Mac and Cheese

This was the first time I made homemade mac and cheese. It's definitely not a diet recipe, and it was really good. I started with this recipe as a base, and made it first for a family party and then made it again with just cheese as the topping the second time around. It was better with just extra shredded cheese as the topping. Broil it for a second after baking if you need it to be crisper. The original recipe calls for regular bread crumbs sauteed in butter, but I used panko breadcrumbs, which are a little crunchier. The topping was good, but I wouldn't always want it on top of my mac and cheese, and the extra butter that it is sauteed in at that point just seems gluttonous (although maybe no more so than extra cheese).


The nice thing about this recipe is that it easily doubles, and any extra cheese sauce can be kept in the fridge for up to a week. I would imagine this cheese sauce could lend itself as a base for other dishes, or it might be nice served over a chicken breast or over some broccoli. You can also make the mac and cheese and then freeze portions in smaller containers. A quick lunch for later with no imitation food ingredients!

Guest Blogger: Golabki (stuffed cabbage)

Post 2 of 2 of the Polish special from guest blogger Judy. This is my mom's version of my grandma's golabki. The creamy tomato sauce is delicious. Might I suggest chopping up some garbanzo beans to use in place of meat in this dish to make it lighter. Read the recipe for golabki or read the first installment of this series, beet soup.

How not to make broccoli cheese soup

If I tried this again, maybe I would make a quick roux out of flour and butter, then add milk, then melt shredded cheddar in it, then puree some steamed broccoli and add that in there. Maybe that would work. I tried making a quick one by putting some raw broccoli in the food processor, sauteing it in some butter, adding milk and cheese and thickening it with some instant mashed potatoes. (Hangs head in shame). Then I tried to get it to come together with the immersion blender. And it looks okay in the picture, but looks can be deceiving. I thought the taste was actually pretty good, but the consistency was awful and Tom hated it. Which seems impossible, because he loves broccoli and he loves cheese.

Maybe next time, but I think I've lost my taste for this for a while.

The best veggie dip

I was not authorized by my mom to post this recipe, so I may be letting the dill weed out of the bag, but I made her famous veggie dip for the first time today, so I thought I'd post it. Everyone loves it. My friend Andrea's fiance even told my mom that he would marry her because of the veggie dip alone, if he wasn't already marrying Andrea. That was weird, but I guess it goes to show what this dip does to people.

She doesn't measure it when she makes it, and I didn't today either, but I am approximating it here. You can adjust to taste.

1 cup real mayo
1 cup real sour cream
1 tbsp dill weed
1 tbsp old bay seasoning
1 tsp garlic salt

Enjoy!

Guest Blogger: Polish Beet Soup

Let the polka begin!  Guest post 1 of 2 for a special Polish feature. Here's the recipe for my Grandma's beet soup, as recreated by my mom.

Zesty Pizza Sauce

I had some tomatoes to use up and pizza sounded good, so I improvised a quick pizza sauce. Worth making again.

I didn't make the dough yesterday as planned, so today I picked up some premade dough from Trader Joe's, which was okay.

Here's the recipe for the sauce.

New camera! Pesto photo shoot

Made pesto tonight - won't bore you with the recipe that I made up that was just okay - but here are some lovely pictures, courtesy of my new camera.