenly among the tortillas and scatter with the cheese. Fold to enclose the filling and place in a greased baking pan. Cover with foil and bake the burritos for 25-30 minutes. Serve hot.

Super-Fast Pesto Lasagna

I don't know where I got this one from, but we make it quite often. It was the last meal I had before Zoe was born, so it has a special place in my heart. It's very easy as-is since it uses lots of prepared foods, but you could certainly substitute for fresh/homemade ingredients. You could throw in more vegetables, or use less cheese, or whatever. I don't think you can mess up lasagna!

3 c. ricotta cheese

1 c. shredded Parmesan cheese

1 large egg

2 10-ounce packages frozen chopped spinach, thawed, squeezed dry

1 7-ounce package prepared pesto

4 c. bottled chunky pasta sauce

12 no-boil lasagna noodles from one 8-ounce package

2 c. grated Fontina or mozzarella cheese

Blend ricotta and parmesan in medium bowl. Season cheeses with salt and pepper; stir in egg. Blend spinach and pesto in another medium bowl.

Brush 13x9x2-inch glass baking dish with oil. Spread 1 cup pasta sauce in prepared dish. Arrange 3 noodles side by side atop sauce. Spread 1 and 1/4 cups cheese mixture over in thin layer. Drop 1/3 of spinach mixture over by spoonfuls. Repeat layering with sauce, noodles, cheese mixture and spinach mixture 2 more times. Top with remaining 3 noodles and 1 cup sauce. Cover lasagna with foil. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead and refrigerated.)

Preheat oven to 350. Bake lasagna, covered, 35 minutes. Uncover; sprinkle with Fontina cheese. Bake until lasagna is heated through, sauce bubbles and cheese on top is melted, about 15 minutes longer. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.