Hold the Spam

From time to time there are a few dishes i crave from childhood. All of them are made by my mother. Spaghetti Carbonara, Pot Roast, Angel Food Cake with Coolwhip as icing, Lime-Pear Salad, and Mac'n'Cheese. Most of these used to be requested by me on my birthday when i had the choice of what we had for dinner. To me they're the ultimate comfort food. Unhealthy, but hearty and filling.

Recently i have been craving Mac'n'Cheese. This is not your standard box mix by Kraft or Annie's Mac or god forbid, Velveta (yuck). It's completely homemade from scratch and well worth the time and calories to make it. For Christmas i also received a food processor and have been dying to try it out to grate all that cheese. (and let me tell you, that thing is amazing! 2 seconds, bam! done!)

Now, the original recipe calls for Spam. My dad is the only one who requests it this way and thinks it better. The rest of us prefer to leave it out. But just incase you're one of those people love Spam, i'm including it in the recipe. Apparently there are lots of new varieties of Spam, including a bacon and a lite version. So take your pick if you chose to use it.

This recipe is basically perfect in my opinion and i didnt want to change it much from how my mom makes it make. It's simple, uncomplicated, and so cheesy. I gorged myself on it, i'm surprised my stomach didnt hurt afterwards. I only made slight changes but i'll get to that in the review.

Macaroni Spam Casserole

12 oz. Can of Spam
3 cups Macaroni
6 Tablespoons Butter
6 Tablespoons Flour
¾ teaspoon Salt
¾ teaspoon Dry mustard
3 cups Milk
¾ lb. (or up to a pound) sharp chedder cheese, shredded
Parsley (opt.)

Prepare macaroni, drain. Cube Spam, reserve a few for top of casserole. Mix Spam & macaroni in 3 quart casserole, set aside.

Cheese sauce:
Combine flour, salt & mustard. Melt butter in large pot, stir in flour mixture & cook until bubbly, don’t brown. (This step is making a roux) Gradually stir in milk (note: heat the milk for about 2 minutes in microwave to make this step go faster). Cook over medium heat until thickened, then add shredded cheese off the heat.

Pour cheese sauce over macaroni & Spam. Add reserved Spam cubes & top with parsley. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

My Review:

To try to make it somewhat healthier, i used whole wheat macaroni. You can't tell the difference at all since the sauce is so rich. I used a full pound of cheese since i had to buy two 8oz. cubes anyway. One of them i used low fat sharp white chedder, and the other was regular sharp yellow chedder. To also help cut some of the fat i used 1% milk. I'm sure it would be even richer and creamier with full fat cheese and a higher fat milk, but it's super tasty this way and nobody will notice the difference if you don't say anything.

The only changes to the seasoning was using a full teaspoon of dry mustard, and i added a pinch of nutmeg and a pinch a paprika when making the roux. As said before, i omitted the spam, but added whole wheat seasoned bread crumbs plus a little more paprika to top for a little crunch.

The result? I had a massive serving of it. There's a whole 3 quart casserole, it's gotta be eaten some how... I microwaved some frozen peas with it so i could get in a serving a veggies. They taste great with the cheese and mix in easily on your plate if you so chose to do so :) Geoff came home from class and was super psyched to have it for dinner and had a healthy portion for himself. There's still tons of leftovers for the week... i may gain five pounds from this.

When making the roux and then adding the milk i kept wondering how much it would thicken. Give it time, and keep stirring the milk/flour/butter mixture. It will thicken quite a bit and you'll know when it's time to add the cheese. Make sure to add the milk slowly and keep stirring the whole time making sure to mix in the flour well. When adding the cheese do a little at a time to make it easier for yourself.

I'll also make a side note that food processors are amazing! I've wanted one for a long time and have wasted so much time chopping and grating things. My arms and knife skills are better from it, but man, what a time saver. That cheese was gone in 2 seconds! It took about 5 times as long to clean the parts than it was to grate the cheese. I'm looking forward to making pesto, hummus, and possibly even dough in the future with this thing. Stay tuned for those recipes.

This recipe makes a massive amount of food. It's easily to make, and really cheap too. The whole cost of the meal was about $13, which included buying dry mustard, the pasta, the milk, and the cheese.

(A photo will posted this afternoon)

Go easy on me

So, here we go. First post.

By no means am I great writer and by no means am I a great cook. I probably don't have great grammar, I'm a terrible speller, and I often forget to capitalize words, like i. Regardless, I'll try my best and i hope you'll go easy on me.

I will admit though that over the past few years of learning to cook that I have found some great recipes on either the web or in various cook books. Generally most that I try come out great and my roommates, friends and boyfriend have enjoyed them a lot. So the point and vision of this blog is to share recipes that i've found and given a try. I'll post the original recipe, my review of it including successes or pitfalls, any additions or alterations, and hopefully a photo of the result. I'll also try to give an approximate cost, if i don't throw out the receipt before posting.

I'll disclose that while i love to cook, i'm often lazy. On a weeknight i don't want to spend time on recipe that says it takes much over a half hour or an hour max. Recipe times often don't take into account chopping time, me searching for my spices that i thought i had, re-reading the recipe, other distractions, etc. So there will rarely ever be a recipe here that takes 3 hours, unless maybe it's done in a crock-pot. (though i've yet to explore much crock-pot cooking). Disclaimer: A goal of mine is to occasionally spend time cooking a great sunday meal. You know, those great things like pot roast and those of that nature that just need to stew for many hours on the stove. My boyfriend will appreciate this, and maybe you will too. So okay, sometimes there may be more labor/time recipes.

I also have a tight budget for food. I try my best to cook cheaply, but it sometimes doesn't happen. Sometimes the recipe just calls for too many ingredients, or sometimes an expensive item that you just can't leave out. They say the key to cooking cheaply is to always keep a well stocked pantry. I tend to not do this. I buy what's needed for the recipe that i don't have. But recently when i scan through recipes trying to figure out what to make for dinner, i skip over the ones that have 10 ingredients or more (not including spices, unless i don't have that one). If i remember (as said above) i'll try to post the approximate cost of the meal.

So without further ado, here's what i made last night:

Halibut Puttanesca

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups tomato sauce
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup stuffed green olives, chopped
• 3 tablespoons drained capers
• 1/2 cup red wine
• 2 teaspoons anchovy paste
• 4 (5-ounce) halibut fillets
• Salt and ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil leaves

Directions

Add tomato sauce to a saucepan. Add garlic, olives, capers, wine and anchovy paste and bring mixture to a simmer for 5 minutes over medium heat. Meanwhile, season halibut on both sides with salt and black pepper. Add halibut fillets to sauce, cover and simmer 3 to 5 minutes, until fish is fork tender.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/robin-miller/halibut-puttanesca-recipe/index.html

My Review

I'll start with the changes.

• I used talapia instead of halibut. I believe it's cheaper, and i also didnt see halibut at the fish counter.

Note: I always use fresh fish unless otherwise noted.

• I couldnt find any anchovy paste. I was gonna be adventurous and try it, but i got tired of looking for at the store. It probably also saved me a good couple bucks as well.

• Since i couldnt find the anchovy paste, i used bottle tomato sauce labeled Puttanesca. It essentially had all the ingredients that i was gonna add to it, with the addition of the anchovy. I know from experience that most tomato sauces labeled with a "flavor" arent too strong tasting, so i felt confident that adding all the called for ingredients would only enhance the sauce and not overwhelm it.

• I used good olives. A&P and most good supermarkets now have an "olive bar" The olives seemed like they would be prominent in the dish, so i spent my money there. $4 for about a half cup of great marinated olives.

• For the capers i used the slightly larger ones, Capote Capers. I've had them before and know that i like them. Personal preference though. I believe they're comparable in price to the regular ones.

• I omitted the fresh basil for cost reasons and sprinkled in some dried basil to the sauce.

• Added about a 1/4 teaspoon of crushed red pepper to give a bit more kick.

Overall, i really liked this dish. I served it over whole wheat spaghetti to help soak up all the extra delicious sauce. The fish cooked perfectly and was tender and flaky. If you're prone to heartburn, you may want to take a pepcid with this one. It's got a nice kick to it from the garlic and red pepper flakes. It's also salty and briny from the olives and capers. Basically this dish tasted exactly like it should. I'd recommend using a full bodied wine for the half cup that's added to help balance the strong flavors in the sauce. And course, keep drinking the wine with the meal! I always follow the rule of cook with wine that you would drink at the table. If you wanted to bulk up the dinner even more, adding some veggies to sauce would work great too. If you're not a fish person, try it with chicken. It took no time at all to make and was a great monday night meal.

Sorry no photo this time since i thought of starting this blog this morning.

Approximate price (from memory): $14 for 4 servings, depending on how much fish you buy.