Weekend odds and ends
Well, Chris left for home a few hours early due to needing to meet with her business partner. As a result I'm having to fill some time up with a little cooking and playing AofE on the computer.
The cooking part is just a mac and cheese casserole that I have in the oven now. I made one on Friday for Chris and she liked it a lot--but I thought it tasted just a little smoky, like maybe I'd burned the roux at the beginning just a little--so I'm trying it over tonight. In both I'm using a Cabot cheddar that I've never used before (called "Seriously Sharp") and maybe the smoky taste is just characteristic of that cheese.
It's a pretty simple recipe, you just make a roux with a couple of tablespoons of butter and a like amount of flour, then add a half teaspoon of salt and as much pepper as you like--I use white pepper instead of black. Then once that's all combined you add 2.5 cups of whole milk slowly, stirring all the while. Reduce the liquid by about half over 30-45 minutes then start adding a few cups of cheddar cheese and melt it all together.
At the same time you want to get 2 cups of macaroni boiled up and ready. Once both pots are finished you add both the cheese sauce and macaroni to a casserole dish, top with some diced cheese and bread crumbs and pop in the over at 375F for 25 minutes. Simple as can be. Admittedly it's not as easy as a Kraft Mac & Cheese mix, but it's a whole lot better tasting!
Here's a picture of it fresh out of the oven. If you notice the sides, you can see it's still boiling away.
Other than eating Mac and Cheese this weekend, Chris and I watched a bunch of movies and went out to a Mexican Restaurant for lunch on Saturday and did an emergency run to Wal-mart (a store Chris hates and I love) for a few forgotten items. The best of the movies we watched was The Last King of Scotland and the worst was probably Timeline (based on Crichton's novel). Chris however thinks that The Italian Job was the worst--the original from 1969 with Michael Caine not the recent remake, we both like the recent version. On the other hand we both agreed that the second worst movie was Nicholas Cage's Ghost Rider.
However I must admit that both Chris and I were disappointed in learning how far afield the Last King of Scotland deviated from actual historical events. Still, Forest Whitaker gave an amazing performance and the movie was very good. If you saw it also, what did you think of the doctor? According to Wiki, his character was much more appealing in the movie than the book--but I can't say I had much sympathy for him at all.
Update: The second batch of mac & cheese was a little less smoky tasting but the smoky flavor was still present. I used a different casserole dish to bake it in and I was very careful while heating the roux so I guess the taste's a result of the Cabot cheese.
The cooking part is just a mac and cheese casserole that I have in the oven now. I made one on Friday for Chris and she liked it a lot--but I thought it tasted just a little smoky, like maybe I'd burned the roux at the beginning just a little--so I'm trying it over tonight. In both I'm using a Cabot cheddar that I've never used before (called "Seriously Sharp") and maybe the smoky taste is just characteristic of that cheese.It's a pretty simple recipe, you just make a roux with a couple of tablespoons of butter and a like amount of flour, then add a half teaspoon of salt and as much pepper as you like--I use white pepper instead of black. Then once that's all combined you add 2.5 cups of whole milk slowly, stirring all the while. Reduce the liquid by about half over 30-45 minutes then start adding a few cups of cheddar cheese and melt it all together.
At the same time you want to get 2 cups of macaroni boiled up and ready. Once both pots are finished you add both the cheese sauce and macaroni to a casserole dish, top with some diced cheese and bread crumbs and pop in the over at 375F for 25 minutes. Simple as can be. Admittedly it's not as easy as a Kraft Mac & Cheese mix, but it's a whole lot better tasting!
Here's a picture of it fresh out of the oven. If you notice the sides, you can see it's still boiling away.Other than eating Mac and Cheese this weekend, Chris and I watched a bunch of movies and went out to a Mexican Restaurant for lunch on Saturday and did an emergency run to Wal-mart (a store Chris hates and I love) for a few forgotten items. The best of the movies we watched was The Last King of Scotland and the worst was probably Timeline (based on Crichton's novel). Chris however thinks that The Italian Job was the worst--the original from 1969 with Michael Caine not the recent remake, we both like the recent version. On the other hand we both agreed that the second worst movie was Nicholas Cage's Ghost Rider.
However I must admit that both Chris and I were disappointed in learning how far afield the Last King of Scotland deviated from actual historical events. Still, Forest Whitaker gave an amazing performance and the movie was very good. If you saw it also, what did you think of the doctor? According to Wiki, his character was much more appealing in the movie than the book--but I can't say I had much sympathy for him at all.
Update: The second batch of mac & cheese was a little less smoky tasting but the smoky flavor was still present. I used a different casserole dish to bake it in and I was very careful while heating the roux so I guess the taste's a result of the Cabot cheese.
Comments
The dish looks good.. Was it still smoky tasting?
Ivy, I updated the post with an answer to your question.
Sass, I can't say that Gerald has any power over me so I wasn't oblivious to the problems in the plot. ;-)