Category Archives: lunch

Crack-a-roni: pioneer macaroni and cheese

kids, lunch, supper 16 Comments

Crack-a-roni. This is how The Yankee refers to this dish. My sister, too. And her husband. The Kiddo? He refers to it as he does to any foods that are not yogurt, bread, or Cheerios: “No tank you, mama.” Sigh.

Anyway! The dish! This is from my 1950 Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook. Best $20 I’ve ever spent. I stray very little from this, so here goes:

You will need:

  • 6 Tbsp. butter
  • 6 Tbsp. flour
  • ½ tsp salt
  • ¼ tsp pepper
  • ¼ tsp paprika
  • Dash of nutmeg
  • 2 cups milk
  • 8 oz. uncooked macaroni
  • 1/2 pound Velveeta* or 2 cups cheese(s) of your choice

*Even with my general aversion to foods whose ingredients I cannot pronounce, I use Velveeta here. It just totally works in this dish.

Now, just like for the chicken pot pie, we’ll make a white sauce:

  1. Melt the butter over low heat in a heavy saucepan
  2. Quickly whisk in flour, nutmeg, paprika, salt, and pepper, whisking until mixture is smooth & bubbly
  3. Remove from heat; whisk in milk — for a minute it may look like it’s turning into a giant lump, but keep whisking and pouring the milk
  4. Bring to a slow boil and boil for one minute, whisking constantly
  5. Reduce heat to low and cook until thickened — at least ten minutes for best flavor

Easy assembly:

  1. Preheat oven to 350F
  2. While the white sauce is cooking, boil pasta for two minutes less than the shortest time on the box; e.g. if your pasta says to cook for 10-12 minutes, then cook for eight minutes
  3. In a greased baking dish, layer half the pasta, half the white sauce and half the cheese; repeat so you have two layers of each component
  4. Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes or until bubbly. At this point it’s super yummy to stop and stir it together. You can then either serve as-is for super creamy mac and cheese, or put it back in to brown up a bit. Serve hot from baking dish
  5. Join a gym

Let’s talk leftovers

lunch, supper 7 Comments

Not just reheat-and-eat night, but let’s talk getting creative with leftovers. What have you come up with? Anything great? This is my new favorite: Italian steak pasta!

Sunday night was steak night. Monday night was spaghetti. So Tuesday night I sliced up the remaining steak, mixed it in with pasta and some Italian dressing (Ken’s, specifically, because I love it) , and topped it all with parmesan cheese. This was SO good!

Your turn! What have you come up with?

Deviled eggs

lunch 8 Comments

I kind of feel like summoning Sam I Am, just to tell him I do like deviled eggs. If you had asked me a week ago I would have said absolutely not, no way, no how do I like deviled eggs. Not in a boat, not on a train… you get the picture.

The eggs The Kiddo dyed watched The Yankee and me dye for Easter were super-yummy farm fresh eggs given to us by a friend of The Yankee. And it sure seemed a waste to just chuck them, especially since I’d tried a new boiling method for them while under tornado warning — setting timers and hiding in coat closets at the same time. Multi-tasking, no? So I figured I just HAD to try them. And whaddaya know? Pretty stinking good!

I read somewhere (naturally, I can’t find it now) that this was Julia Child’s method for hard-boiling eggs. Who am I to question Julia Child? Nobody, that’s who. It goes like so:

  1. Put your eggs in a pan and add enough water to come one inch over the eggs
  2. Set the pan on high heat and bring just to a boil
  3. Remove the pan from the heat, cover, and let it sit covered for exactly 17 minutes
  4. After 17 minutes, transfer the eggs to a bowl of ice water with plenty of ice cubes in it.
  5. Put the pan back on the burner on high heat and return to a boil while the eggs chill for two minutes (apparently this shrinks the body of the egg away from the shell)
  6. Put the eggs back in the boiling water, bring to a boil once again if need be, and let the eggs boil for ten seconds (this expands the shell away from the egg)
  7. Remove eggs and place them back into the ice water; leave them there for at least 20 minutes

After eggs are properly chilled, let your two year old thwack the eggs into a basket with absolutely no regard for gentleness or fragility. Repeat three times for most thorough cracking of eggs.

Now make deviled eggs! I based mine on Joelen‘s yummy method.

You will need:

  • Hard boiled eggs
  • Yellow mustard
  • Mayonnaise (the real stuff here, people)
  • Lemon juice
  • Croutons
  • Salt and pepper
  • Paprika
  1. I started by slicing the eggs in half, and admired the straight edges my toddler managed to impart onto an egg. But see how nice the color is? No dark line. That Julia Child should write a book
  2. In a food processor, pulverize some croutons – I used homemade from no-knead bread– down to crumbs
  3. Scoop out all the yolk and toss it in the food processor along with a healthy squirt of mustard and just enough mayo to hold the mix together — I wanted more egg than mayo flavor
  4. Squirt in about a tsp or so of lemon juice and season the whole mix with salt and pepper
  5. Process till mostly smooth, but the crumbs in the croutons will keep it from being absolutely smooth, of course, and that’s fine
  6. Pipe or scoop the filling back into the egg yolks and season it all with paprika

Pretty yummy, right? The farm eggs had a fantastic yellow color that made these just gorgeous. And SO GOOD to eat! Who knew?

For the record, I still reserve the right to run screaming from any deviled eggs (or anything else) that have been anywhere near a pickle.  ::shudder::

Pasta salad

lunch 8 Comments

We go through a lot of this in the summer. It’s so good, so quick, and so easy to change it up with whatever you have on hand. For this batch I used:

Boil the pasta and drain but do not rinse; you want all that starch to say on there so the dressing sticks to the pasta. Let the pasta cool a bit, then add everything but the cheese. Cover and put in the fridge till it’s cold, then add the cheese. I usually add more dressing at this point too because a lot of the first addition has absorbed, and I like a lot of dressing on it. Then just toss and serve!

To shake things up a bit you could add:

  • Feta cheese
  • Gorgonzola cheese
  • Chopped peppers
  • Lemon juice
  • Chopped tomatoes
  • Olives

Go crazy with it! This travels really well, so it’s a no-brainer for taking to parties in the summer — just be sure to bring some extra dressing with you so you can add and toss just before serving.

Risotto: not nom-proof

lunch, supper 2 Comments

I love a good cooking challenge. And yowza was risotto a challenge at first. I know what you’re thinking: oh, like stirring is so hard? No, in and of itself, it’s not. However stirring for 25 minutes with a two year old in the kitchen? That’s a challenge.

As I say, though, I like a challenge. So, I keep making it. I make it, I eat it (oh the sacrifices!), then I watch this again — Tony Bourdain showing Real Risotto in Venice. I can tell you I’m not anywhere near attempting that flinging-splashing-splat move shown there (unless someone wants to volunteer to come clean my kitchen afterward), but it’s a sight to behold. And it gives me a good image of what my finished risotto should look like.

I’m getting there. And I’m sure enjoying the efforts!