One of my favorite recipes

First of all - to wrap up from last entry - the Spiced Tofu was very simple & good - could see myself repeating, because I would most likely have all the ingredients readily on hand.

Tonight, though, since I made it through the month & met my challenge of 25 new recipes in March (yay!), I thought I'd make it simple on myself and make a recipe I've made multiple times in the year since I first made it. Macaroni & Cheese. Now, be warned - I am a WW member - at goal for 3 years on April 14. So, I don't cook rich food - it just doesn't sit well with me - both at a culinary and gastronomical level (my tummy can't take it!). So, this is a WW recipe.

I usually double the recipe because I love it so much - and because it freezes so well. Since I am doubling it, I use canned diced tomatoes instead of fresh - because "fresh" tomatoes may not be as good as canned, I've found. I use my microplane on the garlic & use dried basil instead of fresh - I know, shame on me.

When I made it tonight, I burned the sauce slightly - still getting the timing on the macaroni cooked vs. when the cheese sauce is ready. Other than that - a simple, cheesy recipe with some veggies in for additional taste.


* Exported from MasterCook *

Macaroni and Cheese - WW VV

Recipe By :
Serving Size : 4 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories : Main Meals

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
1 1/2 cups elbow macaroni
1 cup 1% low-fat milk
1/2 onion -- grated
2 tablespoons unbleached flour
2 garlic cloves -- crushed
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
pinch nutmeg
4 ounces sharp cheddar cheese
1 tomato -- diced
1 tablespoon chopped basil

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cook the macaroni according to package directions. Drain and keep warm.

In a large saucepan bring the milk, onion, flour, garlic, mustard, salt, pepper, and nutmeg to a boil. Cook, stirring constantly, until thickened, 3-4 minutes. Stir in the cheese in batches until it's melted and the sauce is smooth; stir in the macaroni, tomato, and basil.

Transfer the mixture to a shallow 1-quart casserole. Bake until golden, 35-40 minutes; cool slightly before serving.

Source:
"WW Versatile Vegetarian, p. 138"

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Per Serving (excluding unknown items): 247 Calories; 11g Fat (38.5% calories from fat); 13g Protein; 25g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 32mg Cholesterol; 478mg Sodium. Exchanges: 1 Grain(Starch); 1 Lean Meat; 1/2 Vegetable; 1/2 Non-Fat Milk; 1 1/2 Fat.

NOTES : 6 points!

Nutr. Assoc. : 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Darn kitchen!

So - I didn't quite get to do 5 Eating Well recipes. I had bought the ingredients to make their Cranberry-Nut Mini Loaves with Flaxseeds , but came home to a kitchen sink full of dirty water. And no - there was no dirty water there when I left, thank you very much. This has happened before - at 10 pm one night, I was racing around sopping up my kitchen and frantically waiting for the maintenance guy (yay apartment living!). Anyway, I didn't want to do anything too risky - I was leaving for the weekend in a couple days, and didn't want to come back to a flooded kitchen - and goodness knows, my cats would drink the water - ick! So - didn't run the dishwasher. And since it was full, I didn't want to do too much cooking.

Anyway, that's my excuse. I am making an Eating Well recipe tonight though - Spice-Crusted Tofu. That brings March to an end - and the end of a challenge for myself, to try 25 new recipes that month. I just made it! But for the next couple weeks I may just go back to repeats - just for the relaxation factor. But it will still be 5 recipes a week - at least.

Eating Well Week - Day 2

Well, 2 new recipes, 1 success - one not so much.

First the good - Cumin-Roasted Almonds - from the Essential Eating Well Cookbook. I split the recipe in half, and will have the almonds mixed with raisins as my afternoon snack for the week. The recipe was very simple - just toss together ingredients and bake/roast. The resulting almonds were gorgeous - a beautiful brown. And when they mixed with the raisins, the salt came off on the raisins, and it was a good combination. But the down side is, the almonds didn't end up with much of a different taste than almonds toasted with no extra ingredients have. The cumin was more of a fragrance than a taste - which is unfortunate, because I love cumin.

Second the not as good - Artichoke Lasagna, from 10/96. I've been dying to make this recipe for a long time. Unfortunately, because I did the grocery shopping and the cooking tonight, I ended up rushing around and screwing up. So - the cheese sauce burnt a bit on the bottom, and I mistakenly left out the proscuitto. And something that was not my fault - the lasagna noodles were broken in the box. I did try something new with this as well - not pre-cooking the noodles. I think that worked fairly well - I think it would have been alright with whole noodles. The end result was a lasagna that seemed to have an okay flavor - but not enough to keep - leftovers went down the drain. I don't think I'll be doing lasagna again - I think I prefer other pastas.

Eating Well Week - Day 1

Eating Well - the magazine (and cookbook that has the "essentials"). I've subscribed to the magazine for the past couple years, and since my subscription is up with the next issue, it's time to decide if I want to keep subscribing. I checked, and neither my library or the libraries in the interlibrary loan system that it belongs to subscribe to the magazine, so if I stop subscribing, I would have to pay for individual issues. The question is to figure out if I would be better off not subscribing.

So, for this week's challenge - 5 Eating Well recipes.

The first one is from an older issue of Eating Well. EW went in and out of publication. They re-started the magazine a couple years ago, but I just happened to have an older issue hanging around. The recipe is for Berry Rich muffins. The recipe called for mixed berries, either fresh or frozen, and some dried cherries. Well, I had 1 1/4 cups of frozen raspberries in my freezer, and the only dried fruit I have is two kinds of raisins (golden & regular), neither of which I felt would go well with the berries. So - I went with 1/2 cup of chocolate chips. Problem is, I'm not sure if the berries & chips don't overwhelm the dough part of the muffin. I didn't get any sense of the muffin dough - just the fillings. But that was just on first taste - we'll see if I can discern more. On the upside - the raspberries & chocolate were tasty!