Baking Sheet Macaroni and Cheese

I have mentioned many times on this blog that I love baked macaroni. My mom had a recipe which I think is great. I recently had baked macaroni from La Rosticceria which I gave two thumbs up. So when I was visiting food52 and a recipe for Baking Sheet Macaroni and Cheese popped up I was interested.

The original recipe called for 3 cups of heavy cream. When I make my recipe for baked macaroni and even when I make quiche, which usually calls for heavy cream, I use milk. There was a little water in the bottom of the pan when I served this dish which could have been from the milk. There is not liquid when I make my usual recipe, perhaps because I add eggs to the dish... Not sure about the science of that...

Back to this recipe. It was like picking off all the crunchy top part of the dish. That is my favorite part. Chris and I both enjoyed it. I may try my usual recipe, with the eggs, in the sheet pan. Best part was it only took 15 minutes to bake.

Click here to view the original recipe found on food 52.

Grilled Chicken and Zucchini Panini

I love our panini grill. I had my eye on the grill that we purchased for some time. On Black Friday I got an email from William Sonoma and the grill was on sale! So we got an early Christmas gift.
This is a photo of the ingredients before the sandwich went on the grill. Grilled chicken, grilled zucchini and yellow squash all seasoned with thyme, salt and pepper. Scamorza cheese, black olive spread, mayo and arugula.

Italian Lentil and Chestnut Stew

I have been wanting to try a recipe with Chestnuts. I found the recipe for Italian Lentil and Chestnut Stew on Closet Cooking and bookmarked to try at some time.
I was visiting the Closet Cooking blog and saw the blog was chosen to be part of the Salt to Taste: Tried and Tasted event this month. Perfect time to try the recipe.
I roasted the Chestnuts, love the aroma of roasted chestnuts. The stew was delicious.

Pasta e Fagioli

I have been searching for some time now for the perfect recipe for Pasta e Fagioli. This one is very close to being named that recipe. It comes from La Cucina Italiana. The only change I would make is to add more broth. Just a little. Other than that it was very good. It did not have tomato in it, which I liked. I have always preferred my pasta with butter and cheese instead of tomato sauce. It is only since Chris showed up that I started making my mom's sauce. But back to tonight's recipe - it was easy. An immersion blender would have made it easier, wink, wink, nudge, nudge. : )

Beets, Proscuiutto, Potatoes and Goat Cheese

I was visiting the A Nod Is As Good As A Wink To A Blind Horse blog and came upon a recipe for Golden Beet, Goat Cheese and Potato... It looked quite good and I have been wanting to try more beet recipes. So off I went. First the store only had red beets, not a problem. Next I thought if I added Prosciutto it may pass as a casserole instead of a side dish. And adding prosciutto never hurts anything. Well I was right. It was good. The dish reminded me of scalloped potatoes. Thanks for the recipe George.

A Day of Baking

So today I was baked Christmas cookies...

Snowballs

Chocolate Crackle Tops

Striped Cookies

Jelly Bellys

Cinnamon Sticks

Peanut Blossoms

The baking is easy, it's the cleaning up that's tough...


As for dinner, it had to be simple. Chris picked up a great piece of Baked Macaroni at La Rosticceria. Now I have a high standard for baked macaroni. I can say this was as good as my mom's! We also shared that and a frozen pizza. Kept it simple. But still quite good.

Salmon, Zucchini and Forbidden Black Rice

No I did not make this. I went Christmas shopping with my friend Annie today. My mom always said there was no reason why you could not go shopping as long as you had dinner ready. Well I am sure she would have been fine with picking up dinner. So I stopped at La Rosticceria.
I had Salmon, Zucchini and Forbidden Black Rice. It was fantastic! The salmon was wrapped around a slice of zucchini and baked and then topped with Forbidden Black Rice, which I have just recently heard about. A new starch! The dish is then topped with a ginger sesame sauce. Wow the flavors were so good. I also had some Roasted Cauliflower which I could eat as a snack.
Chris had Lobster Ravioli. We finished the meal with a chocolate cupcake with cream filling and a lemon bar. The chef at La Rosticceria is quickly becoming my favorite.

The First Panini

Yes we have a panini grill. I made a frittatta, of course... The frittatta had zucchini, yellow squash, sweet potatoes, onions and prosciutto. We each made our own paninis.

I had Scamorza cheese on mine. It was good.

Polenta, Sausage & Mozzeralla

This dish is a variation of a recipe I found online years ago. It is quite easy.

1 pound of sausage
1 pound mozzarella, sliced
1 jar marinara sauce, or homemade if you have it.
polenta, recipe is below

Take a pound of sausage, pork or turkey or what ever you prefer and chop it up and brown it in a saute pan. Next make your polenta. I follow the recipe from From Biba's Italian Kitchen.

Ingredients -
4 1/2 cups water
1 tbsp salt
1 cup coarsely ground cornmeal
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Bring the water to a boil in a medium-size heavy pot over medium heat. Add the salt and reduce the heat to medium low. As soon as the water begins to simmer, start pouring in the cornmeal by the handful in a thin stream, very slowly, and stir constantly with a long wooden spoon to prevent lumps from forming. When all the cornmeal has been incorporated, you can relax, but keep the water at a steady low simmer and stir cornmeal frequently. (It is not necessary to stir constantly if the polenta is cooked gently.) Cook the polenta 25 to 30 minutes. As it cooks, the polenta will thicken considerably, and it will bubble and spit back at you. Keep stirring, crushing any lumps that form against the side of the pot. The polenta is cooked when it comes away effortlessly from the sides of the pan. Stir in cheese.

To assemble -
Grease a glass loaf pan and layer polenta, sauce, sausage and fresh mozzarella cheese repeat this one more time and topping with sauce and cheese.
Bake 350 30 minutes.

Of course you need a glass of red wine with this.

Spicy Split Pea Soup

A couple of weeks ago I went to the Fair Earth Bazaar at the Mercy Center in Madison. One of the things I picked up was Split Pea Soup Mix. I was getting ready to make the soup this weekend and noticed the second item listed on the spice pack was garlic powder. There were only 4 other ingredients in the pack so I figured there had to be probably more garlic in there than I would care for. So I went to my spice cabinet and pulled out all the other listed ingredients and added them. Curry, Coriander and crushed red pepper. Then I prepared the soup according to the package.

1 package of Split Peas, about 13 oz.
4 cups chicken broth
4 cups of water
2 tbsp. butter
1/2 cup diced onion
2 tsp. curry
1 tsp. coriander
1/4 crushed red pepper
Salt to taste

Wash and drain peas. Add peas to chicken broth and water. Simmer uncovered 1 hour. Saute onions in butter until onions are translucent. Add spices. Simmer for 20 minutes more and serve. We added some bacon to the soup but it really would have been okay without it.

Also started the No-Knead Bread on Sunday and baked it last night. Perfect.