Mozilla is surprisingly good. I mean, wow. I expected it to still totally suck. Mind you, don't download the (AOL Time Warner) Netscape version. Not because I have a bias against that media conglomerate (which I do), but because there are irritating things about it that justify why I have a bias against that media conglomerate. For example, in the Netscape-branded version, you cannot disable javascript popups. When you install it, you also get these irritating "Free AOL and Unlimited Internet" shortcuts all over the place. And they demand you get a Netscape user id. So get Mozilla instead: same great taste, a whole hell of a lot less of a pain in the ass.
This weekend I made this recipe:
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, plus more for dish
6 slices good white bread, crusts removed, torn into 1/4- to1/2-inch pieces
I used some bad HEB baguette that I bought to see if La Madeleine baguettes were worth the extra $0.80. They were. So I heated up the baguette in my toaster oven and threw it into my food processor to make many small crispy crumbs instead of the softer, larger pieces specified above. I think you should go my way. Is better.
5 1/2cups milk
I used soy milk. Worked fine.
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
You'll probably want to put more on after it's done.
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper, or to taste
Make that a slightly heaping 1/4 teaspoon. Don't be too approximate with this, though, because that's close to perfect.
4 1/2cups grated sharp white cheddar cheese (about 18 ounces)
I have strong feelings on cheddar. It must be white. Maybe a little yellow. Definitely not orange. That's not natural. The only sharp cheddar I could find was Vermont Cabot block cheese, which I happily grated myself (realizing with a "doh" when I finished that I could have used the food processor).
2cups grated Gruyére cheese (about 8 ounces) or 1 1/4 cups grated Pecorino Romano cheese (about 5 ounces)
I used the Romano cheese. Buy the block in your supermarket's fancy, expensive-as-hell cheese section.
1pound elbow macaroni
Yeah, ok, so let's do this thing.
Heat the oven to 375°. Butter a 3-quart casserole dish; set aside. Place bread in a medium bowl. In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt 2 tablespoons butter. Pour butter into the bowl with bread, and toss. Set bread crumbs aside.
I didn't have enough melted butter, so I put in a couple teaspoons of olive oil. Didn't seem to hurt.
In a medium saucepan set over medium heat, heat milk. Melt remaining 6 tablespoons butter in a high-sided skillet over medium heat. When butter bubbles, add flour. Cook, whisking, 1 minute.
While whisking, slowly pour in hot milk. Continue cooking, whisking constantly, until the mixture bubbles and becomes thick.
Remove pan from heat. Stir in salt, nutmeg, black pepper, cayenne pepper, 3 cups cheddar cheese, and 1 1/2 cups Gruyére or 1 cup Pecorino Romano; set cheese sauce aside.
Fill a large saucepan with water; bring to a boil. Add macaroni; cook 2 to 3 minutes less than manufacturer's directions, until the outside of pasta is cooked and the inside is underdone. (Different brands of macaroni cook at different rates; be sure to read the instructions.) Transfer macaroni to a colander, rinse under cold running water, and drain well. Stir macaroni into the reserved cheese sauce
Pour mixture into prepared dish. Sprinkle remaining 1 1/2 cups cheddar cheese, 1/2 cup Gruyére or 1/4 cup Pecorino Romano, and bread crumbs over top. Bake until browned on top, about 30 minutes. Transfer dish to a wire rack to cool 5 minutes; serve hot.
Ok, so don't do it this way unless you're going to feed like 8 people immediately. This might not sound like a lot, but this is heavy. I've got about 40% of it left after about 5 servings. And you don't want to leave this sitting around because it gets soggy. It's ok if you bake it warm again, but most definitely don't microwave it. Instead, do this: get a 1 quart container and put in a third of the macaroni. Ideally your 1 quart container will be fairly shallow (~2"). That way when you spread the remaining cheeses and breadcrumbs over the top, they get distributed well. I made this in a deep, round dish. It came out well, but it would have been better in a shallower and wider dish of the sort that I do not have. Anyway, refrigerate the remaining 2/3 of the mix. Try to just bake it as necessary. You do all this, and you'll have a macaroni and cheese that tastes so good, you'll call up your state attorney to fine Kraft millions for false advertising. What they make is not macaroni and cheese. I mean, going from the box, you'd think they'd make it with cheese, and not crap. And yet. Theirs sucks. Make this. It's easy. It's better.
I increased this because I had a bunch to finish. Worked out well, though. You should probably make this about 2 1/4 cups or so, depending on your taste.
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
I decided to go a different route. Instead of raw onions, I put in caramelized ones. Basically all you have to do is slice your onions. Put a few tablespoons of olive oil into a pot and toss the onions in. Heat, covered, at low to medium for about 20 minutes, give or take, stirring regularly. Wait until the onions are really soft and yellow/brown (color varies based on the type of onion) and there's goop in the pot, and remove from heat. You should have some sweet, limp onion rings.
1 1/2 pounds plum tomatoes, halved, seeded, sliced into rounds
1 teaspoon dried oregano
I generally prefer the fresh kind, but didn't have any this time around. For this purpose, the dried was sufficient.
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
Preheat oven to 375°F. Brush 15x10x1-inch baking sheet with butter. Place 1 phyllo sheet in prepared pan (edges of phyllo may go up sides of baking sheer). Brush phyllo with butter, sprinkle with 1 tablespoon Parmesan cheese. Repeat layering with remaining phyllo, butter and Parmesan cheese. Top with even layers of mozzarella cheese and onion, then tomatoes. Sprinkle with oregano and thyme. Bake until crust is crisp and golden brown at edges, cheese melts and tomatoes are tender, about 30 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes.
I did it a little differently (of course). Besides the caramelized onions, I also put a couple layers of phyllo on top of the cheese and tomatoes. As far as which is better, well, I didn't make it the other way. Whatever you prefer. As far as the parmesan between layers, I didn't really notice. You should either use more or not bother with it. Be warned that you should serve as much of this as possible immediately after baking. It reheats ok, but tends to be soggy even when warmed up in the oven. It would be a good idea to make only part of this and bake as needed, although with the phyllo that gets tricky.
3 serrano peppers OR 1 chipotle pepper (from adobo)
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. salt
2-3 avocados
1 tbsp. yogurt
1 small tomato
Husk and rinse tomatilloes. Broil tomatilloes in oven about 4 inches away from heat until skin is charred (7-10 minutes). Turn over tomatilloes and broil until both sides are charred (6 - 8 minutes). Remove tomatilloes from oven and allow to cool. Finely chop cilantro and onion, juice lemon and combine. Finely chop peppers (discard seeds to reduce heat as desired) and add to mixture. Peel the skin from tomatillos and throw it away. Add the tomatillo guts to the mixture, stirring thoroughly. Add
salt and pepper. Peel and pit avocadoes and mash into mixture, mixing thoroughly but still chunky. Stir in yogurt. Chop tomato and mix in.
A really easy banana bread (and a proper use of lists!):
3 ripe bananas
1 c sugar
4 tbsp. melted butter
1 egg
1.5 c all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
Mash bananas, then mix in next 3 ingredients. Mix dry ingredients separately and then add to banana mix. Pour into greased 9"x5" baking dish and bake for about 55 minutes at 325. Do the standard toothpick test in the middle to make sure it's done.
After we went to the Thai restaurant in San Antonio, I was thinking that Thai food has basically replaced Chinese food in my eating habits. Part of it is that Chinese food isn't very vegetarian, but also that Thai food is just plain better. I think part of the trick is Thai Basil. Amazon has a bunch of Thai and Asian cookbooks that I want to get, but I'm too lazy to cook most of the time. Maybe I'll find my motivation again.
I made pad thai from Real Vegetarian Thai this evening. It was mediocre, but that can be entirely blamed on my rustiness in the kitchen, my lack of experience with this style of cooking, and my almost certainly incorrect choices at a nearby Asian supermarket. I've been on a Thai kick lately, and I'm not going to give up so easily. It's a nice middle between Chinese and Indian with a few twists of its own. If you've never had any, I highly suggest seeking some out. Finding vegetarian recipes is a little tricky, as the Thais aren't as strict about it (they love the fish sauce), but the book above and Thai Vegetarian Cooking look like good ones (the copy of RVT I used is from our local library). I'm also looking at other kinds of food; I discovered Thai food almost by accident, and I don't want to make that same mistake with something else.
A new restaurant opened not far from my house called "Masala Wok." Just the name sounds interesting enough to me. One day, we'll be able to go out again. Maybe I'll try something from the masala menu, maybe something from the wok menu. The Blazing Masala Noodles sound fascinating. It's fusion, baby.
Part of our nascent set of family traditions are Mexican Tea Cakes at Christmas. They're easy and yummy. That recipe makes 48 tablespoon-sized cookies, which will disappear really fast. I'm making a double recipe tonight.
Two slices good bread. Whole Foods Rustic Italian Bread is excellent.
1 roasted red or yellow bell pepper. The jarred kind is fine, in fact, preferred.
4 thin slices of tomato.
1 slice mozzarella cheese. Fresh might be awesome, but we don't have any.
1/2 avocado, mashed.
A bit of mayonnaise.
Salt
Black pepper
Toast the bread lightly. Spread the avocado mash on one piece, and put a thin smear of mayo on the other. Put the cheese on the mayo piece, and the pepper and tomato on the avocado piece. Salt the tomato. Pepper the tomato. I like to lay down a heavy coating of pepper, and I'm a bit of a salt fiend. Do what works for you. Then put the two halves together and eat it. It's yummy. Jessica came up with 95% of this; I only added the pepper. It's a summery sandwich to me, but that seems appropriate given it's been in the 70s here for a week.
A giant Asian supermarket just opened about a mile from my house. We checked it out this weekend. Among the foods you can buy:
Dried white fungus
Egg steamed bread
Essence of chicken drink
Pineapple gel
Pineapple seaweed shortcake
Tamarind drink
Veggie sesame eel
I realize it's not very nice to make fun of simple cultural differences, but c'mon... Pineapple seaweed shortcake?
There will also eventually be eight Asian restaurants in the same shopping center. My hope is that at least one of those will be a decent Thai place. Having all that good food so close will be pretty cool.
Does anyone lose weight switching from regular Coke to diet? Butter to margarine or olive oil? Oreos to Snackwells? Whole milk to skim? My suspicion is that it doesn't make a difference. Eating the low-sugar, low-fat versions of the same things you've always eaten probably doesn't do much. You have to make a more drastic change than that, like kicking the (soda) can completely. I think the so-called "healthier" versions of unhealthy foods are just like "educational" toys: they're the exact same thing with a superficial veneer of goodness. Of course, I could be wrong...
I often get asked by non-vegetarians whether a vegetarian diet is healthy. To me it's a silly question, but now at least I can point to someone with a more extreme physical regimen on an even more restrictive diet doing just fine. The Wall Street Journal profiles NFL tight end Tony Gonzales, the 247 lb. vegan.