Sunday, May 31, 2009

Jun's Mac on Crack

1 bag of trader joe's penne
1 1/2 bags of trader joe's pennette
1 cup of feta
3/2 cup of random frozen gourmet cheese lying around (muenster, gouda)
1 cup of mozzarella
4 handfuls of parmesan
2 liberal sprinklings of bread crumbs (about... 1 cup?)
3/2 cup of whole milk
1 bell pepper
1 package of italian hot sausages from trader joe's (6 sausages)
1 tb of minced garlic
2 jalapenos (chopped)
olive oil
3 Tb of butter

while boiling water
add about 2 tb of olive oil to a hot skillet
add minced garlic and chopped jalapenos and stir a bit (start the sinuses running!)
add sausage (cut it up with wooden spoon as you cook)
when it's browned add bell peppers (chopped)
add some milk and stir  
add pats of butter (makes it really feel like mac n cheese, doncha think?)
[think about adding flour to thicken it, don't actually do it]
boil pasta al dente
add pasta to the milk mixture
add lots of crushed red pepper (make it dance!)
add more milk
stir it a bit 
preheat oven to 315 degrees
add the cheeses one at a time
crumbliest first to shredded/solid last.  (save the parmesan for later!)
thennnn the fun oooh ahh part
sprinkled with breadcrumbs (liberal shakes if you will)
then fistfuls of parmesan over it.
stick it into the oven at 315 degrees and bake for about 7-10 minutes
take it out
throw some more fistfuls of parmesan over it

beautiful.

whatever you do, don't eat it cold at a picnic :-(


notes:
maybe adding bright colored peppers
spinach?
broccoli?
chicken?

the possibilities are endless: it's mac n cheese!


seriously for me, mac n cheese was something that when my mom made it, she would add all sorts of things.  my favorite was when she added tuna or she added broccoli.
other variants were not so good.. i don't remember... I think I blocked it out of my brain.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chewies

Okay, so I suck at titles.
Anyway: i found a recipe
and i didn't have eggs, enough pb, or chocolate or pb chips... so...

i did something different

eyeballed ~ 1.1/4 cup of flour
1/2 cup butter
1/2~2/3 cup of peanut butter
~1/3 cup of unsweetened cocoa
eye balled 1/4 (maybe less) .. basically a big chunk of brown sugar.
3/4 cup white sugar (eyeballed in a 1 cup)
2.5 Tb plain yogurt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda