Week 22: Snow Family Mac 'n' Cheese

I didn't know what recipe Abby was going to bring with her this week when she showed up for our "Year of Yum" date, but man was I excited when walked in the door with all of the fixings for mac and cheese. Cheesy pasta...comfort food at its best.

I don't know who the Sara Snow chick is (though Abby assures me that if I knew her, I would like her), but she sure does make a mean mac 'n' cheese. Everything in the recipe called for organic, but Abby and I used non-organic butter and cheese. We also used some crazy gluten-free pasta that we were a little nervous about, but it ended up being delicious.

INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cups elbow macaroni
3 tablespoons organic butter
3 tablespoons flour
2 cups organic milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
dash pepper
2 cups grated organic cheddar cheese
2-4 organic roma tomatoes, sliced
1 cup breadcrumbs

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Cook pasta until firm.
Melt butter. Blend in flour. Whisk in milk.
Cook at medium until thick.
Add salt and pepper and 1 1/2 cups cheese.
Stir to melt.
Place cooked macaroni in greased baking dish.
Pour sauce in. Top with sliced tomatoes. Sprinkle with remaining cheese and breadcrumbs.
Bake for about 35-40 minutes. Start with the lid on and then take it off for about the last 20 minutes so the top gets nice and toasty.

Week 21: Grilled Pizza

This week we attempted something we've been wanting to try for a while now; grilled pizza! Sounds slightly bizarre, I know. If you're anything like me, you are thinking, "However does the raw pizza dough not go through the grate of the grill?!" Answer: it must be sheer magic of deliciousness.

Here's what we did:

We formed the dough (we tried three different types of dough, but Pillsbury in the roll from the refrigerated section was probably my favorite) into personal-sized crusts. Plop it in on a pretty hot grill for a couple of minutes. You can tell from the pictures that we didn't worry at all about how our crusts looked...we were going for the rustic look. Make sure to watch it, because I definitely burned a couple of pizzas.

After a couple of minutes, we flipped the crust over and added our toppings of choice. We had all of the usual suspects, plus some chicken, onions, and peppers that we had just grilled.

Now it was time to close the grill so the toppings could get all hot and melty while the other side of the crust was grilling.

During the cooking process, it was mentioned how much more work this was than just ordering a pizza from the hut. But after trying our grilled pizzas, there was really no comparing them with a greasy, lame-toppinged delivery pizza.

I can't wait to do this again!

Week 20: Orzo Squash Salad

This week Abby and I had to use our combined cooking knowledge to figure out how to make our recipe. The reason for this was that this "recipe" really didn't give a lot of detail. It pretty much just describe the dish, and we figured out how to create it! So here goes...

INGREDIENTS
orzo
squash (we used yellow and zucchini)
mushrooms
goat cheese
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS
We cooked the orzo while we sauteed the squash and the mushrooms in olive oil. We added the mushrooms once the squash was already almost done. Mix together the orzo, veggies, and goat cheese. The goat cheese will pretty much melt to mix well throughout the salad.

I'm not a big fan of squash, but this was so yummy! You can cover pretty much anything in goat cheese and I'll be a happy camper!