The Funky Kitchen

‘Twas the first meal blogged about

Made in the new house,

While the Saws-all was whirring

And plaster dust floated about.

New electrical was run

Through the walls with care

While I prepared mac and cheese

For hungry helpers who were there

The table was set

Everyone washed their hands

And filled up on macaroni,

Discussing (more) renovation plans!

Velvety cheese sauce on noodles

With a panko breadcrumb crust

Filled up the hungry helpers;

A good dinner is a must!

Gourmet Macaroni & Cheese

(adapted from Heather’s Recipe (the Mister’s Mama))

3 Cups of macaroni

1/4 Cup butter

1/4 Cup flour

2 Cups milk

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp pepper

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp sriracha sauce

2/3 Cup sour cream

1 1/3 Cups cottage cheese

2 1/2 Cups cheddar cheese, grated

1/2 Cup panko breadcrumbs

2 Tbsp butter, melted

1/2 tsp paprika

1 Tbsp Parmesan cheese, grated

• Preheat the oven to 350° F.
• Cook and drain the macaroni. (Always boil pasta in salted water!)
• Melt the first butter, add the flour and mix well.
• Add the milk and cook over medium heat until thick.
• Stir in the salt, sugar, pepper, first paprika and sriracha sauce, followed by the sour cream and cottage cheese. Stir until the mixture is smooth, it will take a few minutes for the cottage cheese to melt.
• Add the cheddar cheese, and when it is all melted, your sauce is done!
• Combine the panko crumbs, melted butter, paprika and Parmesan in a bowl with a fork. This will be the topping.
• Add the pasta to a large casserole dish. Pour the sauce over top, stirring to coat the macaroni. (We added some cubed ham, for extra protein, but that was just an add in).
• Spread the topping over the top of the macaroni, and even it out with a spatula.
• Pop the casserole into the oven, with the lid on for half an hour. Then, remove the lid and it’s ready to eat when the breadcrumbs go golden (another ~ 15 minutes).

People from Manitoba have an innate tendency to talk about the weather. It probably comes from living in a province that ranges 70°C on an average year. We get frigid weather to super sweaty and everything in between, so we talk about it. All of the time. I try to avoid doing it here, because all of you are in different climes and probably aren’t that interested, but just bear with me, I do have a point.

It is officially HOT! We topped out at 32° C today, and around these parts when it gets hot it also gets humid. It’s muggy and sweaty and my hair has reached epic proportions of enormity, but still, it’s way better this way than the 40° below it will be in January.

It’s the type of hot where, on the seven minute walk to the farmer’s market, you’ll sweat from your elbow pits and the backs of your knees. Being as fair as I am, days like this are the ones where I feel the tingle of sunburn creeping in under my layer of sunscreen.

When it’s this warm out, all additional effort required to get things done is questioned and debated over. Is it worth it to go to the farmer’s market? Of course it is, there’s treasure abounding in the market this time of year. Will it take too much energy to walk? Well, the walk isn’t that long, but it will be hot. It just seems a waste to start the car for that short a distance. I planned on baking something today, do I want to heat up the oven? No.

But you know what? Despite summer bringing sunburn, giant hair, and avoidance of activity, it also brings something glorious. Tomatoes. This is a way to highlight their tomato-y glory with very little effort and good results.

Summer Tomatoes with Feta and Balsamic

2 ripe tomatoes

a chunk of feta cheese, about 1.5 inches square, or ~2 Tbsp

1 Tbsp of reduced balsamic vinegar

black pepper, freshly cracked

• Slice your tomatoes, about a quarter of an inch to half an inch thick, perpindicular to their radial symmetry (or, latitudinally rather than longitudinally).

• Arrange the tomato slices on a plate, overlapping slightly on the edges, in a single layer.

• Crumble the feta cheese over top of the tomatoes, making sure to distribute it evenly. It’s no fun to have all of the tasty cheese only on the middle tomatoes.

• Drizzle the tomatoes and feta with the reduced balsamic vinegar, once again, paying attention to even distribution.

• If it doesn’t take too much energy to do on these hot summer days, crack some black pepper over top.
• Savor!

And there you go, in five minutes, hopefully with little to no sweat being shed, a gorgeously tasty way to use up the tomatoes of summer.

Now, should I get the oven preheated for that baking I wanted to do? Nah, maybe it’ll be a little cooler tomorrow, tomorrow will be the day for baking.

These are an interesting batch of cookies to make. They are savory like crackers, crunchy like crackers but are too texturally like a cookie to be a cracker. Spanish cheese cookies are very interesting indeed.

I got this recipe out my pile of magazine clippings, which brings me to the query of the day: what do I do when I make an adapted recipe, i.e. not one of my own, but do not have a source for it? What is the best thing to do? This particular snipped out recipe has the name of the magazine on part of the clipping, and by the magic of Google, I know which edition of the magazine it came from. Proper citation will therefore be presented with the recipe. What about the cut outs that don’t have the information left on the borders of them? I can assure you, dear Reader, that I will always give you all of the information available. Still, what is the standard procedure for using a recipe that is not yours, but that you do not have a reliable source for?

Anyway, I’m sure I’m boring you with the inanity of a worrier. These cookies were quite tasty and a fun thing to make on my birthday. It’s a good recipe because you can change it up depending on the cheese you have and what other delectable savory things you have in the pantry. My cookies had a mixture of sun dried tomato and kalamata olives, but I’m sure either one, or maybe roasted red peppers would make for a good cheese cookie too.  The variety I made, the ones in the recipe, would have gone really well with hummus or baba ganouj for dipping, or even for making savory cookie sandwiches. Baba ganouj cheese cookie sandwich anybody?

If your goal is to have uniform, more perfectly round cookies, roll the dough into logs and then chill them. The chilled logs of dough can then be sliced into uniform rounds, called to be around a quarter of an inch thick in the original recipe, and baked for the same amount of time. Having rolled the dough logs too thin when we made them, we formed our cookies by hand. They are less uniform, but just as good. A word of advice thougeither preparation you use, make the cookies rather flat and the size you would like them to turn out; the dough does not flatten significantly, nor does it spread.

Spanish Cheese Cookies

(Adapted from Winebar Kensington’s Spanish Cheese Cookies, Flavour Magazine, Fall 2009.)

1 cup flour

1 cup grated cheese (I used ¾ Cheddar and ¼ Parmesan)

½ cup butter

1 tsp thyme

¾ tsp smoked paprika

¼ tsp kosher salt, plus some for sprinkling over top

Dash cayenne

1 sun dried tomato, minced

5 Kalamata olives, pitted and minced

• Mix all of the ingredients, except for the tomato and olives, and form into a soft dough.
• Knead in the tomato and olives.
• Chill the dough until it firms up, around half an hour in the fridge or ten minutes in the freezer.
• Form the dough into flat cookies, about a quarter of an inch thick and an inch and a half round. If you please, you can poke holes and designs into them with a toothpick or fork.
• Arrange the cookies on a baking sheet with parchment paper and bake 10-15 minutes until golden.
• If choosing to do so, sprinkle with just a little bit of kosher salt immediately after removing the cookies from the oven.
• Let cool and enjoy!

My good friend and kitchen helper for the day, Sam, liked the Spanish Cheese Cookies and hopefully so will you!