Stovetop Macaroni and Cheese

Tags

cheese, evaporated milk, macaroni, pasta, vegetarian

When I was a kid, Kraft mac and cheese was one of the tastiest lunches. Especially since it came in so many different shapes and characters (for some reason, the fun shapes seemed to taste better to me). When I went to college, it became all about easy mac. Quick, easy, and didn’t need a stove since I only had a microwave in my dorm room. And I haven’t had it since… 6 or more years since I used powdered cheese to make mac and cheese, and I can’t say I miss it but I do miss a nice and easy stovetop macaroni and cheese.

This stovetop mac and cheese was so good! From what I remember, it tastes similar to Kraft, but is sooo much better! And you can adjust the cheeses to whatever you prefer, as with any mac and cheese recipe. And like usual, I’ve upped the pasta amount from the original recipe. In my defense, I started with 8 ounces of pasta, but I just had so much extra sauce around the pasta so I had to make use of it! Besides, since when is more mac and cheese a bad thing! 🙂Stovetop Macaroni and Cheese
Note: Use any combination of Cheddar cheese, Monterey Jack cheese, and American cheese to total 12 ounces.

2 eggs
1 (12-ounce) can evaporated milk, divided
1 teaspoon dry mustard
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
16 ounces elbow macaroni or other small pasta
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
6 ounces sharp Cheddar cheese, shredded (about 1½ cups)
6 ounces Monterey Jack cheese, shredded (about 1½ cups)

In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, 1 cup of the evaporated milk, dry mustard, salt, and pepper; set aside.

In a large pot, prepare pasta according to package directions, cooking until al dente. Drain the pasta and return to pot over low heat. Add butter and stir until completely melted. Add the egg mixture and three-quarters of the cheese mixture to the pasta; stir until cheese starts to melt. Gradually add the remaining evaporated milk and remaining cheese mixture, stirring constantly, until the mixture is hot and creamy, about 5 minutes. Serve immediately.

Source: Adapted from Cooks Illustrated via Brown Eyed Baker

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Chocolate Chip Sour Cream Muffins

Tags

breakfast, chocolate, muffin, sour cream

Who wants yummy muffins for a quick and easy Sunday morning breakfast or brunch? I do! You do too, right? 🙂 Then you should definitely make these, because they’re awesome. And yes, they have chocolate in them so they could be a snack or dessert, but being a muffin means breakfast!! And personally, I love making a batch of muffins over the weekend so I have breakfast for the whole week.

I first saw chocolate chip sour cream muffins on Curvy Carrot, and I bookmarked them immediately. But then I came across these muffins on My Baking Addiction. I was home, they sounded delicious, and I wanted them immediately. As I got my ingredients together, I remembered the sour cream  muffins and decided to merge the two recipes, in a sense. End result: super delicious muffins with a slight sour cream tang, studded with chocolate chips. Yum!Chocolate Chip Sour Cream Muffins
Yield: 12 muffins

2 cups all-purpose flour
⅔ cup light brown sugar, packed
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 eggs
⅔ cup sour cream
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugars, baking powder, and salt; make a well in the center and set aside.

In medium bowl, whisk together melted butter, eggs, milk, and vanilla, mixing until well combined. Pour into the well of the dry ingredients. Stir until ingredients are just combined; do not over mix. Fold in the chocolate chips.

Evenly divide the batter in the prepared muffin pan. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Move muffin pan to wire rack and cool for 5 minutes, then remove muffins and finish cooling on wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Source: Adapted from My Baking Addiction

Creamy Clam Linguine

Tags

clams, cream, pasta, seafood, wine

Everyone has their go-to meals. Fortunately for me, I found this wonderful recipe and it quickly became a regular on our menu. While having fresh clams with linguine is always wonderful, we don’t always have that luxury due to prices and availability. That’s where canned clams come in. They’re great since I can always have them on-hand, allowing for a quick meal without having to run to the grocery store. Always a plus! It’s warm and comforting during the winter, while being a lighter pasta dish that would be wonderful in the summer months.Creamy Clam Linguine

16 ounces linguine pasta
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
3 (6.5 oz) cans minced clams, juices from 2 cans reserved
½ cup dry white wine
½ cup whipping cream or half-and-half
Salt and pepper
Parmesan cheese, grated or shredded for serving
Parsley, fresh or dried, for garnish

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Cook pasta according to the package directions until al dente; drain well.

Meanwhile, in a large skillet over medium-high heat, heat the olive oil and butter until the butter is completely melted. Add the garlic to the pan and sauté until golden and fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the reserved clam juice and wine to the pan, bring to a simmer, and reduce by about half. Reduce heat to medium-low and stir in the clams and cream. Season the sauce to taste with salt and pepper. Add prepared pasta to the pan and toss to coat. Serve immediately, topped with Parmesan cheese.

Source: Adapted from Annie’s Eats

Blueberry and Cream Cheese Filled King Cake

Tags

blueberry, cake, Carnival, cream cheese, King Cake, Mardi Gras

Happy Mardi Gras!

In celebration of Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday), I made a King Cake! It’s flavor is hard to describe, though wikipedia describes it as a sort of danish. It’s a yeast bread, filled, made into a ring, and covered with a glaze and colored sugars. Being a yeast bread and kind of like a danish makes it a suitable breakfast or dessert in my books! 🙂 Mine didn’t come out as pretty as I hoped, but at least it tasted awesome! For those of you who don’t know, King Cake is part of the tradition of Mardi Gras and Carnival. A fun and festive cake for a fun and festive celebration! In New Orleans, Mardi Gras is full of floats, parades, masquerades, drunken celebration, beads, and coins. Fat Tuesdays refers to the last day before Ash Wednesday and before lent begins, when you can indulge yourself to your hearts content!I’ve been to Mardi Gras once, and I was definitely too young to appreciate it. As in, it actually kind of scared me! I wasn’t a huge fan of crowds, fireworks, loud noises… totally not a good thing in New Orleans around Mardi Gras. My family and I were in town for a family wedding, so might as well celebrate while we’re there, right? So many colors, beads, floats, and people! I at least enjoyed collecting beads from each float. I would love to go back now that I’m older, and can actually drink now (and my childhood fears have gone away)!

Ever since we went, we started ordering a King Cake each year at Mardi Gras. Per our own family tradition, we would order the cream cheese-blueberry filled. It was beautiful, huge, and so delicious! Unfortunately, they started getting to expensive to ship from Louisiana out to California, so we started going without our annual King Cake. Once I went to college, I really started getting into baking and decided to try making a King Cake for the first time. It turned out great, and the shape and everything about it was just perfect.

My very first homemade King Cake, from the college days!

But stupid me… I didn’t save the recipe and the site has long since disappeared. The recipe below is the one I’ve used twice now. The flavor tastes just like I remember, and though I kind of make a mess with the blueberry filling, each year it seems to come out better. This year, it rose a lot and blobbed out, so I decided that next year I’ll make the cake rolls more narrow and longer, which I reflected in the recipe. So, sorry this post was longer than usual, but I hope you have a wonderful Mardi Gras! Throw me some beads, mister! 🙂

Blueberry and Cream Cheese Filled King Cake

Cake:
1 (16-ounce) container sour cream
⅓ cup sugar
¼ cup butter
1 teaspoon salt
2 (¼-ounce) envelopes active dry yeast
½ cup warm water (100° to 110°)
1 tablespoon sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
6 to 6½ cups all-purpose flour

Fillings:
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon milk
1 cup blueberry pie filling, slightly mashed

Glaze:
3 cups powdered sugar
3 tablespoons butter, melted
2 tablespoons lemon juice
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
2 to 4 tablespoons milk

Colored Sugar Topping:
1½ cups granulated sugar, divided
Food coloring (red, blue, green, yellow)

To make the cake: In a medium saucepan over low heat, combine sour cream, ⅓ cup sugar, butter, and salt. Cook until butter melts, stirring often. Set aside, and cool mixture to 100-110 degrees F.

In a 1-cup measuring cup, stir together yeast, warm water, and 1 tablespoon sugar; let stand 5 minutes.

In the mixing bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat sour cream mixture, yeast mixture, eggs, and 2 cups flour at medium speed until smooth. Reduce speed to low, and gradually add 4 to 4½ cups flour until a soft dough forms. Change to the dough hook and knead until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Form dough into a ball and place in a well greased bowl, turning the dough to grease all sides. Cover and let rise in a warm place, free from drafts, 1 hour or until dough is doubled in bulk.

To make cream cheese filling: In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese until smooth. Add powdered sugar, flour, vanilla, and milk and beat until creamy and smooth; set aside.

To make the glaze: In a medium bowl, combine powdered sugar, butter, lemon juice, vanilla, and 2 tablespoons milk. Stir until smooth, adding additional milk 1 teaspoon at a time, until pouring consistency.

To make the colored sugars: Pour ½ cup sugar into 3 separate sealable sandwich bags. Add 3 to 5 drops of food coloring to separate bags, adding red and blue to the same bag to make purple. Seal the bags and shake to distribute the color, using your fingers to break up any colored clumps of sugar; set aside.

To assemble: Punch down dough, and divide in half. Roll each portion into a 30 x 9-inch rectangle. On one rectangle, spread the cream cheese filling, leaving a 1-inch border. One the other rectangle, spread the blueberry filling, leaving a 1-inch border. Roll up each dough rectangle, jelly-roll fashion, starting at 1 long side. Place dough rolls, seam side down, on a lightly greased baking sheet. Bring ends of both rolls together, and twist the two rolls to form a spiral. Shape the spiral into an oval ring, moistening and pinching edges together to seal. Cover and let rise in a warm place, free from drafts, 20 to 30 minutes or until doubled in bulk.

Bake at 375 degrees F for 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden. Slightly cool cake on the pan on a wire rack, about 10 minutes. Drizzle glaze evenly over warm cake; sprinkle with colored sugars, alternating colors and forming bands. Let cool completely before serving.

Source: Cake adapted from Southern Living, everything else from a source long since lost and forgotten!

Crock Pot Italian Chicken

Tags

cheese, chicken, Italian, slow cooker, tomato

Looking for a super easy and super tasty chicken recipe? Then look no further! This recipe consists of dumping everything in your slow cooker, then walking away for 8 hours. Come back, and dinner is ready!! It’s flavorful, easy, and leaves you with lots of leftovers for lunches at work or dinners. I’ve only tried it over pasta, but this past time I made it, I was thinking that it might even work as a sandwich. Throw some chicken on a french roll, melt some mozzarella on top and you have a delicious Italian chicken sandwich. Definitely going to have to try that next time I make this, which I’m sure will be fairly soon!Crock Pot Italian Chicken

4 chicken breasts
½ cup light Italian salad dressing
1 (24-ounce) jar tomato sauce
1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon dried basil
½ tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried parsley
Mozzarella and Parmesan cheese for topping

Place all ingredients in crock pot except cheeses and cook on low for 8 hours. Shred chicken with fork. Serve over pasta of your choice; top with mozzarella and Parmesan cheese.

Source: Adapted from Ryan Bakes