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From Aprons to "I DOs": How to Cook to Get, Keep and Maintain Your Man

Answers to questions posted on April 16 blog entry! Here's another recipe for fast, delicious food...

Homemade and all natural creamy mac'n'cheese! My daughter loves it. When I have pasta already cooked, it only takes 5 minutes. So, I love it too!

This feeds 4-6 hungry people. Divide accordingly for smaller portions. Cook a pound of elbow macaroni. My favorite brand is Barilla. I like to do this in the morning or the night before then drain pasta and refrigerate for later.
Next, add 1 eight-ounce block cream cheese cut up in 8 pieces. Put in a glass or ceramic dish, then microwave about 1 to two minutes. The pasta should be hot and the cheese melted but not sputtering and bubbling. Watch the microwave and stir during this step.
Add maybe 1/4 cup milk (like two sips of milk). Then mix in a small squirt of mustard, two shakes of Tabasco and dried onion or onion powder if you have it. Then add 1 cup (8 oz package) cheddar cheese for regular mac’n’cheese. Or try 8 oz. shredded Parmesan or 4-cheese Italian shredded blend with some chopped fresh parsley. Heat again for 30 seconds and mix vigorously until cheese melts into sauce.

Photo: Taste of Home

Food for thought: Impress your friends and yourself, Part 1!

Don't you hate it when you've been hoodwinked, foiled again? Well, you'd better be siting down, because every time you buy ricotta cheese, you've been robbed of dollars and flavor by the factories.

Ricotta cheese has only three ingredients: milk, salt and lemon. There are plenty of ways to mess it up, including failure to stir constantly, the wrong (non-wooden) spoon, a thin pot, a non-nonstick pot. Unfortunately, I can vouch for all these mistakes! Click on the title for the original recipe I tested.

Here is a method that prevents scalding of milk for ricotta cheese. 2%, whole or any combination in between will work great. I have not tested this recipe for a low-fat version. I love to use organic milk for this for obvious reasons and especially since organic ricotta would cost a small fortune.
Yield: 1/4 of the amount of milk used (8 cups milk yields 2 cups ricotta)

Use a wide saucepan filled 1/3 with water and put a stockpot or tall pot you would cook spaghetti inside it (8 quarts and at least 12" high.) In the tall stockpot, pour 1/2 to 3/4 gallon milk. More runs the risk of spilling over. The effect will be like a double boiler, boiling water in a wider pot surrounding ingredients in a pot that fits inside.

Let the water reach a rolling boil, but keep checking and replenishing the water. Stir the milk often using a wooden spoon. Add 1 teaspoon sea salt, if desired, at any time. This process will take 20-25 minutes. The milk may look foamy or boil depending on the setup you have. That's fine. The milk should steam and look very hot. Keeping the stove one, squeeze the juice of 1 to 2 lemons--I only recommend using fresh lemons; the taste is superb and the acidity, just right. You will see the milk react by separating into blobs and the milk will have lumps and get closer to transparent, lighter than skim milk. In a colander or sieve, strain with cheesecloth, a couple layers of sturdy paper towels like Viva or a white woven kitchen towel, the kind that is like an apron, not fluffy terry cloth.
Enjoy! This is especially good with fresh fruit like blueberries and peaches with honey or used in a recipe like tiramisu and lasagne.

Photo by Romulo Yanes

Food for thought: What's for dinner? Blackened tuna, easy carbs, basic white sauce segues to easy mac 'n' cheese, veggies, mango sorbet

So, what's for dinner? Let us know!

"What's for dinner?" Ahhh. That's a question as old as the hills. I can actually picture cavepeople in Clan-of-the-Cave-Bear-style costumes grunting this. What I'd be asking is, "What the &$%#! is that?" But that's just me.

Menu:

Blackened tuna or catfish
Cream sauce or cheese sauce
Mac 'n' cheese
Disclaimer: do not make this for grandma or any iconic master of mac 'n' cheese. This is a simplified version.
Cous cous or potatoes as easy-to-make carbs
Vegetables
Mango sorbet

Tasks so that you don't spend 3 hours in the kitchen:

You can do this stuff ahead of time. Asterisks* are for steps you may not have.
*Thaw fish, if necessary 12-24 hours in advance.
*Make cajun seasoning.
Thaw mangoes/frozen fruit for 10-15 minutes.
Season fish; set aside.
Make sorbet. Freeze.

Get out all your remaining ingredients now. Even if you forget something, it's faster for me this way. If you have the memory of a flea, don't bother getting out everything. Just get out protein, starch & veggies.
*Boil water for pasta/ turn on oven for potatoes
Make sauce
*Add pasta
*Bake potatoesPrepare fish (while pasta is in oven).
*Prepare cous cous & keep warmPrepare vegetables while the butter is browning for the fish. You could sautee veggies in extra butter, then keep them warm while you make the fish in the same pan.

If you've glanced below, you've noticed that I don't use recipes. Do you need to look at a recipe? I swear by Epicurious.com which houses free free! Gourmet and Bon Appetit recipes. You can even have your own recipe box (I have 70 recipes in mine). Click on the "Food for thought" title link. I know that some form of these menu items above are on that site.

On heavy rotation in our household is Blackened Tuna, adapted from this Gourmet recipe for catfish. Make sure you increase the cooking time if using, as I do, a thick tuna medallion or tuna steak. I'm guessing 2-3 minutes extra per side. http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/12271I I cook it in a cast iron skillet, though a nonstick will do fine. Just make sure you cook the butter until golden/light brown bubbles appear before adding the fish, or the buttery taste might not come through. Oh, feel free to buy those pre-made blackening spices. Add just a pinch of sugar to the mix if it's not there already, so that the sugar will caramelize the tuna (browned with crispy parts).


I like serving this with a cooked vegetable, like green beans browned in butter or cooked in boiling 1/2 cup water and a vegetarian bouillon cube until bright green.

For starch and sauce, I do a number of things. I HAVE to make a sauce . All the West Africans know what I'm talking about, as we tend to like dishes that are swimming in something!

Starch, easy: cous cous, prepared according to package directions. Cous cous is the best for when you need a starch in 10 minutes or less. So are microwaved potatoes. You could also microwave red bliss or new potatoes or roast them in the oven. If you're doing the oven method, do that after you season the tuna, so you won't wait for them to be done at the end.

Kinda special dinner? Make mac 'n' cheese.

Sauce? For this go-round, I'll do a white sauce base with cream. R U vegan? Please remind me to post a tomato-coconut sauce with garam masala and sauteed vegetables for another time. If you don't do dairy, use olive oil instead of butter, and use vegetarian broth or vegan bouillon cube (or use chicken) with 1 1/2 cups water for 1 tablespoon oil & 1 tablespoon flour. It won't be super thick, but I like it like that.

Cream sauce: First, make a roux. Use a 1:1 ratio. If you use 1 tablespoon of UNSALTED butter, use 1 tablespoon of flour. Put butter into a pan, and after it sizzles, bubbles and it's turning dark yellow, add your flour. If you want to add fresh garlic, put it in now. Using a wooden spoon, stir the 2 ingredients until they make a thick paste. The color should be light brown. If you want to add fresh herbs, put them in now. Stir a little. Add cream, evaporated milk, milk, soy milk, bouillon cube and liquid, a can of tomatoes, chopped veggies, etc. until the sauce bubbles and gets thick again. If you're adding cheese, use very small pieces, either grated, finely chopped, or small chunks in the food processor and wait until you've turned off the heat. Dirty little secret: I use undiluted evaporated milk instead of cream quite often. Avoid lemon juice, vinegar, etc. if you're using this. Use lemon zest, lemon pepper or lemon extract, in a pinch.

What variation would I make? Anything goes, but I usually do cream (evap. mik), diced tomatoes, some of the blackening mix, and lemon zest.

This is also the sauce recipe for mac 'n' cheese. For 12-16 ounces of sauce (1 1/2- 2 cups), use about 1/3 cup of cheese. It doesn't take much. That's for basic cheese sauce.

For mac 'n' cheese, double the amount of cheese to 2/3 cup. Pour it over cooked noodles. Add 1/2 c. cheese, then put it in the oven for 15 minutes. This is for 350 degrees. If you already have something in, let's say, at 425degreess, reduce time to 9 minutes, etc. Remember, everything is cooked but the cheese; you just want people to think you struggled. I prefer to leave this uncovered in the oven.

Want to kill 2 birds with 1 stone? Make double the sauce & use one for mac 'n' cheese, the other for your veggies & protein.

For dessert, why not some mango sorbet? I recommend making this during the weekend, when you have more time. Or, make it on a nite you're not cooking. No need to buy it these days. Make more for less by buying frozen mango chunks from Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, or some Shoppers/Asian stores/Latino grocery chains.
Use 1 12-16-oz packet of frozen mango. Just make sure it's had 15 minutes to thaw, so it doesn't break a machine. Add to that some honey mixed in with lukewarm liquid--lime, mango & orange juices work well. You'll need the amount of honey you'd cup in a medium-sized hand and double the juice. If you are a sugar fiend, and you know it, use more honey. The key in this step is to have a syrup, not clumps of honey. Make sure your liquid is at room temperature. If it isn't heat it up. Avoid heating honey, as it changes the taste for the worse. Add grated lemon, lime or orange zest if you have it/feel like it.

Puree all of this in a food processor. If you use a blender, you'll have to thaw the fruit, puree it, freeze it till it's almost frozen, then puree it again. If it's a little hard to scoop out, then process it again. If there's no way you can get fresh or frozen mango, or if it's too expensive, use frozen peaches & some of the mango concentrate or nectar in the Latino food section. If you live in a place where there is no form of mango, move! Seriously, use frozen peaches & peach nectar.

If you just live for strawberries, use the same size package without the sugar syrup added.

Bon appetit!