Bomb Diggity Mac N' Cheese

Horseradish Mac and Cheese 

In grade school I remember learning about food groups and filling in a pyramid etc. etc... All well and good for most, but in my mind there are really only three food groups: coffee with enough cream to stop your heart, cheese, and whiskey (which used to be white wine - a recent switch). Over the last couple of years I have been working on perfecting my homemade mac and cheese recipe.  Today I truly believe I have cracked the code with horseradish and hot sauce mac and cheese.  This one is a home run! 

Ingredients 

1 LB Elbow macaroni 

6 TSP Butter 

1/4 Cup Flour 

3 Cups Whole milk 

1/2 LB Cheddar 

1/2 LB Horseradish cheddar  

3/4 Cups Panko bread crumbs 

Hot pepper sauce 

Preheat oven to 325º

Grease cupcake pans for mini mac and cheese cup cakes - a winner at any party - or grease a baking pan for meal size mac and cheese. 

Heat milk to a simmer.

Melt butter over medium heat making sure not to burn, add flour and cook over medium heat for 2 minutes. Add milk 1 cup at a time and cook for 8 minutes stirring when needed. Add cheese and let it melt. Add hot sauce, salt, and pepper to taste. Cook pasta one minute less then box recommends. Add to cheese. Place macaroni and cheese mixture in your muffin tins or baking pan.  Cover with bread crumbs and then with aluminum foil and bake for 20 minutes.  Uncover and brown.

Suck the air out of it...

3.7.14 The importance of vacuum sealing  

After my mother died, my father went on a sleep strike for about a month. During the wee hours of the morning he took to watching QVC. As seen on TV became as seen at the Silver’s house, every day like clockwork the UPS truck would come screaming up the dirt driveway to deliver a “package of promise” as my father called them. He’d order everything from a bike with no pedals to a spray glue that promised to fix most house hold leaks. These were trying days, but as they say every dark cloud has a silver lining. 

In one of these boxes came a vacuum sealer, one of my favorite kitchen items ever. Wildwood uses is for some advanced cooking styles such as intense pickling, sous vide and compressing. At home I use it to make my life easier. On a normal night my boys and I will walk in the door around 5:30 and it is always to my surprise that the house is dark and cold and that in the time I was gone not one secret elf came in and drew a warm bath, turned on the lights or made dinner! On these nights I have to make my growing boys something of substance with protein and have it on the table fast. This is where my vacuum sealer comes in. Usually on Sunday I do a great deal of cooking, while my boys ransack the house building forts, breaking things and spreading super hero wars from one end of the house to the other. I usually cook a couple chickens a soup and a pork butt AKA pork shoulder. I then vacuum seal the meats and stick them in my freezer so that I have something to feed my boys on these dark nights. The recipe I share now is a no fail pork shoulder that you can portion and vacuum seal for multiple meals.

Some of these meals include 

Pork tacos 

BBQ pork sandwiches 

Pork noodles 

Pork quesadillas 

Here’s my pork:

PORK SEASONING MIX- Cover your boneless pork shoulder in seasoning bellow. Sear on flattop or in a cast iron skillet browning all sides-2-4 minutes per side and roast in the oven covered at 300 for 4 hours

2T salt

2 T light brown sugar

1T black pepper

1T granulated garlic

1T smoked paprika

½ t cayenne

1/2 t cumin

Combine seasoning & coat pork

When it’s done the pork should break apart easily, pull, cool and vacuum seal in small batches.

Canning Part I

Warning!!!!!! This task is going to seem overwhelming. When I first started canning I would make my husband try everything I made to make sure I was not going to give out botulism bottles disguised as homemade jams and jellies. After a while I got more conformable with my ability and my husband is still alive! Now I see how simple canning really is and how rewording at the same time.

Canning seems to be coming back in full force. I find canning calming. It must be the preparation for dooms day, (putting food in jars). My challenge this week is to acquire the equipment needed to can food items.

List of needed items for canning these items can be found any where now, Walmart! Walmart has a really good selection and it's cheap. I found this great set at Target. (See below).

Other items needed that you might not have on hand:

• Pectin, there all kinds of pectin. It comes in liquid and power form. I personally like Pomona’s Pectin it takes a little more work but is natural and sugar free, you can buy it in bulk from Amazon.
• Sugar
• Vinegar
• Pickling salt, can be found in the same section of the canning supplies.

Once you have all your needed canning equipment and have read the instructions. Make hot pepper relish. This recipe will come next week.

Even You Can Make Southern Fried Chicken

My mother could only cook four things, while she did cook other things these were the only four things she made that anyone else would want to eat. 

Thanksgiving dinner
Indian food, she took a cooking class
Quiche
Southern Fried Chicken

This week I want to remember her Southern Fried Chicken

What you will need
Ingredients
1 pound chicken cutlet
1 qt buttermilk
2 cups flour
4 cups Panko bread crumbs 
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
kosher salt to taste
black pepper to taste
3 eggs
5 cups canola oil

Optional Sauces

Ingredients

Franks Red Hot
Real butter
Stone ground mustard
Honey
Sweet chili sauce





Prep

Pour 2 cups buttermilk into a tupperware container, add 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp black pepper, and a pinch for cayenne pepper whisk. Add chicken so that all the cutlets are covered cover let sit in fridge over night

Day of prep
Pour your oil into a large stock pot
Put paper towels on a plate, to put the chicken on to remove grease

Prep for frying
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees
Get out two bowls one for wet and one for dry

In your wet bowl mix three eggs with 1/2 cup butter milk and pinch of salt and pepper
In dry bowl mix Panko and flour and pinch of salt and pepper and cayenne

Get your chicken out
Start with your wet mix, dip your chicken through the wet mix  on each side
then dredge your chicken through the dry cover both sides
then back though the wet then back through the dry
lay on a plate

Once all the chicken is covered heat oil, test it with a piece of chicken
if it sizzles right away and turns white it is ready, fry one or two pieces at a time when the sides brown flip over when both sides put on paper towels to drain

Once all your chicken is golden brown on both sides, place in glass dish and place in oven for 20 minutes or until internal temp is 180

In the meantime make your dipping sauces

Hot sauce
1 tsp franks red hot and 1 tsp melted butter

Sweet Chili
1 tsp sweet chili and 1tsp honey

Honey mustard
1 tsp honey and 1 tsp mustard

A Broth For Every Occassion

I've never made broth before and this one has turned me into a broth lover! My entire house gobbled this up all week! It was also a very therapeutic recipe. Lots of chopping, bright colors and wonderful smells. If you're looking for a unique crowed pleaser definitely try this recipe.

So the recipe was pretty easy to follow but I did run into a few questions and issues so I thought I would pass those along to anyone who might want to try this one out.

- I could not find lemon grass but, like the recipe says, it didn't really matter

- I forgot to add the Sesame oil but it didn't make a big difference

- Love lime so I used 3 instead of two and it was awesome!

- Feeding the whole family so I used 1/2 pound shrimp and that was just enough

- I added radishes and they were delicious!

Absolutely fabulous outcome! And, it's just as yummy heated up the next day...and the next.... I highly recommend you try out the recipe yourself. If you have questions leave a comment and Jessica will get back to you via comments!

Broth

Broth, sorry there is no fancy name, or cheeky story, just make it when you are feel crestfallen. It is just something I make when everything is falling apart, it brings me back to life. 

Ingredients:

1 Box Organic Chicken Broth 

2 Limes 

1 Cup Coconut Milk, can be found in the Asian section of your market  

2 Tsp Sweet Chili sauce, can be found in the Asian section of your market 

3 Green onions 

Lemon Grass, if you can’t find it, don’t worry still good without it  

1 Tsp fresh ginger 

3 Tsp soy sauce 

2 Tsp Olive Oil 

1/2 Tsp sesame oil 
1 Tbs  Sriracha

Options:

Veggies, I like carrots, red pepper, sugar snap peas and a handful of  baby spinach 

Cilantro 

Jasmine Rice 

12 clean and peeled shrimp, make sure you rinse them with cold water before cooking 

Prep: 

Dice all your veggies expcept your baby spinach leave it on the side, cut the roots off your green onions  dice and place in separate bowl, grate your ginger with a cheese grater. Juice your limes set aside, chop your cilantro set aside 

Cook your rice according to the package 

Broth :

Basically you are addling flavor to a great ingredient  

Heat: Heat up pan on Medium High add 2 Tsp olive oil, add green onions, 1/2 your lime juice, soy and chili sauce, Sriracha and shrimp. Sauté  your shrimp for two minutes or until pink through. Remove shrimp for your oil with a set of thongs keep the oil in the pot. Set the shrimp aside. Add remaining lime juice and broth and coconut milk bring to a boil, add your veggies and  boil for 2 mins you don’t want to over cook your veggies. Place rice, spinach and shrimp in a bowl pour broth and veggies over the top, top with cilantro.

My "First" Farmers Market

I would be lying if I told you I've never been to a farmers market, of course I have. But, I've never gone with the purpose of creating a meal out of what I've bought. In the past I've gone to farmers markets for the experience, coffee, being outside and maybe picking up a treat or two. However, today I went with a mission and it was a bit harder than I thought it would be.

As Jessica warned in her last post, it can be overwhelming! Well....she wasn't lying. I felt as thought everyone knew what they were doing and that I stood out like a sore thumb. But, I took a deep breath and pulled out the shopping list Jessica provided. Imagine how shocked and surprised I was when the first market didn't have one of the items on my list, sugar snap peas. Well there was no choice, on to the second farmers market.

At the second farmers market there was a lot more select and a lot more people. Again, I pulled out my list and followed it. This time I was able to locate everything and I also added a beautiful loaf of bread and some fresh guac .... I couldn't help myself! The people at the market were friendly and helpful and the prices weren't as steep as I expected. Look how yummy and fresh my cart was:

When I thought I had everything I needed I looked at the recipe again and realized I also needed a mandolin so had to stop by the anti-farmers marketing, Target. I have to admit, once I finally finished all this I didn't have the energy or inspiration to actually make the salad. So, I will post later this week with the run down of how it went along with photos. But, I do feel excited about my very first farmers market experience and look forward to my yummy salad!