"Adult" Mac and Cheese

Admit it, as a kid, you loved Mac and Cheese. Not just any Mac and Cheese but the 30 cents a box, just add butter and milk Mac and Cheese. I did too...actually I DO too. Just because we grew up doesn't mean we have to abandon what we loved as a kid, however, there is no reason we can't Adult-a-fy it.

I do enjoy making "real" Mac and Cheese and the recipe is included below, but this blog is about transforming your Mac and Cheese more so than making it. Whether you use a homemade recipe or a box, you can enjoy fancy Mac and Cheese like you find in restaurants.

There are three ways to make Mac and Cheese fancy. The first two are built right into the name, you can change the Macaroni that you use or the cheese. The third way is to add in extra deliciousness OR you could  do any combination of those.

Obviously if you're using a box as your starting point, replacing the pasta or the cheese doesn't make sense so you only have the choice of adding things in. I have a few favorites myself but I suppose the choices are unlimited. The first upgrade to your Kraft Dinner is bacon. Bacon is the wonder meat and a staple in any kitchen that fancies itself fancy. I understand bacon isn't the most healthy choice in the kitchen, but who doesn't love bacon? You're eating Mac and Cheese so you haven't exactly made a healthy choice in the first place, you might as well enjoy it to the maximum.

I eat Mac and Cheese pretty regularly so I have several other suggestions for kicking it up a notch. In addition to adding a protein like bacon, you can add tuna, sausage or grilled chicken. In addition, I have yet to meet a cured or smoked meat that doesn't work so you can try a variety of hams, panchetta or specialty sausages like chorizo or andouille. The key to all of these is to make sure they're completely cooked before you add them, drain away any excess fat or drippings and cut them into fairly small pieces. You want to taste the addition without losing the star of the show.

Another path to go down with additions is seasonings. I don't know why it took me so long to figure this out but simply adding a splash or two from the spice rack can really work wonders. I've tried several paths and still have several more that I want to try. If you're using something like chorizo or andouille I don't recommend adding any spices, it is unlikely you'll even taste them. That being said, I've found that a little heat goes a long way with Mac and Cheese. A dash of chili powder or cayenne can add just the right amount of zing to an otherwise rich dish. I usually follow standard thought patterns when it comes to seasoning, but I suppose you could experiment with what you have. I tend to cook within the standard definitions of Italian, Mexican (or Tex-Mex) and Asian. I am by no means claiming these are the only flavors out there, I'm just most comfortable working within those flavor profiles.

As mentioned earlier, there are the two main ingredients that can be altered for a more enjoyable experience. For the pasta, basically use any short pasta, some of my favorites are fusilli and rotini (spirals), rotelle (wagon wheels), farfalle (bow ties) and rachette (little tennis rackets).

Last, but not least, are the cheeses. There is one simple rule to follow with cheese substitutions. The cheese you substitute in must have similar properties to the cheese you're substituting out. The standard cheese for Mac and Cheese is cheddar, ignoring flavor, what are cheddar's properties to consider? First, cheddar is what I would consider a firm cheese. This means using something like brie or parmesan are not good substitutes since brie is much softer and parmesan is much firmer and drier. Parmesan and other hard cheeses are also a bad idea because they have a high amount of salt in their flavor which can really overtake the rest of the dish. Good cheeses to use are Gouda, smoked Mozzarella (not fresh), Fontina, Provolone, Colby/Jack and many others. Obviously, you can make your dish with a combination of these as well.

As with any cooking adventure, part of the adventure is experimenting and sometimes even failing. I've made some questionable choices but so long as you find a treasure once in a while, the journey is worth the effort. I'd love to hear back with which tricks you've tried and whether they met your expectations or not.

Recipe:

1/2 lb. Macaroni (elbows or others)
3 Tbl butter
3 Tbl flour
1 Tbl powdered mustard
3 cups milk
1/2 tsp paprika
1 large egg
12 oz. sharp cheddar cheese, shredded or grated
1 tsp salt

For the topping:
3 Tbl butter
1 cup Panko bread crumbs

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

1. Melt the butter, whisk in the flour and mustard (cook about 5 minutes)
2. Stir in milk and paprika and simmer for about 10 minutes
3. Temper in the egg and roughly 3/4 of the cheese
4. Fold in your pasta and place the ingredients into a casserole dish
5. Melt the other butter, toss in the bread crumbs to toast then top the casserole with them
6. Bake for 30 minutes

Gardening part 2

My initial experience with home gardening went pretty well, so me being me, I had to take well enough and go an extra mile. I started out with 1 flower box with basil and cilantro. I quickly added two more flower boxes with Roma tomatoes and I was off and running. Next I purchased a couple of very large flower boxes and planted cucumbers and bell peppers in one and beefsteak tomato in the other. Lastly I built a fairly large elevated box to try all sorts of things and hopefully keep them away from the rabbits that live everywhere here. I've recently had to add some additional anti-seed thief protection to that and if you look at the pictures below, that's what looks like a chicken coop. I promise, I have not, nor will I raise live chickens.

I've learned some lessons during this experience and although they may not be very helpful to folks who live outside of the desert, they might still be interesting.

Unfortunately cilantro grows up quickly and if you don't use a ton of it in your day to day cooking, growing your own isn't very productive. Only a few weeks from its start, cilantro becomes coriander. However, it seems to be impossible to kill, so there is that. (cilantro = green thumb ego booster!) The basil also did pretty well so long I was conscience of how much sun it was getting, mostly not too much. Living in Arizona creates several challenges with gardening, the greatest of which is the summer heat. Having small planters makes it easy to move pots around the yard to maximize or minimize exposure, as needed, but limit how much you can actually grow.

I've also discovered that some of the indigenous wildlife likes some of the vegetables I'm trying to grow. I've had many days of going to pick tomatoes only to find that the nicest one has a hole in the side of it from some sort of critter. I've also planted a few types of lettuce and carrots and they never made it out of the seed phase. I'm trying them again, only under the wire tent, to see if they'll even grow here.

I've been able to grow radishes and tomatillas so far, but the radish were pretty small and the tomatilla are still growing, so the jury is still out on them. I've added a second batch of radish to the recent upgrade to the garden box and we'll see if I do better. During the initial plantings I was sloppy and almost all of the holes I made had two or three seeds dropped in them. I was much more careful to only put one seed per hole this time.

That second batch of tomato, green pepper and cucumber are still growing and haven't yielded anything yet, but the plants themselves are pretty hardy. I can't wait to see if they give me anything.

I also tried peas. Tried. They got to all of three inches tall and died. I think they just didn't want anything to do with the heat, so I'll try them again in the fall. Since seeds are pretty cheap, I don't feel bad about trying something new and failing. Worst case scenario, I'm out two bucks or less. A packet of seed actually goes a long way and so long as they're stored in a dry place (not hard to find here in Arizona) they keep for years.


Here is a visual tour of what I've done so far. I promise the next update will include the wonderful food I've made from these.

The beefsteak tomato plants, just starting out

Bell pepper on the left, cucumber on the right

The two large planter boxes early on

The tomato and cucumber after some growth, I moved the trellis around a little to help out 

The cucumbers quickly filled the pot and started to spill over

Here are the lettuce and carrots that made only this far before someone started snacking on it

The radishes in the foreground, the tomatilla in the middle and the peas in the background

A few of the radishes I've harvested. They're fairly small but very spicy.

The cucumbers and bell peppers are looking hardy, but still nothing to eat

The jungle of tomato

The new "cage" in the background, the tomatilla in the middle and a few lettuce that I transplanted from where I added the cage

Up close look at the tomatilla forming

The cage added three things: 5 1/2 inches of soil, animal protection (I hope) and slight reduction in sunlight

Homemade Cheese

I recently took a few cooking classes, not because I don’t know “how” to cook, but because there a few things I have always wanted to try, but was a little afraid to just go out on my own and try. Cheese-making was always something that seemed interested to me and I have seen kits in the grocery store before. I figured a class could not only give me the experience of making cheese the first time in a controlled environment, but also give me a few ideas on what to do with my cheese.


Unlike pasta making class, I didn’t have the best group to work with. One of the other students was kind of pushy and aggressive, so I didn’t do as much hands on work as I would have liked. However, this didn’t totally ruin the experience and I took it in stride. I don’t take notes and I don’t read the book as often as most students, I’ve always been this way, but I truly learn from hearing and seeing what is being done and I still gained that experience. 


The first thing I learned is that the ingredients are not things you keep in a standard kitchen so once again some purchases had to be made. Since the store offered a learner’s kit with all the ingredients you would need it made sense for me to limit my initial investment to this four use kit. In the end, all you have to do buy some cheese cloth and a gallon of milk every time you’d like to make a batch.
I’ve tried making the cheese twice now and went about it slightly different ways, both with good but different results. I’ll include the recipe and directions below, but I do recommend the starter’s kit. It turns out making cheese, although fun as a novelty, is a bit of work. 


The most important thing I learned is that the milk you buy is everything. The entire cheese making process won’t matter if you buy the wrong milk. First off, you’re making cheese, don’t bother with low fat milk, you’re making CHEESE, redundancy intended. Second off, although when it comes to drinking milk, pasteurization and homogenization are sought after; the opposite is true for your cheese making milk. Unless you have a very serious specialty grocery store in your neighborhood, you have to buy pasteurized and homogenized milk…from a cow. “True” Mozzarella, is made from the milk a buffalo; not Bison like in the United States, but the type they have in Europe. This little hurdle is no big deal at all, cow’s milk works fine, in the end the only stipulation is that is not Ultra-pasteurized or Ultra-homogenized. Unfortunately the label doesn’t have to say so, but the easiest way to figure it out is if the expiration date is more than 7 to 10 days from when you’re buying it. Most grocery store chains contract with different dairies in most parts of the country, so if at first you don’t succeed, don’t try sky-diving again, but try making cheese with another brand of milk.

The class taught us how to make two cheeses each with the standard way and an alternative way. The first was ricotta, which we basically relied on heat and acid to curdle it. Literally you heat the milk until it’s about to boil and then you poor in buttermilk (the source of acid) and it forms curds immediately. Either slightly drain the whey (the left over yellowish water) and use as you normally would for things like lasagna or baked ziti, or you can press it with cheese cloth into a more solid cheese, the name of which is escaping me.


Mozzarella is more complicated in that the temperature has to be more controlled. Again I’ll include the recipe and directions at the end. The key to the mozzarella is AFTER you’ve made curds and what you do with them. Once you formed your curds, imagine relatively dry cottage cheese, you heat them further and change the texture all together. At just the right temperature mozzarella is very rubbery and stretchy and this is a key in making it. However, this is also the reason this not a project for children. You have to work the cheese by hand and little hands are far too sensitive to heat, even with gloves on. I used gloves in class and the first time I made it at home, but not the second time. Either way, you have to heat it enough to allow the curds to melt together as you need it like you would dough. 


This is where the second bit of advice I can give comes in. The first time I made the cheese at home, I rung out the whey with cheese cloth and ALL my might. This did a great job of removing the moisture but in the end the mozzarella was much more like the “pizza cheese”  version than the “enjoy in a Caprese salad" version. This second time I didn’t remove as much moisture initially and the cheese is more moist and tender; less rubbery and solid. Don’t confuse my phrasing it rubbery like that’s a bad thing, it is not, it is just the best word I can come up with and a fair description. Anyone who has had pizza where the cheese stretches from the plate to your mouth understands what I mean by rubbery.


In the end, I’m glad I tried this, but once the kit is gone, I’m not sure if I’ll do it again. It was fun, it was entertaining, but it was also above a “5” on the hassle-meter. If you’re very serious about your ingredients or you just want to impress some guests, then totally go for it, but the flavor isn’t substantially better then store made and if you count your labor into the costs of making it, then the store bought “fresh” mozzarella is just fine.

Heating the milk

Separating the curds and whey (Oh little miss muffet)

4 servings of fresh Mozzarella!

This is the kit I used, sold at Sur La Table, but I've seen others at grocery stores or other kitchen supply chains

Recipes:


Ricotta Cheese
8 cups Whole Milk
2 cups Buttermilk
Fine salt if desired


Heat the milk in a large pan (obviously account for the amount of liquid you’re using plus some margin of error when the milk starts to boil). Stir while heating over Medium high heat just enough to prevent scorching but so much as to slow down the heating. As the milk reaches a gentle boil (bubbles will start to climb quickly, so don’t walk away) pore in the buttermilk and gently stir, but in only one direction to prevent breaking up the curds you just formed. Remove from heat, let sit 5 or 10 minutes, strain with cheese cloth for 15 or so minutes until the consistency is what you want. You can make an alternative form of this cheese by deliberately driving moisture out by twisting the cheese cloth and then placing the curds, in cloth, under something heavy for 30 to 60 minutes. Helpful hint: put a pasta strainer and pan under your cheese cloth when separating the curds and whey. The whey can be refrigerated and used in things like bread recipes for enhanced flavor. I haven't used the whey yet, so I can’t say if works well or not.


Mozzarella Cheese
1 Gallon of Whole milk (buffalo or cow, not ultra-pasteurized)
1 ½ teaspoons of citric acid dissolved in 1 cup of non-chlorinated water
¼ rennet tablet (this is an enzyme, so again no chlorine in the water) in ¼ cup of water
Fine salt to taste


1. Heat the milk on medium low until 85 degrees, and then add the citric acid
2. Heat the milk/acid to 100 degrees and then add the rennet water
3. Continue heating until 105 degrees and then remove from heat
4. Drain the curds from the whey into a cheesecloth lined strainer
5. Form balls of curd by hand the size you want and add any salt you want at this point
6. Heat curd balls in the microwave (or in boiling water, but do you really want to stick your hands in that situation!) for 1 minute.
7. Knead the curds and they should start to stick into one blog of cheese and take on a slightly more shiny appearance. If the cheese starts to rip, give it 20 more seconds in the microwave
8. If you want Buratta cheese, wrap the warm cheese around some raw curd mixed with cream


Caprese Salad
I never measure anything out when making Caprese Salad, so every ingredient is “to taste”  and you can experiment with the presentation as well.
Tomato
Mozzarella or Buratta cheese
Basil
Balsamic vinegar (the older the better)
Olive oil
Salt and pepper