Classic Baked Mac n' Cheese

This recipe is a Robak family favorite and my number one comfort food. Depending on your cheese preference, you can substitute the sharp cheddar for any other hard cheese. We added some Dubliner (a sharp Irish cheese) to this batch, which was delicious. The real key to success is adding enough sauce. You'll want your noodles to be swimming in it, especially if you plan on re-heating the leftovers. So get saucy and have fun!



Ingredients:

• 1 12oz box of macaroni noodles 
• 1 large white onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 3 tbsp. butter
• 1/4 cup flour
• 3 1/2 cups milk
• 12 ounces sharp cheddar cheese (roughly grated)
• 1 1/2 cup crushed croutons or bread crumbs
• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

1. Cook macaroni noodles as instructed on the package.
2. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.
3. Finely chop onion and garlic.
4. In a sauce pan, melt butter and add onions and garlic. Add salt and pepper. Sauté onions and garlic until translucent. 
5. Slowly stir in flour until all ingredients form a thick paste, add more butter if necessary.
6. Add milk to the saucepan, stir and heat until it simmers. Do not let it boil.
7. Remove sauce from heat, and slowly stir in cheese. You should have a nice thick sauce at this point. 
8. Pour noodles and sauce into a baking dish and top with croutons. 
9. Bake for about 25 minutes, until the sauce is bubbling and the croutons are golden brown.

Curried Chicken Lettuce Wraps

This summer, Parisa and I have been on a mission to be healthy and wrap something in lettuce. After much kitchen deliberation, we finally figured it out. These wraps are healthy, quick and tasty. The perfect summer lunch food. A cool glass of lemonade was all this meal was missing!


Ingredients:
2 cups cooked shredded chicken breast
1 1/2 cup cubed granny-smith apples
2 Tbs light mayonnaise
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/4 c walnut pieces
1 package bib lettuce
curry powder
salt and pepper
paprika



We cooked 2 chicken breasts by boiling them, and then shredded them to make about 2 cups of chicken.  When cooled, mix the chicken with mayo, apple slices, lemon juice, and walnut pieces, stirring to coat evenly.  Season the salad with curry powder, paprika, salt and pepper to taste.  You can add more mayo if desired, but we found that we only really needed 2 Tbs to give the chicken a good coating.

Bibb lettuce is a buttery variety that tastes great with curried chicken, and is plenty flexible for making wraps.  Remove the larger outer leafs from the head and wash, and then add a generous scoop of chicken salad to each lettuce leaf.  Roll and enjoy!

our first blog meal in Parisa's new kitchen!

Carrot Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

For Kristin's and our friend Katie's birthday last month, we had a little potluck in the backyard.  Both of them love carrot cake, and I love anything with cream cheese frosting on top, so I decided to try making carrot cupcakes for the first time.  I'm not super comfortable with baking cakes because I tend to improvise way too much, but I found this simple and flavorful recipe online:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/carrot-cupcakes-with-white-chocolate-cream-cheese-icing/detail.aspx

These little guys were not nearly as hard to make as I thought they'd be, and they were delicious!  The cupcakes were moist thanks to the pineapple, and didn't have that greasy texture that some carrot cakes have.  The combination of nutmeg, ginger and cinnamon complemented the carrots well, and the spices weren't overpowered by sugar.  They tasted so good, I had to make another batch a few days later when my sister came to visit.

I did make two alterations: I used pecans instead of walnuts, and made a traditional cream cheese frosting instead of a white chocolate cream cheese frosting (why mess with a good thing?)

Frosting Ingredients

4 oz cream cheese, softened

4 oz room temperature butter

1 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar

1 tbsp pure vanilla extract

Blend in a food processor until smooth.

Cod Fish Tacos

With the sun finally coming around, Kristin and I made summer-worthy cod tacos with a zesty cilantro salsa aioli.  We are fans of spice, and this meal had a great kick to it.  Plus, I am a sucker for colorful food, so I loved the punch of purple cabbage.

Kristin just got a Cuisinart food processor, and this meal gave us plenty of chances to experiment with it.  We blended the salsa and shredded cabbage in the processor, but if you don't have a food processor you can dice and shred by hand.

Ingredients

Cod fillet, bones removed

1 package cajun corn meal batter

1 egg

1 cup milk

1 head red cabbage, or 1/2 head of both red and green cabbage, shredded

juice of 1/2 lemon (save the other 1/2 lemon for serving)

1 cup mayonnaise

1 tomato, roughly chopped

1 onion, roughly chopped

1 head of cilantro

a few slices of jalapeno pepper

1 avocado, diced

vegetable oil for frying

1 package tortillas (we used flour, but corn tortillas would be great too).

1 package feta cheese crumbles

We got a cheap cajun corn meal batter from the grocery store, and it tasted fantastic.  It was essentially just corn meal and spice.  You can batter the fish however you'd like; we dipped it in an egg and milk mixture, and then tossed it in the cornmeal batter.  

Here's a tip for neutralizing the fish smell: keep a bowl of vinegar on the counter while cooking.

Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat with about a half an inch of vegetable oil.  Fry the battered cod on both sides until golden brown.

Blend the tomato, onion, cilantro, jalapeno and lemon juice in a food processor until you reach a desirable consistency (we basically pureed ours, but you can do a chunkier salsa if you want).  Mix the salsa into the mayonnaise.

Warm the tortillas by frying them briefly on both sides.  Layer tortillas with battered cod, cilantro salsa aioli, cabbage, avocado slices, feta cheese crumbles, and lemon juice.  Eat up!