Creamy, Dreamy Macaroni and Cheese

I sincerely wish I could remember where I briefly read something about "Risotto-Style" Macaroni and Cheese. Unfortunately, my brain seems to be shot, and so I can't recall for the life of me where it was that I first read about it.  After a couple of google searches, I landed on a recipe that sounded fairly promising here.  I ended up doubling it (we like leftovers) and making a few other modifications and substitutions, and the result was SO delicious.  I have had problems in the past with homemade mac and cheese being cheesy enough, but this totally fit the bill.

2 T Butter
1 small-medium onion, diced
71/2 cups water
4 cubes beef bullion
3 cups elbow macaroni
1 cup half and half
3 T cream cheese
1.5 cups Cheddar Cheese
1.5 T Brown Mustard (or dijon, or some sort)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a large saucepan.  Add in the diced onion and cook until the onion is close to translucent, about 10 minutes.  Add in the pasta and stir around a little bit.  Add in the water and the bullion cubes (or 7 1/2 cups of the broth of your choice).  Bring to a boil, lower the heat to the lower end of medium, and allow to lightly boil (a little more than simmer) uncovered for 20 minutes.  Once the liquid is absorbed so that only about 1/4th of it remains, add in the half and half, and allow to simmer for another 6 minutes or so, until the sauce begins to thicken.  Then, add in everything else, stir until it's all melted and delicious, and allow it to sit for about 3-5 minutes before serving.

Sorry there's no picture, we all sort of dove right in and started eating, and well, there are a few leftovers, well, leftover.

Sandwich Rolls

I really like sandwiches.  I particularly like these sandwich rolls.  It's a really good way to use up any sandwich type of ingredients you have on hand that might go bad if you don't use them up fairly quickly, because these rolls are perfectly delicious when you freeze them and then re-heat them later.  I usually stick with some kind of lunch meat and cheese sandwich, or a pizza variety, but this time, I decided to try a Peanut Butter and Jelly one too.

For the dough, I used Mel of Mel's Kitchen Cafe's French Bread Roll Recipe.  Make sure that your dough is still sticky when you've finished adding in flour, because that's how you'll end up with a tender and delicious bread.  I doubled this recipe so that I'd end up with 24 sandwich rolls at the end:  

French Bread Rolls

1 1/2 cups warm water

3/4 tablespoon instant yeast (or 1 tablespoon active dry yeast)
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 teaspoon salt
4 cups all-purpose flour


Put everything except the flour in your stand mixer, and mix well with the paddle attachment.  Add in 4 cups of the flour to make a very watery dough.  Switch to the dough hook, and add in the remaining flour, and let it knead for about 5-7 minutes.  Take out the dough hook, cover the bowl, and let it rise until doubled.  Mine only had to rise for 45 minutes, and it was definitely doubled at that point.  Once you get the dough, split it into two equal portions, and roll one of them out onto a floured surface like this:  

Yes, I already spread the peanut butter on this one...

Mine is about 11"x13",  but you can clearly see that it's not exact.  If you're making the peanut butter variety, microwave about 3/4-1 cup of peanut butter for 15-30 seconds so that it's very easily spreadable.  Spread the peanut butter all the way to the edges of your dough, leaving just a tiny space on the bottom for when you roll the dough up.

Mmmm...Peanut Butter and Jelly.

Then spread it with your favorite Jelly--this is black currant jelly from Grandpa Murray (it's delicious).  Roll the whole deal up starting from the top, and then slice it into 12 rolls.  You can do more of you so desire, but 12 worked out really well for me.

Rolls!

I lined this cookie sheet with aluminum foil because I suspected that the jelly would leak out and be quite sticky, and it was.  I would recommend lightly spraying the cookie sheet as well when you do this.  Cover with something (plastic wrap, kitchen towel, etc.) and allow to rise while you preheat the oven to 400 degrees F, and work with your second batch of dough.

 In the second batch of dough, I made this mix:

Spicy Yogurt Sauce (1 cup plain Greek yogurt mixed with about 1 t of hot sauce)
Brown mustard (spread only over the top 1/4th of the dough)
Mozzarella Cheese (probably 1.5 cups of shredded spread all over the dough)
Ham lunch meat
Baby spinach leaves


You could probably just substitute mayonnaise for the yogurt sauce, if you'd like.  I didn't notice anything weird because I used yogurt--there was no tangy-ness whatsoever.


Roll the whole thing up just like the peanut butter and jelly ones, and then cut into 12 rolls. Place onto a greased cookie sheet and cover to rise for a few minutes.

Mmmm...Hammy.

  At this point, your oven is probably preheated, you can go ahead and stick the peanut butter and jelly rolls in  to cook for 12-15 minutes.  Then, just switch out the cooked ones with the other set, and you'll end up with these:

Cooked Ham and Spinach Rolls

Close up of Ham and Spinach Roll

 I forgot to take pictures of the finished peanut butter ones while they were on the tray, but it wasn't that exciting.  After cooling, you can stick them in your freezer for a few hours and then just plop them into freezer bags to eat whenever you want them.  Katie requested a jelly sandwich today, so I took one of the Peanut butter ones out, stuck it in the microwave for 30 seconds, and got this:

Close up of Peanut Butter Roll...the next day

 I had to convince her it was the same thing as a sandwich, but once she tried it, she happily ate the whole thing.  These also work really nicely in lunches for people who have to go to work, especially since you can stick it in the microwave and have a warm roll for lunch.  If it's defrosted, you should probably only microwave it for about 15 seconds, so you don't turn the bread into rubber.

Mmmm...Brioche

 Yesterday, Jo posted about the best French Toast Recipe, and I knew that I needed to try it.  I thought about just making it with regular-type bread, but then, I was intrigued by the idea of making Brioche, so that had to happen.

Brioche is a long, but not a hard process.  Also, if you're making it by hand, good luck.  This dough took 20 minutes of kneading with the Kitchen-Aid.  I'm sure the use of a machine somehow makes it less authentic or something, but I don't mind.

It's so pretty!

Brioche (adapted only very slightly from the King Arthur Flour site)

2 3/4 Cups Flour
1/4 Cup Nonfat Dry Milk
3 T Sugar
1 1/4 t Salt
1 T Instant Yeast
3 Large Eggs
1/4 Cup Warm Water
10 T Butter (1 cube, plus 2 T)

Throw everything into your mixer (or your bread machine, set on "Dough"), mix with the paddle mixer on medium-high speed until your dough is all mixed together.  It will be sticky, and will not look at all like bread dough should look.  Don't panic, just leave the paddle on, and keep mixing on medium-high speed for 10 minutes.  Then, scrape down the sides of the bowl (it should feel more doughy now) and switch out the paddle for the dough hook.  Knead for another 5-10 minutes on a lower setting (I used a 2).  Once you're finished kneading the dough, it will still be very soft, but not terribly sticky.  Cover the bowl, and let rise for 1 hour.  Once that hour is done, it will not have risen very much.  Transfer the dough to the fridge and let rise for at least 2 more hours (At this point, you can let it rise overnight if you'd like to split up the time you have to pay attention to it). Once you're done with the fridge, it should have risen more noticeably.  Take the dough out and shape it however you'd like to use it.  I made two braided loaves.  The dough will have a very clay-like texture, and should shape very easily.  The two braided loaves should go into 8" bread pans, and will look quite tiny, even in the small pans.  Cover, and let the loaves rise for another 3 hours (this give it enough time to both warm up from the fridge, and fill the pans).  Once that's done, bake the loaves at 350 for 40-45 minutes.  If you don't want very dark bread (I didn't), tent the loaves with Aluminum foil after about 10 minutes.  The bread will have a slightly flaky, delicious crust, and a tender, amazingly delicious center.

Mmmm...Slightly Flaky Crust

 

Soft, Delicious Center

When I cut into the bread, I was pretty excited with how amazingly well it turned out.  I'm tempted now to try and make some croissants using the same recipe, and just shaping them into crescents.  The crust on the bread and the center are pretty much exactly the texture that I think a croissant should be...though I'm not really any great expert, admittedly.

And, for those who don't care about bread, here's a picture of Katie and I last night in our front yard area.  Isn't she adorable?  We didn't even tell her to pose.

Katie, and me, 21 weeks.