It’s Edible! Mac and Cheese with Bacon!

I love mac and cheese. It’s a weakness, and we tried a few different recipes before finding one in the Tupperware “25 Pasta Creations Your Family Will Love” cookbook that won the contest, hands down. As with everything we made, we changed things up a bit and doubled the recipe, but here’s the recipe as it comes out of the book (our modifications will be in brackets):

8 oz./ 225g of dried pasta

3 tbsp butter (we use unsalted)

3 tbsp all purpose flour

2 cups whole milk (we always use 1% because it’s what we have, and it works just fine)

1 tsp dry mustard (we add to taste)

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce (we add to taste)

Dash of Tabasco sauce (we add to taste)

1.5 cups of grated cheddar cheese (we use a combination of 5-year aged cheddar, tomato and basil Havarti and dry Asiago, grated fresh)

0.5 cup plain bread crumbs (we started off using Twistos in the Asiago flavour, but they didn’t reheat well, so we switched our topping to R.W. Garcia Dippers in English Cheddar, and they’re perfect.)

• Preheat oven to 350F/176C
• Cook pasta, drain, and place in a 16″x9″ baking dish
• Melt butter in a 3 quart sauce pan. Whisk in flour until it form a paste. Cook flour mixture for two minutes. Add milk, whisking until smooth. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly until sauce thickens and coats the back of a spoon. Reduce the heat to medium. Add mustard, Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco. Stir in cheese until melted and sauce is smooth.
• Pour cheese sauce over pasta and fold together until well blended. Top evenly with bread crumbs, Bake 30 minutes until hot and bubbly, and topping is golden brown.

We usually fry up some fresh bacon chunks from the butcher and fold them in with the cheese sauce. It adds weight and extra flavour to the dish, and who doesn’t like a little bacon in everything they eat? This is a winner, and everyone we’ve made it for has given us rave reviews. Try it, and let me know what you think.

It’s Edible! Chicken Cheddar Soup with Veggies!

Every once in a while, I decide that I want something. One day, I decided I wanted chicken soup, with actual chicken chunks, but I also wanted it to have cheese in it. Then I thought, “Why not add veggies to the thing? That might be good.” So, this slow cooker staple was born. It’s one of those things that is fairly quick to prep, slow to simmer, and really delicious.

You will need:

• Two cans, each of Campbell’s Condensed Cheddar Cheese Soup and Low Fat Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup
• Three (soup) cans of milk. We use 1%, but feel free to use whatever type you’d like.
• One pre-roasted grocery store chicken, de-boned and cut in to bite sized pieces. Again, if you want to roast your own, go for it, but that kind of takes away the “quick and easy” aspect of the recipe.
• Freeze dried Jalapeno peppers (They add just enough spice without being overwhelming)
• Two large onions, diced
• Peppadew peppers, to taste
• Freeze-dried cilantro, to taste
• Sun-dried tomato flakes, to taste
• Freeze-dried garlic, equal to three cloves
• Whatever veggies you want to add. We use cut baby corn (2 cans), diced bell peppers (2), and whatever else happens to be striking our fancy. Yesterday, it was bamboo shoots, but we’ve also used dried beans, broccoli and zucchini.

Start off with a five-six quart slow cooker. Set it for low heat and set the timer (if it has one) for six hours. Dump all the condensed soups directly in the crock, and whisk in the milk. Once the mixture is smooth, add the chicken, spices and veggies.

In a frying pan, begin caramalizing the onion (we usually use butter for this). Once translucent, add the garlic and chopped peppadew peppers. Continue cooking until the onion is browned and soft. Add the mixture to the slow cooker.

Let everything simmer in the slow cooker for six hours, stirring occasionally if you get the chance. If you don’t, the soup won’t suffer. Serve hot and garnished with your favourite tortilla chips.

This soup makes excellent left-overs, but we have yet to try freezing it. If you do, let me know how it goes, and as always, let me know what you think of the soup if you give it a try!