SkinnyCook

Yeah baybeee!! You know you love a big steaming bowl of macaroni and cheese. I have a secret for you… There are four ingredients in it. Nix the box crap. This how I roll with it at my house. There’s no recipe this time because you don’t measure anything. I’ll give approximate amounts.

Step 1: Buttttaaahhh

It’s like this. You melt 4 tbsp. (half a stick) of butter in the pan over medium high heat. Start your pasta boiling with a big dose of salt.

Step 2: Flour

Put an equal amount of flour, 4 tbsp. into the melted butter and whisk. Stir it around occasionally for a few minutes. In French terms, you’re making a “roux.” In the South, we generally refer to this technique as “cookin’.”

Step 3: Milk

Quickly whisk as you add about 1/4 cup milk. At first, it will make a goofy, lumpy paste. Continue to whisk until smooth, then add more milk. Repeat this until you get a sauce a bit thinner than you want the final product to be.

Step 4: Cheese

Here’s the magic! mmmmm cheese! Use whatever cheese you like that melts well. If you have not already discovered this, not all cheese melts. Weird, I know. I recommend American, cheddar, fontina, colby, or monterey jack.

Step 5: Salt

So now you have a beautiful cheese sauce. I can’t understate the importance of salt. Pasta needs way more salt than you would think. Salt. Taste. Salt. Taste again. Err on the side of a bit too salty, since you’ll be adding the pasta later.

Step 6: Mix

The only thing left to do is mix it all together. Add your beautiful sauce to 1 lb. of cooked pasta. I added broccoli at this point for extra credit. Plus, it a bit healthier. Cheers!

Day After Xmas: Eggnog French Toast

Yesterday was the enormous feast for Christmas Day with friends. Here in Portland, we were celebrating with the help of a 40-year snow, so many were stuck without a way to get back to family gatherings in far-flung locations. Being a loyal tweep, I invited any and all to come to my place. I was honored to welcome seven friends, both new and old, into my home. Nothing could’ve made me happier than having a houseful of happy faces.

But I digress… this post is about breakfast. What do you do with half container of leftover eggnog? Why, you make French toast, silly. It’s what God intended us to do with the stale bread accidentally left out on the counter all night because we were too lazy/hungover/despondent to actually clean up the mess from Christmas Day dinner.

Secrets of your success

• Use really good (stale) bread
  This could be any kind of bread. Think any Italian, French, sourdough. Get fancy with cranberry walnut, double chocolate, cinnamon, etc… go crazy. The only thing maple syrup and eggy-goodness won’t help would be some savory thing like olive bread.
• Soak it in the egg mix for at least five minutes
• Fry it up in butter
• Top with real maple syrup

Recipe

Serves 1-2

2 eggs
1/2 cup eggnog or milk
2-3 large slices of bread
1/2 tbl. butter

Whisk together egg and eggnog. Dunk the bread in it. Put the heat on medium-high for the skillet to get nice and hot. Wait five minutes. Perhaps have a mimosa. Fry. Pour on hot maple syrup. Eat.

Here’s the first post of my first *personal* blog. I’ve been blogging a bit for my employer at StepChange Group on Social Media nonsense. Here, I’ll talk about what really matters. Namely, feeding yourself in some kind of sane fashion. My mantra is to use as few ingredients, pots, pans, and utensils as possible. The vast majority of these meals will be weeknight wonders, taking between ten and twenty minutes. I subscribe to Organics to You’s box ‘o wonderfulness. If you also subscribe, we’ll likely have the same stuff in our fridges to work with.