mac 'n cheese

i have tried many homemade mac 'n cheese recipes over the years. one reason is because homemade mac 'n cheese is one of my favorite comfort foods. the other reason is that my kids are extremely picky eaters, and mac 'n cheese is one of the few things they'll eat. this is my favorite recipe and is a variation on a recipe for 'cheesy corkscrews with crunchy bacon topping' from my down home with the neelys cookbook. this recipe is for the noodles with cheese sauce only, but at the end i will talk a bit about toppings.

6 tbs butter
1 lb cavatappi noodles
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
4 cups whole milk, warmed
1 tsp dry mustard powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
pinch freshly grated nutmet
dash hot sauce
dash worcestershire sauce
10 oz. cracker barrel vermont sharp white cheddar grated
1 1/4 cups grated parmesan

1. preheat oven to 375°

2. boil water for cooking pasta...add some salt and olive oil.

3. prepare ingredients as follows: a) warm milk in microwave for 1 minute b) grate all cheese and place in a bowl c) measure out all spices and put in a little bowl d) measure out flour e) have hot sauce and worcestershire sauce out. place all these items in easy reach from where you will be cooking.

4. once you put the noodles in you can start cooking the sauce. the noodles will take about 6 minutes because you will want them to be al dente.

5. melt the butter in a big saucepan over medium heat. add the flower and cook whisking for one minute. add the warmed milk and keep whisking constantly while bringing it to a simmer. the sauce should start to thicken as the heat increases.

6. stir in the spice mixture, hot sauce and worcestershire sauce.

7. add in the cheddar and parmesan and mix until melted.

8. add the cooked pasta to the cheese sauce and toss to combine.

9. pour the pasta and sauce into a casserole dish. cover with toppings and bake for 35 minutes.

toppings: i don't use the topping recipe from the neely cookbook instead i take two to three pieces of wheat bread and put them through the food processor and then add about 2 tbs of melted butter. then i sprinkle that on top of the pasta, so it makes a nice crunchy topping. i also sometimes add the bacon and fresh parsley mentioned in the neely recipe, but i don't care for the potato chips because the texture seems strange to me. for the neely crunchy bacon topping mix 1 1/2 cups crushed potato chips, 1/2 cup grated percorino romano cheese, 5 slices cooked bacon, crumbled and 3 tbs chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley.

suki helping out with the magic spices!

don't know what to call it wonton appetizer

well, i created a new recipe! i'm very excited about this one because i thought of it when i was going through recipes last week looking for appetizers for thanksgiving day. for some reason none of them appealed to me, but as i was looking through recipes several ingredients kept catching my eye, so i thought why not come up with something using the few ingredients that really caught my attention. the main ingredient that i was really craving is guyere cheese...shocking right? then i had read a recipe for a salad that had carmelized onions as part of the dressing and i thought that sounded really good. and the third ingredient was a no brainer...bacon. then i wasn't sure how i should combine the three, and puff pastries came to mind, but i already use puff pastries in a ton of appetizers, so i wanted to try something new. i kept asking myself what makes food so good...and right as i was thinking that i was flipping through one of my everyday food magazines and came across a picture of fried mozzarella balls and the light went on...of course...it has to be fried! so...with that i knew i'd be making a wonton appetizer.

1 cup grated guyere
4-5 slices of bacon cooked and chopped
half a small yellow onion chopped
half a package of small square wonton wrappers

1. cook the bacon and chop it. reserve about 1 to 2 tablespoons of the bacon grease in the pan.

2. in the same pan with the reserved bacon grease carmelize the onions.

3. grate the cheese into a small mixing bowl and add the other two ingredients and toss to mix.

4. fill the wonton wrappers with a teaspoon or so of the mixture and wrap to your liking...i folded them in triangles then folded the top to one side and the two sides corners folded over the other side. i dabbed  a little water along the edges before folding them over into triangles, so they would stick together better.

5. i fried the wontons in peanut oil over medium high heat...they took maybe 30 seconds to a minute per side.

take the bacon out when it is just to the point of turning crispy...

use a little bit of the bacon grease to carmelize the onions in...

don't crank the heat too high or the onions will burn instead of carmelizing...

the wonton filling! you don't need much...

my little wrapping station...

almost two dozen with these amounts...don't over stuff!

into the oil...

the finished product...totally delicious!

tips: i highly recommend only a teaspoon or teaspoon and a half of filling per wonton. the gruyere and onion are extremely flavorful and with a smaller amount of filling it leaves you wanting just a little bit more, which is where i think good food should leave you. that way you can eat a dozen of these without making yourself completely sick.

sausage-cheddar-parmesan quiche

this year we're kicking off our thanksgiving with a hearty sausage quiche! this is just another variation on suzanne's quiche recipe, which you can find by going to the 'breakfast' link on the right sidebar under 'recipe index'. i made a few changes, so my two little picky eaters would join us for breakfast. although this was given to me as a vegetarian recipe you can get very creative with it as a vegetarian or a carnivore. today though, veggies were out with my two little ones, so i swapped out the two cups of veggie filling with some basic breakfast sausage that i cooked up slowly. and instead of sauteing garlic and onion, which would also be a no go...i used garlic powder and onion powder for seasoning on the sausage. i used one package of jimmy dean's regular flavor sausage in a tube. our favorite is maple flavor, but i thought regular would work better in the quiche.

 mixed and ready for the oven...

 nice and crisp on top...

 this shows how the bisquick makes the nice crust layer at the bottom...

warm, fluffy and gooey...sausage, egg and cheese...heaven!