Macaroni and Cheese

Here is a recipe for a healthier macaroni and cheese. In the picture I used whole wheat elbows and mixed in some spinach and mushrooms, but you could easily just use regular elbows and no veggies if you so desire. I left the bread crumbs off the top due to some time constraints but I will include the topping in the recipe. This is a recipe that I got from one of the cooking light cookbooks and have modified it a bit. The addition of the cottage cheese and sour cream add lots of flavor and creaminess without making it too unhealthy.



Baked Macaroni and Cheese (serves 6)

1 egg
1 cup low fat cottage cheese
3/4 cup low fat sour cream
1/2 cup non fat or low fat milk
2 TBS grated onion
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground pepper
2 cups (8 oz) grated cheese- you can use all cheddar or your favorite cheese or a combination whatever you have on hand
4 cups elbow noodles cooked (8oz uncooked)
1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
2 tbs melted butter or olive oil
pinch of salt, pepper, and paprika

Pre heat the oven to 350. In a bowl mix the egg through the ground pepper until mixed. Add in the cheese and mix, then fold in the cooked noodles. Spread into a greased 2 quart casserole pan and pat down to evenly fill the pan. In a small bowl, mix the bread crumbs, butter and salt, pepper, and paprika. Sprinkle over the pasta and cover the pan with foil. Bake for 30 minutes and uncover and bake another five minutes or until the bread crumbs brown.

*Feel free to add in anything you want along with the pasta. You could fold in some ham or broccoli, or maybe some roasted poblanos and use pepper jack cheese along with the cheddar cheese.

Strawberry Shortcake

It's June and local strawberries are in season. I'm very lucky to live where I do, and have access to great produce and food. This past weekend we went to pick hood strawberries. Hood (as in Mt Hood) strawberries can be arguably some of the best strawberries to be found. We picked a whole flat, some of which I'll turn into jam and the rest will make for a great week of snacks! Later the same night I decided to make some strawberry shortcakes to highlight the beautiful strawberries we picked that morning. I didn't necessarily have a great go to shortcake recipe so I found one on King Arthur Flour. I think I was still inspired from my previous post experience! I made a few adaptions but it turned out to be a great biscuit for shortcake. I had perfect strawberries so there was very little need for sugar, but I did need some juice so I crushed a few strawberries and quartered the rest. I also included a few squirts of agave syrup and then topped it with some freshly whipped, lightly sweetened, organic heavy whipping cream

Shortcakes (from King Arthur Flour)
3 1/2 cups (14 7/8 oz) all purpose flour or pastry flour if you have it (I used half whole wheat pastry flour)
1 tsp salt
1 TBS baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3 TBS sugar
4 oz (1 stick) cold butter cut into small pieces or thin slices
2 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk

Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees F. You want the butter, buttermilk and egg as cold as possible. This will help to keep the biscuit a tender. Measure all the dry ingredients into a bowl and add the cut up butter. Break up the butter with your fingers or a pastry cutter until the mixture resembles cornmeal (you can also pulse this in a food processor). In a separate bowl mix the buttermilk, egg and vanilla and pour into the dry ingredients and mix with your hands or a spatula just until the ingredients are barely mixed, make sure not to over mix! The batter will be fairly soft so make sure you turn it out on a floured surface to roll and cut out the biscuits. I took a bit of a shortcut and used a large scoop and just scooped it onto a sheet pan. Place the biscuits on a greased or parchment lined sheet pan. I pressed them down with my hand slightly (dampened my hand with water so it wouldn't stick)- because I had scooped them, this wouldn't be necessary if they were rolled out. I finished them off with a dusting of raw coarse sugar before putting the biscuits into the oven. They baked for about 15-20 minutes. I pulled them out when I saw them lightly brown and the felt firm in the middle. These also made great biscuits for breakfast the next day, gently rewarmed!

Ricotta Pancakes

I had another post that I was going to put up today, until I made breakfast and found something more inspiring. My recipe and food choices for the day are usually guided by what's in the refrigerator and more importantly what needs to be used up. I had half a container of ricotta that wouldn't be good for much longer so I decided to try (again) some ricotta pancakes. I had made one recipe a while back but they were really thin and flat and didn't have a good texture at all. I had almost resigned to the fact that I didn't like ricotta in my pancakes until I tried this recipe. These may be my favorite pancakes! I got the recipe from The King Arthur Flour Bakers Companion Cookbook. I was short on a few ingredients, so I made a few modifications to the recipe, but they turned out so great that I think I will keep making them the same way, which is the recipe I posted below. I had some poached rhubarb which was a wonderful accompaniment to these very light and flavorful pancakes.

Ricotta Pancakes (made about 15 medium large pancakes)

3 eggs (2 of the whites separated and set aside in a clean bowl)
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
3 TBS sugar
2/3 cup of ricotta
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt

In a small mixing bowl, sift the flours, salt, baking powder and baking soda and set aside. In another larger mixing bowl, mix the eggs (minus the two separated egg whites), and ricotta until smooth. Add in the vanilla and buttermilk and whisk until smooth. Begin whipping the egg whites and when they are white a frothy add one tablespoon of sugar. Continue whipping and slowly add the rest of the sugar and whip until medium peaks form. When you hold up the whisk, the egg white should stand up and flop over a little bit at the top. Mix the dry ingredients into the buttermilk mixture, whisk just until the flour is mixed in, be careful to not over mix or the pancakes can be tough. Don't worry if there are a few lumps left. Gently fold in the egg whites. Cook on a griddle over a medium heat. The batter will be very light but thick, so make sure that as you ladle out the batter the pancakes aren't too thick by taking the back of the spoon and spreading the batter out a little. They will take a little longer than regular pancakes to cook, so make sure to keep the heat low enough so they don't get to dark before they're done. Enjoy!

Swedish Cream

This is much like a panna cotta with the addition of sour cream, making it a little richer, creamier, and thicker than a normal panna cotta. With the addition of sour cream it pairs wonderfully with berries and all the stone fruits of summer. It couldn't be simpler and works well to make ahead of time. If you wanted to turn these out, as opposed to serving in a dish, you might want to increase the amount of gelatin to 1 tsp.

Swedish Cream -makes 6 small 1/3 cup servings
1 cup cream or half and half or milk*
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 tsp powdered gelatin (dissolved in 5 tsp water)
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla extract or 1 vanilla bean
1/2 tsp almond extract (optional)

*use milk if you want something lighter or cream if you are looking for something very rich

Combine the gelatin and water in a small bowl, make sure all the gelatin gets hydrated. Let sit for 5 minutes. In a separate pot scald (heat just before boiling) the cream with sugar and vanilla bean (if using). Take off the heat, add in the gelatin and stir to dissolve (remove the vanilla bean). Put the sour cream in a separate bowl and slowly pour the hot cream into the sour cream , stirring with each addition to make sure the sour cream gets completely mixed in, and then add in the vanilla extract and almond extract. Pour into serving dishes and and refrigerate until cool and set (at least 4 hours). I like to serve the Swedish cream with fresh fruit tossed with a little sugar.

Miso Mustard Butter

I'm not sure where this recipe came from, like quite a few in my collection, I rip them out and save them, but it doesn't have the source on it. I'm not claiming this as my own, but I'm not sure who to credit! It was a great find, however. This butter is considered a compound butter, which is basically a flavored or seasoned butter. It can be as simple as garlic butter you spread on french bread for garlic bread. When summer is in full swing you can chop up all your fresh herbs and use that to make a lovely herb butter, maybe adding some garlic or citrus zest. The possibilities are endless! I used it a few days ago when we grilled a beautifully thick rib eye steak. The possibilities for compound butter uses extend way beyond meat. I also roasted some asparagus which could have easily been finished with some of this butter coming out of the oven. I'm sure it would be great over fish or maybe some roasted or steamed potatoes (or veggies), or perhaps toss it with pasta. Make the whole recipe and then whatever you don't use you can shape into a log shape using parchment or plastic wrap and then freeze it (make sure it's well wrapped). Slice a round off whenever you need it, and as long as your ingredients are hot you won't have to worry about defrosting it.

Miso Mustard Butter (makes close to 1 cup of butter)

1 stick (8 TBS) softened unsalted butter
2 TBS white miso
2 TBS dijon style mustard
1 TBS minced garlic
1 TBS minced fresh ginger
1 TBS lemon juice
2 tsp honey
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)

Make sure your butter is very soft, but not melted, and mix everything together. I find it's easier to mix everything but the butter together first then add the softened butter. It makes it a lot easier to make sure everything is evenly incorporated.

Coconut Macaroons

These cookies are always a huge hit and they couldn't be easier to make. I also like to finish these cookies off by dipping the bottoms in tempered chocolate (click here and scroll down to the bottom of the post for tempering instruction). You can make the macaroon batter ahead of time and keep it in the cooler for up to a week without any problems. These cookies also keep pretty well for 5 days or so before they begin to dry out (make sure to keep them covered).

Coconut Macaroons (makes about 36 cookies)

2.75 oz egg whites
6 oz granulated sugar
.4oz pastry flour
.75 oz corn syrup
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
large pinch salt
6 ozunsweetened finely shredded coconut (if you can't find it in the bulk section, look for Bob's Red Mill brand)

Pre Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Put the egg whites, sugar corn, syrup, vanilla, and salt in a bowl and mix to combine everything and then add in the coconut. Mix until everything is combined, the mixture will be fairly stiff. If you have a small cookie scoop, it is the easiest way to shape the cookies. Make sure to really pack the scoop so the cookies won't easily fall apart. If you don't have a cookie scoop you can just hand shape 1-2TBS full of dough. Make sure to pack it together before placing them on the cookie tray. I like to roll round balls and then slightly flatten them on the cookie sheet. Bake for about 10-15 minutes until you see the very tops of the cookies start to brown. When you touch them, they will feel really soft, like they're not done, but as they cool they will firm up. Cook them too long and they start to dry out. Let them cool completely before taking them off the sheet pan.

Feel free to play around with variations. You could add spices or zest to the batter. You can also fold in small chunks of nuts or chocolate, or melted chocolate for chocolate macaroons.

Smoothie

Before I start in on today's post I want to apologize for the lack of posts lately. I have good reason though! I found out a few weeks ago that I'm pregnant. My husband and I are very excited. I'm now through my first trimester and feeling better, but for a while cooking or writing about food sounded less than appealing. I'm very happy to see though that it was short lived! I thought I would start back with a recipe that I find very comforting and a great and quick way to start off the day. I'm sure you've come across many smoothie recipes. I'm fairly sure you haven't seen too many with oatmeal in it though! I got the idea from a few years back when my husband and I were following the Abs Diet it was a very sensible way of eating that basically focuses on a core group of healthy and fresh foods. The oatmeal in the shake gives it a great creaminess and also helps to add fiber and it sticks with you all morning long. In smaller quantities it also makes a great mid day snack. Feel free to play around with all the ingredients in this recipe. I hesitated in labeling this recipe as a specific smoothie (I would have labeled it a banana peanut butter smoothie) because I didn't want to turn anyone off, as you could add whatever you had on hand or were in the mood for. What I'll do is when I'm making oatmeal for breakfast, I'll make extra- then there is oatmeal cold and ready to go whenever I need a quick breakfast. Give it a try and see what you think!



Smoothie (makes 1 large meal sized smoothie)

1/3 cup cooked, cold oatmeal
1 small banana or 1/2- 2/3's of a large
1 TBS peanut butter (preferably natural without any added sugar or salt)
1 TBS of vanilla flavored protein powder*
1/4 tsp of cinnamon
1/2 cup milk (whatever kind you want or you could replace it with soy milk ect.)
3 ice cubes

*for the protein powder I used a whey protein powder- vanilla flavor. This adds some sweetness to the shake along with extra protein. You could also use a soy protein powder if you wanted, if it's not flavored or you want to skip the protein powder all together you might want to add a tsp of honey, maple syrup or sugar. We've made it without any added sugar or protein powder but be forewarned that it's definitely not very sweet. The protein powder or added sugar doesn't make it overly sweet just adds a little more flavor.

Put everything but the ice in a blender, blend until smooth and then add the ice cubes and blend until all the ice is blended in.