quick mac and cheese

I made this up tonight, looking for something simple and easy. It took about 30 minutes in all.

couple handfuls of cut up swiss chard leaves

8 oz whole wheat ziti (or other kind of pasta)

2 cups milk

2 Tab flour

4 oz cheddar, grated or cut in cubes

salt and pepper

Cook the pasta. meanwhile, mix cold milk with flour and bring to boil. Let simmer a few minutes until starts to thicken. Then add cheese and some salt and pepper. Add cooked pasta to the cheese sauce and stir, turn heat to low. Cook swiss chard in leftover pasta water for a minute until wilted and dark green. Drain and put into the pasta. Stir and serve.

Update 10/3/2015:
I made this again with rice pasta and served it with leftover shredded pork. David gave it a 4 since there was meat served with it. I think that always improves a meal for him. Also, I cooked the pasta until it was almost done but not quite, then strained it and put the pasta into the cheese sauce. Then I let it simmer for a few minutes. It thickens up quite nicely. Also, I put in some green onion instead of swiss chard.

Roasted Fava Beans

I loved these. I had fresh fava beans from my CSA box. I saw this article http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/04/22/FD381IV24R.DTL

and decided to roast them.

I put 1 layer of fava bean pods on a baking sheet with a little oil. I intended to roast them at 450 for 25 minutes, but it began to smoke so I decreased the heat to 400 early on. They came out tender and good. I put salt on it afterward, (coarse sea salt), and then when I shelled them make sure to have salt on my fingers so I would get salt with the inner fava bean. David liked them with their shells still on (but out of the pod). This was very little effort and very tasty. I will definitely remember this. After they had cooled for a few minutes we just stood there and ate them all.

Veggie Pot Pie with Wine Sauce

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Vegetable-Pot-Pie-with-Wine-Sauce-and-Polenta-Crust-1549

This was so much better than the last Veggie Pot Pie I made. I didn't make the polenta crust, I used a trader joes pie pastry crust instead. I let it bake for like 30 min at 350, but it could have gone longer because the veggies were cold from roasting them the day before. This was really good!

Beef Stew with Turnips and Collard Greens

So I have a cookbook called Greene on Greens. All the recipes I've made from it are really strange and need serious tweaking of prep instructions. The latest I made tonight. I modified the recipe significantly and so the modified version is shown below. With the modifications, it turned out really well and was quite tasty.

2 hr baking time, 30 min prep.

1-1.5 lb stew beef, cut in chunks

4 slices bacon, cut in pieces

1/3 cup flour

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

pinch of ground cloves

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

3 cups beef broth (or more if needed)

1 cup dry white wine

1 lb turnips, peeled, cut into 1/4 inch chunks

bunch collard greens, stems removed, and greens cut into small pieces.

Fry bacon in dutch oven or skillet. Move bacon to bowl and drain fat. Combine flour (I used whole wheat), spices, and salt and use to coat meat. Saute onion and garlic, move to bowl. Add small amount of oil or butter to pan and brown beef so the sides are cooked, then move to bowl. Boil wine and reduce to half. Add broth and everything in bowl back into dutch oven. Heat on stove until boiling. Then cover and put in oven at 350F for 1 hour.

After 1 hour, Add chopped turnips and collard greens. Put back in the oven for another hour. If broth has boiled off too low, add another cup or two.

Eat when turnips are tender.

Thin Crust Whole Wheat Pizza Dough

http://greenlitebites.com/2008/03/11/thin-crust-whole-wheat-pizza-dough/

This was easy to put together and tasted good. I left out the flax seeds and soy flour. And I didn't need to add more water. This is good for one pizza.

Self-Saucing Ginger Pudding

http://thestonesoup.com/blog/2010/06/9-things-you-should-know-about-ginger-with-self-saucing-ginger-puddings-5-ingredients-simple-baking

This was tasty and easy. I used 4 10 oz capacity ramekins. 8 oz would work too, as the recipe says. David thought it was too sweet. Add the full amount of ginger. Grated ginger compresses a lot more than you think, so you'll need to grate more ginger root than what is intuitive. Also, the cakes didn't get crispy on top like in the picture and I'm not sure why.

If you have time to let it cool a bit (20 minutes?) then it is still warm but not so hot you need ice cream to cool it off in your mouth. The ice cream helped cut the sweetness of the cake and cooled it down, but I don't think it is necessary.

Next time, use only half the sugar and see how it is.

Chicken and Blue Chip Salad

I ate something like this at a women's conference lunch given by my stake. I couldn't find the right person to get the recipe from, so I recreated it based on memory.

chicken, shredded into smallish pieces

pepitas

walnuts

blue chips (crunched up. you don't need that many per serving, like 4 chips maybe)

crumbly cheese. Was it feta? was it blue cheese? I know not. I think cheese is optional anyway since I made it without it.

vinaigrette as dressing. Something mild.

Put on top of salad. I like spring mix.

Anyway, we loved this! It was great.

Spicy Cauliflower

http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/spicy-cauliflower-with-sesame-recipe.html

This recipe is a yummy way to eat cauliflower. We both enjoyed it. I had dried red chilies and put those in, but didn't have cilantro or jalapeños. It was still mildly spicy and good. It was mostly the seeds that came out of the chilies that made it spicy since we didn't eat the chilies themselves.

Anyway, I highly recommend. The ginger, garlic, and sesame seeds are really important. Make sure you have those!

Super Fast Taco Soup

This the way my mother-in-law makes taco soup:

1 can chili

1 can diced tomatoes

1 can kidney beans

1 can corn

Mix and heat in a pot on the stove. Don't drain the corn or tomatoes (seriously, who drains tomatoes though?), just put it all in. I think she might not drain the beans either, but I do. I'm not entirely sure if it helps decrease gas, but it might.

Also, the kidney beans are not essential. The chili IS.

Serve with chips, cheese, and sour cream if desired.

This is a super fast meal. Hence, the title has super fast in it. I dubbed it so. Anyway, this soup tastes great!

11/29/2011:
DH wants this to be more spicy. Next time add cumin and chili powder and see if it is better.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Flourless-Chocolate-Cake-14478

This was a great cake, very dense and rich. And dark. Definitely dark. I put in just over 1/2 cup sugar, and it was plenty sweet. Next time I'll try with 1/2 cup honey instead.

I whipped some cream to go on top (added a very tiny amount of sugar, like a tsp) and that went really well with the dish.