Macaroni And Cheese

This recipe is inspired by a former coworker and good friend of mine. She brought a dish of leftover macaroni and cheese for lunch one day, and it looked and smelled amazing. She was kind enough to share her recipe with me, and I have made a few modifications to it.

What You Will Need

8 oz macaroni, cooked and drained. (If you are cooking the pasta ahead of time, rinse it with cold water after it’s cooked to avoid it sticking together)

1/2 an onion, minced
1 tbsp butter
1/4 cup of flour
2 1/2 cups of milk
2 cups of grated cheddar cheese
1 can of small cut tomatoes, drained well
1 1/2 Field Roast italian sausage, diced small (optional – my friend used diced ham. I have made this without the sausage and it is still really yummy)
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

What You Do:

In a large saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Saute the onion until it is soft and kind of see-through. Add the flour and stir into the onion. Cook for 2 minutes stirring constantly to cook out the floury taste.
Slowly add the milk, stirring constantly, until the sauce begins to thicken. Remove from heat and stir in the cheese until it has melted. Add your salt and pepper, stir in the drained tomatoes, and heat for 3 minutes on low heat to heat the tomatoes. Give your sauce a taste and season to taste, if needed.
Add the macaroni to the sauce and mix until well coated. Add the Field Roast sausage (if using) and continue mixing.
Pour into a greased 9 x 13 pan (I have used an 8 x 8 pan in a pinch, but it’s a bit of a tight squeeze) and bake for 35 – 40 minutes until bubbly.

I like to keep it simple and just serve this with a green salad and some tasty bread – tonight I am trying some bread I bought at the local farmers market called Flaming Fig – Gay bread for the Straight Man from a local bakery.

This reheats really well, and while macaroni and cheese can sometimes be really heavy I find this to be a bit lighter.
When you put it in the pan it may look a bit soupy but the sauce will cook into the pasta.

Teriyaki Sauce

It was another clean out the fridge night, this time with the veggies in the crisper. After a quick rummage through the fridge and a trip to the store, I had enough to make a yummy stirfry. The nice thing about stirfries is that you can use vegggies that have been in the fridge for a while and are beginning to look a lot less than fresh. I even used up a leftover BBQ chicken, putting that aside for my met eating hubby to put in his stirfry. (Once I made the sauce I put a spoonful in a bowl with the chicken to do a kind of cooked marinated chicken. He said it was great!)

What You Will Need:

The veggies of your choice (I used broccoli, cauliflower, 2 peppers, an onion, some baby corn, mushrooms and asparagus)

1 cup of cooked rice or noodles

For The Sauce:

1/4 cup finely diced onion

1 clove of minced garlic

1 tsp minced ginger

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup soy sauce

1 cup vegetable broth or vegetarian chicken broth

1 tbsp rice wine vinegar

1 tsp sriracha (optional – I like my sauce with a bit of spicy to it. You could also use a pinch of dried chilies)

2 tsp cornstarch mixed with 1 tsp of water

What You Do:

For the sauce, saute the onion in a bit of butter or oil until it is translucent and soft. Add the garlic and ginger and cook for 2 minutes. Add the brown sugar, chicken or vegetable broth, hot sauce, rice wine vinegar, and cornstarch & water mix. Simmer over a low heat until the sauce begins to thicken. If you want a thicker sauce, slowly add more cornstarch mixed with water.

For the veggies, blanch the harder ones like cauliflower, broccoli and carrots. Once they have been cooled and drained, saute in a bit of oil until they are cooked through. Add all other veggies and warm through. Put rice and veggies on a plate, and cover with as much sauce as desired.
I like to serve the sauce seperate rather than pour it over the veggies, I find it keeps them crunchier for reheats the next day.
This recipe makes enough to serve 2 large plates, or 4 small ones.

Taco Soup Recipe

Thanksgiving is over. I am so full from the last few days that the idea of sitting down to an actual meal is somewhat overwhelming. Add to that, at 5 1/2 months pregnant the nausea is still hanging around, making the idea of me actually making dinner also overwhelming.
My dinners lately have been things I can take out of the freezer and quickly cook (perogies), things I can put in a pan and quickly cook (grilled cheese), things I can put in a casserole dish and shove in the oven while I go nap (any type of pasta smothered in sauce and topped with cheese), and anything that my husband makes for me (a can of soup).
I decided today that I was going to pull out my slow cooker and try some soup that I can easily reheat during the week. I also wanted to try and clean out some of the things in the fridge that were going to be tossed out if they didn’t get used up soon.
The end result was my version of taco soup (or tortilla soup, since you can add the crunched up taco chips before eating it)

What you will need:

1 can of black beans rinsed and drained (I used part of a leftover can of black beans from quesadilla night a few nights back)
1 can of kidney beans rinsed and drained
1 each green and red pepper diced medium (or small if you want it less chunky)
1 medium onion diced medium (I used leftover peppers and onions from the quesadilla night)
1 regular can of diced tomatoes and its juice
1 can of tomatoes with chilies and its juice
1 can of corn, drained
1 package of taco seasoning
1 package of powdered ranch salad dressing mix (I know, it sounds totally out to lunch, but don’t leave it out. I promise it won’t taste bad)
2 cups of vegetable broth, or McCormack’s vegetarian chicken broth

What you do:
Dump everything into the slow cooker, turn it on low and forget about it for 9 hours. Or, turn it on high and leave it for 6 hours. I try and stir mine every few hours, but if its on low you probably don’t have to. (But it is a good excuse to taste it!)
Make sure not to drain the tomatoes. You don’t have to drain the corn, but I think corn juice is yucky so I drained mine. Once the soup is cooked I pureed about a cup of it in a blender, just to thicken it up, but you don’t have to do this. You can add cheese and sour cream or avocado as a garnish in addition to the crunched up taco chips. All are tasty.

Note: This soup does have a bit of a kick to it. I didn’t realize that before I added a few slices of jalapeno pepper to the pot, and then spent an hour trying to find them and fish them out. If you find it’s too spicy, add 1 tbsp brown sugar and 1 tsp soy sauce to the soup, it will take away some of the spicy. I also added the juice of half a lime.

This makes a pretty big batch of soup, but the nice thing is that you can make it a day in advance, throw the slow cooker dish in the fridge, pull it out the next day, put it back in the slow cooker and turn it on, and your house will smell amazing AND you will have a tasty dinner for when you come home from work!