mac and cheese, first go

last summer chad was having the good idea that someone should make mac and cheese for thanksgiving.  i teased him a lot for this.  so today, i made a go at mac and cheese to bring to thanksgiving.

1. cook pasta
way ahead of when you want to make the mac and cheese, cook your pasta.  i used strangled priest.  once i drained it, i put it in the fridge in a bowl. it could be there as long as over night, but at least 4 hours or so.

2. start to heat oven to 350 degrees.

3. fry pasta
put way too much olive oil and butter in a dutch oven like pot.  (i love my crueset pot).  when hot, add the pasta and stir and fry until you have a satisfactory amount of "crunchy brown" pieces.


4. mash garlic
using a masher or knife, mash about 4 or 5 cloves for 1lb of pasta.

5. grate cheese
tonight i used gruyere.  whatever the size is they sell at my local market, rainbow bridge.

6. add garlic and some of cheese
when pasta was close to done, i added the garlic and stirred.  i added some of the cheese and stirred.  i also grated parmeson cheese into frying pasta.  i removed from heat.  if i was not "making mac and cheese" i would have stopped here and eaten this.  yum.

7. make creme sauce
melt butter and add equal parts flour.  stir until roux is light blond  color.  slowly pour in milk or creme.  (tonight all i had was half n half, so i used that).  add the rest of grated cheese to milk mixture.

8. mix, salt and bake
pour creme cheese sauce onto pasta.  stir.  gruyere is pretty salty, but i added some smoked salt too.  i grated some more cheese onto top of pasta and put it oven for 20 minutes.

Extreme Ginger Carrots

Old recipe, new method and new flavor angles:

1. peel and cut carrots  into shape you like. tonight i did them the way ed brown taught me.  slicing as i roll them to get some interesting shapes.  tonight i used 3 farmer's market sized bunches.

2. heat olive oil or preferred oil in a pan and brown the carrots.  i like them so the look like they were roasted.

3. while browning, finely grate a lot of ginger.  tonight i think i added too much, maybe close to 1/2 cup, but no one seemed to mind.

4. finely grate 2 oranges.  squeeze the juice from these two oranges.

5. mix orange juice with some tamari soy sauce, maple syrup and cayenne to taste.  proportions depend on your desired taste.

6. once carrots are browned to your liking, stir in the ginger. then eventually add the juice mixture.  allow to come to a boil, then turn heat way down, cover and let simmer on low until desired softness of carrots has been reached.  usually about 45 minutes or so.

7. tonight the balance of ginger and cayenne was a little intense, so i added a smidge more maple syrup.  also, the sauce was super potent.  to tone down, i might have added a little water to the juice mixture.

8. in the past, i have minced up shallots and added with the ginger.  tonight i fried up the shallots separately like in Vietnamese cooking. then to serve, stir in a little of the fresh orange rind.  chop up some mint and scatter on top with fried shallots.