Four cheese mac-n-cheese

ac-and-cheese, made right, checks all the right boxes for a great meal: flavorful, rich, creamy and cheesey. The "healthy" box doesn't get checked as often (see the original inspiration recipe from Emeril Lagasse here), but after I went through and "lightened" the recipe a bit, I felt like I was able to bring it out of a coronary-alert category and closer to a "make occasionally on a cold winter's day" realm.

This weekend presented an ideal scenario for such a dish. The picture below shows you what surrounded our warm abode: Fog fog fog. The sweet owl (we call Owen) on the eaves was a lovely distraction from the fog, for the five minutes he graced us with his presence.

Four-cheese mac-and-cheese
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons flour
2 cups milk
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
Dash or two of Tabasco sauce, to taste
1 pound elbow macaroni
8 1/2 ounces grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, or other good-quality parmesan cheese (about 2 cups)
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
4 ounces grated cheddar cheese
4 ounces grated chevre cheese
4 ounces grated monterey jack cheese
1/4 cup fresh bread crumbs

In a heavy, medium saucepan melt 4 tablespoons of the butter over low heat. Add the flour and stir to combine. Cook, stirring constantly, for 3 minutes. Increase the heat to medium and whisk in the milk little by little. Cook until thickened, about 4 to 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Remove from the heat, season with the salt, pepper, hot sauce and add the cheeses, bit by bit (all but a handful of the parmesan cheese). Stir until cheese is melted and sauce is smooth (but thick). Cover and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Fill a large pot with water and bring to a boil over high heat. Add salt to taste and, while stirring, add the macaroni. Return to a boil, reduce the heat to a low boil and cook for about 5 minutes, or until macaroni is very al dente (slightly undercooked). Drain in a colander and return the macaroni to the pot. Add the bechamel sauce and stir until well combined. Set aside.

Spray a 3-quart baking dish or casserole with baking spray and scoop the sauced pasta into the dish, smoothing the surface as necessary.

In a small bowl combine the bread crumbs and the remaining handful of grated parmesan and toss to combine. Sprinkle this over the top of the macaroni and cheese.

Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, or until the macaroni and cheese is bubbly and hot and the top is golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to sit for 5 minutes before serving.

One of my favorite ways to eat a rich dish like homemade mac-and-cheese is to accompany it with a roasted vegetable. With this batch of mac-and-cheese, I roasted both butternut squash and brussels sprouts and spooned the cheesey pasta on top. It was quite delightful.

And in a happy happenstance, as I dished up and munched away on this Emeril-inspired dish, I watched the most recent episode of Top Chef, and there he was! I have to say I am pleased to see that this chef, who has at times been shown less respect by his food compatriots, seems to have gained in reputation since the early "Bam!" Food Network days. He was judging a fried chicken elimination challenge along with Wolfgang Puck and the usual Top Chef judging crew, and joy of joys, Josie got sent home! Whew. Sometimes it takes a while, but the kitchen karma comes home to roost!

Fresh pasta (with peas)!

ithin minutes of posting "what should I make with my peas?" the decision was made. Actually, it was probably (undoubtedly) happening even as I uploaded photos of recipes to consider...

Something in me was calling out for fresh pasta! It has been far, far too long since I indulged in that particular culinary delight.

I have made fresh pasta many times in the past, but never truly settled on a go-to recipe. However, I think the recipe I arrived at will work just fine for the foreseeable future. As most good things go, the seed was planted via Epicurious. Where it went from there... all me!

Fresh pasta
Makes a dozen mounds of fettucine (enough to feed 6 people)
2 cups flour
1 3/4 cups semolina flour*
5 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp salt
4-5 Tbsp water

Put the flour, semolina and salt in the bowl of your food processor. Add the eggs and 3 tablespoons of water and pulse until the dough starts to come together. Add additional water as you pulse, in small amounts, until the dough becomes a ball. (If the dough gets a little too gummy, just add a bit more flour.) Process for another 15 seconds, and then turn out onto a floured cutting board to rest for a half-hour minimum, and up to an hour. (If you don't have a food processor, the original Epicurious recipe has some good tips on mixing by hand.)

Pull off pieces of the dough and roll/pat into long, thick ropes.

Now is where having all the Kitchen Aid with pasta attachments is really handy. (Thanks, husband!) But pre-attachments, I've also rolled out pasta sheets, and that's an entirely workable solution too. So do not despair. Grab your rolling pin and flour up your counter and roll out the long, thick pasta ropes until they are thin (really thin, like just under 1/8 of an inch) and the cut whatever shape you're looking for. I am a fan of the fettucine width when I'm making pasta. That shape is also quite forgiving if you're cutting with a knife, too.

Let the pasta sit on the counter and dry a bit, but it doesn't need much air time before cooking.

Bring a big pot of water to boil. (If you saw my link a couple of weeks back about how much water you need to boil pasta, that does not apply to fresh pasta, apparently.) Add the pasta and cook for 6-7 minutes, checking to see if it has reached your desirable al dente state.

Sauce time! If you're like me, the sauce should usually have cheese and cream. If you're husband, it will probably involve a red sauce with some spicy peppers. In this house, we make both; that's just how we roll. But for the purposes of using up the peas, I will share with you the sauce I threw together: the whole reason for making fresh pasta in the first place!

Peas and cream for one
1/2 cup cream
1 egg
1/3 cup parmesan
1/4 cup pine nuts
1 cup peas
1 clove garlic, minced
Salt and pepper to taste

Warm the cream in a small saucepan. Drain the cooked pasta and put your desired amount in a medium bowl. Immediately crack open the egg and mix it thoroughly into the hot pasta, followed by the cream, parmesan, pinenuts, peas and garlic, salt and pepper. Stir well and pour out into a pasta bowl or plate and devour! (I did.)

*While most online recipes call for just all-purpose flour, I got the idea in my head years ago that semolina helps make pasta "better," but had to actually go look around to substantiate that notion. At the very least, I like the color and flavor it brings to the dough, and I think it does make the dough easier to work with. Semolina is pretty findable in most grocery stores around Walla Walla, so hopefully you can find it in your neck of the woods too!

Asparagus lemon pesto pasta

nce upon a time, there was a lemon asparagus pasta recipe, and I'm pretty sure it came from epicurious. But try as I might, it would not show itself--not under "asparagus," asparagus pasta" or even "lemon asparagus pasta." Nothing. After a couple of really decent attempts to find it, I gave up and decided I could wing it on feel and taste and memory alone. And sure enough, that worked. This version is slightly different than I remember, but with asparagus, parmesan and lemon in the pot, it is pretty hard to go wrong.


Asparagus lemon pesto
Serves 2 
1 dozen asparagus spears, steamed, tips cut off
2 Tbsp. olive oil
3 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 Tbsp. grated fresh lemon peel
2 Tbsp. grated parmesan
2 Tbsp. pine nuts
3 Tbsp. chopped fresh basil
Salt and pepper to taste
Fresh parmesan to taste

Put a large pot of boiling water on for your pasta. Whatever shape you like--I generally like a long strand like linguine or spaghettini for this dish.

While your pasta is cooking, steam the asparagus in a separate pot (or in the microwave, if you like shortcuts like me!) and cut off the tips, saving them for later. Chop the spears and put the them into your food processor with the rest of the ingredients. Pulse for about 20-30 seconds, until the mixture is coarse but consistently so. You may need to stir down the sides of your food processor bowl in the middle of pulsing to achieve that.

The asparagus mixture on it's own is quite lovely. It would make a great bruschetta, or even a pizza topping (with extra cheese, of course!)... really a delectable mixture.

Once your pasta is cooked, drain it but keep some of the cooking water (a cup should do). Toss the pasta with your asparagus mixture and add in some of the pasta cooking water to wet the mixture and melt the cheese into the pasta. Add in the asparagus tips and basil, and season with salt and pepper as well as extra parmesan to taste, and serve.

I love the fresh flavor of the asparagus; it simply screams "Spring!" to me, and I welcome it gladly into the supermarket (especially when it's local and not being flown in from Chile or some such exotic locale)! Thus begins many days of cooking with asparagus, happily.

Here's our Aerogarden in full swing! I took a whack at the basil for this recipe, and now need to scare up a dill-oriented recipe or the dill might take over that side of the kitchen! It's a good problem to have.

Valentine's dinner for two: Manicotti

alentine's Day, and what to make for dinner?

Not that long ago I posted a Thursday 13 of recipes I have on my to-do list. And of course, I then got distracted and haven't looked back at the list much in the past couple of weeks, other than the salad dressing recipes and a few ebelskiver omelettes I foisted on Seth last weekend... but when I was pondering what to make my love for Valentine's Day dinner, I knew the homemade manicotti I found on food52 would be a good option.

I culled pieces of the dish from various places. I knew I wanted more than just ricotta in my filling, so I found a spinach ricotta filling at epicurious.com to go along with the crepe recipe from food52. I relied on a jarred marinara and the whole dish came together quite quickly.

The first time I tasted manicotti with a crepe in place of a pasta tube was in 1988 in Sydney, Australia. I was on my own in the city, a squeak of a 19-year-old (well, was I ever a squeak? Maybe not...). I had just landed a studio apartment close to the city center and was gearing up to look for a job waiting tables when I happened upon an Italian restaurant on one of the main thoroughfares downtown. I sat down for dinner and did it up proper--manicotti for my main course and a blueberry ricotta cheesecake for dessert (is it any surprise that I remember this meal more than 20 years later? No, not if you know me.). Apparently I was already a cheese freak, and no one argued with me at the restaurant, of course. In fact, when I inquired about possible employment as I was paying my bill, the manager on duty told me to come back in the morning. I was hired on the spot by what turned out to be an exremely neurotic showgirl-turned-restauranteur's wife and so began a six-month adventure at Cafe Giovanni's.

Oh, but the crepe, the crepe. It made an impression. I didn't even know that a crepe was an option to wrap around the filling--Giovanni's also had a beef cannelloni as well--but I loved it the minute I tasted it. It was so fresh and seemed like the perfect vehicle for the ricotta--no thick, chewy pasta standing between me and my cheese!

Spinach-ricotta manicotti
Crepes
1 large egg
1 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cups whole milk, plus more as needed to thin the batter

Filling
1 pound fresh or whole-milk ricotta cheese
1 cup grated Asiago cheese (about 3 ounces)
3/4 cup chopped frozen baby spinach, thawed and drained, excess moisture pressed out
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 large egg

1 jar (28 oz) marinara sauce
Extra Asiago to sprinkle on top of pan prior to baking

Add the pasta ingredients to the bowl of a blender. Blend, adding more milk a bit at a time, until batter is a pourable consistency. Heat a nonstick 8-inch skillet over medium-low heat. Brush pan lightly with oil, if needed. Hold pan at an angle, and swirl pan as you pour in enough batter to coat bottom of skillet. Cook 30 to 45 seconds, flip and cook for 15 more seconds. And don’t forget, the first one or two might end up being sacrificial until you get the hang of swirling the pan.Transfer to a flat dish or tray. Repeat with remaining batter. You should have 8 to 10 crepes by the end.

For the filling, mix all the ingredients together until well blended. Once the crepes are cooked and cooled, spread a large spoonful of the filling mixture across the surface of each shell and spread it out before rolling each up into a long tube.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spread a thin layer of marinara sauce on the bottom of a 9x13 baking pan. Place each rolled up crepe in the pan as you finish with them. Once the pan is filled with rolled up crepes, pour the remainer of the marinara on the crepes and sprinkle a half-cup of grated Asiago on top.

Bake in the oven until warmed through and bubbly, about 35-45 minutes, depending on your oven.

We ate our manicotti with a tossed green salad and breadsticks! Very amore!

Oh and this? This is what happens when chocolate cupcakes won't come out of their cute little heart molds. I'm posting this so you're not under any false impressions that everything turns out pretty in this kitchen. Not so. But it WAS still yummy. Chocolate cake and vanilla bean ice cream and strawberry freezer jam from a dear friend (thanks, Sara!). Layered and delish.

Zucchini again!

Pasta was on the menu for lunch, and I knew that mine would have basil and tomatoes featured prominently, while the boys would have more of a bolognese (a la Morning Star beefy crumbles). I am alone in my true devotion to basil, but it's one thing I don't mind not having to share! I did a brief sojourn through the garden looking for tomatoes--still green--and saw that the basil needed a hefty snip to keep from bolting, so came back with my scissors and did a trim.

Back in the kitchen I noticed another zucchini I'd picked but hadn't cooked up yesterday and decided rather spontaneously that today would be the day I would experiment with zucchini "pasta." I have read about this dish for a couple of seasons now, where you make zucchini ribbons and they supposedly mimic the pasta in a dish. I do love me my carbs, but if there's something that can mimic it well and not leave me with the carb coma, I'm all for at least taking it out for a test drive.

I did my google search thing and found a number of options. I settled on the NYT article from last summer and ran with it. Got out my trusty mandoline and had a good time making the ribbons--I went for a smaller cut than they did, but it turned out yummy and very very easy.




Sher's zucchini pasta with cherry toms and basil
1 8-inch zucchini, mandolined to your liking
1 clove garlic, minced
1 Tsp. olive oil
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1 cups basil leaves, chopped coarsely
1/4 cup pine nuts
1/4 cup parmesan

In a medium frypan, sauted the garlic in the olive oil for a couple of minutes over medium heat. When it is fragrant, add the zucchini ribbons and toss lightly. Let them saute for a couple of minutes and toss again; do this repeatedly for about 4-5 minutes, until the ribbons are soft.

In a bowl, combine the cherry tomatoes, basil, parmesan and pinenuts. Add the cooked zucchini and toss well to coat the rest of the ingredients with the wetness of the zucchini. Flavor with salt and pepper and enjoy!

Is this pasta? No. Was it yummy? Absolutely. I will make this again, many times. Will the boys eat it? Probably not. But I will try...

In true Sher fashion, I will undoubtedly have to figure out how to make this with Alfredo sauce or something so that it's not too healthy!!

Thursday 13: Thirteen favorite pasta shapes

What's worse than researching pasta shapes late at night when you're hungry? Nothing. Yep, nothing. Remind me to write food-related posts earlier in the day, would you?

Meanwhile, here's my Thursday 13 for this week, my 13 favorite pasta shapes. It's important to remember there are really NO bad pasta shapes, just ones I prefer over others... just so we're clear on that.

What are your favorite pasta shapes?



1. Orrichiette. Always been a big favorite for me, since it's slightly unusual and hard to come by. Fun medium-size ear-shapes that sauces ahere to quite well.

2. Capellini... Angel hair. My favorite twirlable pasta. Love the thinness of the noodle; it wraps so delightfully around my fork tines!

3. Orzo. A wonderful little shape to make a pasta salad. Or a kind of fake-o risotto. It goes over big with the young lad around here with just butter and salt. Me, I need to throw in some parmesan.

4. Ravioli. Stuffed with just about anything. Well, usually cheese... goat cheese, ricotta... or butternut squash. A great favorite.

5. Pipe rigate. Nice and fat. I actually like making macaroni and cheese with this shape, since it's bigger than the usual macaroni noodle... more space for the cheese sauce to latch on to!


6. Cavatappi. Sort of like fusilli, just shorter.

7. Ditalini. I love this short stubby shape much better than longer tubes, for some reason.

8. Gigli. (No, not the movie!) Almost a work of art. I think an alternate name for these is "lilies." Which totally makes sense.

9. Radiatore. A great shape for chunky meaty sauces to cling to.


10. Small shells. This is my favorite shape for making "macaroni" salad--the kind with peas and little cubes of cheddar.

11. Tortellini. Again with the stuffed. Hooray.

12. Fusilli. Long and spiraly. It reminds me of what I wanted my hair to look like in middle school... long and spiraly! At least in my old age I've come to terms with the fact that my hair is actually angel hair!

13. Gnocchi. Yes, this is an pasta shape, separate from the actual potato-based dumplings that I love as well.

Happy Thursday 13! Now go make a big bowl of pasta for lunch. I know I will!!

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Oscar night pasta: Angel hair with blue cheese, grapes and croutons!

This is a pasta for the brave blue cheese lover. It all began with a Mark Bittman moment (his NYT blog Bitten is a favorite of mine) over the weekend, and in getting caught up on reading his recipes and blog posts, I got further caught up in the comments... one thing led to another, I got hungry Sunday night just as the Oscars started and my own experiment took off.

Let me say, too, that the photos don't do it justice. I must have been distracted by Hugh Jackman or something...

I had never considered croutons on pasta before. Just didn't really think about it. I'm all about bread salads and such, even croutons on soup of course, but when the writer submitting the recipe mentioned croutons for the crunch factor, I had to give it a whirl. I didn't have the arugula that the original recipe called for, so in looking down in the comments I saw grapes and thought, "Oh yes!" I have always liked grapes and blue cheese together. There's a wonderful local restaurant that has a grape salad on their menu right now that is to die for, so I thought if this is even close to that...

So we begin...

To make your own croutons, cut a loaf of crusty bread into cubes. Mine got a little large, for which I was thankful later--less soggy, a little more crunchy. Toss the bread cubes with oil. I did a mixture of 2 T. olive oil, 2 T. basil grapeseed oil and 2 T. rosemary grapeseed oil. Spread on two baking sheets and bake at 375 for 10-15 minutes, until browned. I switched racks halfway through to get the browning even.

Cook the pasta. I went with angel hair, just loving the thinness. Before draining, reserve a half cup of the cooking liquid. Drain and set aside 2 cups of cooked pasta.

While the pasta is cooking, rinse and cut about 1.5 cups of red grapes (black grapes would also be good and I love their texture). Heat a frying pan over medium high heat and saute the grapes in a little rosemary grapeseed oil. When they are heated through and somewhat seared (happy carmelization with the sugars!), toss them in with the pasta and a half cup of blue cheese crumbles. Drizzle the pasta cooking liquid over and add a half cup of chopped basil. Toss thoroughly, add a handful of croutons and you're good to go. (Too much liquid and you'll lose the blue cheese texture, so go with a light hand on that. You won't need the full half cup.)

I scarfed happily while watching celebrities do their love-fest thing, and life was good!

Does it get any better than this? Why yes, Virginia, it really does! Leftovers!

Yesterday was our 3rd anniversary, and we wanted to celebrate quietly at home--it had been a long day for both of us and we were looking forward to putting our feet up and catching up on Jack Bauer's latest adventures. Alas, I'd forgotten how brutal 24 can be...

So, I needed some comfort food to go with the drama. We both wanted pasta, and I made a very meaty non-meat marinara for Alan, and went straight to the hard stuff (alfredo) for myself. I have not made anything with full-fat dairy in a very long time, and I will blame the Warm Bunny herself for dragging me back with her green bean gratin recipe. I bought some heavy whip to make a butternut squash gratin for Thanksgiving, and knew I could spare a little for some pasta love.

Here's my standby alfredo. I have made this recipe (times 50) for really big crowds, and it works well to multiply. It is very much a keeper, even if the times between making it need to stretch out further and further as the years go by...

Happy Anniversary Alfredo:

2 T. unsalted butter

1/2 c. cream

1 egg yolk

1/4 c. parmesan

salt and pepper

Melt the butter in a small saucepan, add the cream and simmer. Briefly beat the egg yolk before adding to the cream, stir in the parmesan and warm through. Toss with pasta and devour. Last night I added about 3/4 cup chopped basil, 1/4 cup pinenuts and a generous handful of parmesan. Oh my.

Now very tradtional alfredo won't have the egg yolk, but I'm not a big purist on this, and find it is a good addition without getting too rich. Or so I remembered...

This is NOT an everyday meal. No way. About six mouthfuls in, I was a little overwhelmed with the richness. So my compromise was to add some of Alan's lovely red sauce to it (see below), which cut the richness a bit and I was able to soldier on! I didn't actually make it through my bowl... but I DID rewarm the leftovers for lunch today, and it was even better than last night. If possible.

Yum. Scrum. Love. Pasta. Love. Husband. Happy. Anniversary.