Comfort Food

When it comes to cooking, the best advice I was ever given was that recipes are only guides. I think in baking, you have to follow recipes more carefully (more science than art), but when it comes to dinner creations, the sky is the limit. Substitutions are allowed and encouraged. Let the spirit move you!

My cousin was visiting with her two young kids for dinner tonight. Bud was great at entertaining the toddler while I got dinner on the table. While it would have been a perfect evening to grill, it may not have been practical with the young children around and would have taken a long time with our charcoal grill. I made macaroni and cheese instead. The recipe is based on Christopher Kimball's Baked Macaroni and Cheese found in his Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook, which I love. No fancy kitchen equipment is needed for any of his recipes. Some can be quite labor intensive, but the mac and cheese below is not.

Ingredients
12 oz of elbow pasta

1 cup milk

2 tablespoons flour

5 oz of grated (or cut into small pieces) cheddar cheese (picked up at our local deli that still wraps cheese in paper and string)

5 oz of grated (or cut into small pieces) American cheese (NOT cheese product)
4 T of butter
1/2 cup of breadcrumbs
1/4 cup grated of Parmesan cheese
a little dry mustard (I just used some spicy "wet" mustard I had in the fridge, since I don't keep dry mustard on hand)
a little ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt


Basically, you cook the pasta. While the water is boiling, in a sauce pan, melt 2T butter over medium heat. When the butter is done foaming, add the flour and cook for a minute or two. Then add the milk. Whisk until it thickens ( a minute or two). I then added the nutmeg, salt and mustard. Then added the grated cheeses and stir until melted over the heat. Add the pasta to the cheese mixture and voila. Finito. You can eat it now or put the yummy stuff in a pyrex baking dish (2-3qt) and bake it which is what I prefer. To bake with a crispy top, you will want to melt the remaining 2T of butter in a saucepan and then add the breadcrumbs and let them cook for a couple of minutes. Remove from heat, add the parmesan cheese and then sprinkle over the mac and cheese. Stick under the broiler for a couple of minutes. I made this dish a day ahead, so I actually had to heat it in the oven at 375ish for about 20 minutes before broiling.

For vegetables, we had some pea pods for the kids and a delicious salad combination that my husband came up with earlier in the season and I tried to replicate:

Herb salad:
Lettuce
finely chopped herbs (whatever is available in whatever combination: mint, oregano, thyme, rosemary, sage, basil)
Feta cheese
almonds
ground pepper
dressing of your choice

All of us went out to the ice cream stand for dessert!