Fat and Crafty.com

I got a wild hair a couple of months ago, knowing we had a bag of shredded cheddar cheese and knowing I needed an easy stress free dinner.

I got home and put a big pot of water on to boil on the back of the stove, pulled out a heavy pot and put it on the stove. Into the pot I added olive oil, chopped onions, butter, and let it saute for a bit. Next in was chopped garlic. Then when it was well along and turning light golden brown I added about a 3/4 a cup of flour, and let that cook a bit to remove the raw flour flavor.

Then add in a couple of cups of milk, stirring constantly to ensure a smooth sauce. Handfuls of cheese are tossed in until you reach a happy cheesiness.

In the meantime when the water in the pot starts boiling, add in macaroni and cook till al dente. Add drained noodles to the sauce, and stir. If cooking it ahead, pop it in a covered bowl in the fridge until you need it. Pour into 9/13 pan and cover with breadcrumbs.
Bake until crispy and serve.

Its quick, simple , straightforward mac and cheese.
Want a Riff?
Different pasta shapes, different cheeses and stronger spices are all riffs that can be played with. Curried mac and cheese, or a mozzarella and dill version , Blue Cheese or goat cheese, pepper jack and chipolte pepper.

I miss BLT’s. During the summer in Chicago, one of the favorite summer meals were Bacon Lettuce and Tomato sandwiches. We’d pull big ripe tomatoes from the garden, slice up iceburg lettuce, fry up some bacon. The bread gets toasted and then a nice slather of miracle whip. Place the sandwich together, use 4 toothpicks to hold it in one piece and slice into trianges. Half the time mom would toss an egg or four in the pan and we’d have BELTs instead.

I tried to recreat this with dinner tonight, with a few changes.
Toasted bread, Freshly sliced turkey meat, slices of bacon and lettuce. Served with a simple pasta salad and you have a dinner. For me I added tomato and a fried egg, for Leah there was avocado.

Club sandwiches and BLTs may seem a little retro, not as exciting as todays cuban sandwich or pannini. For me they are a satisfying bit of nostalgia.

It’s been 30 days since this project began. I’ve learned a lot and am making adjustments as I move forward. It’s hard to predict things like heatwaves and getting sick. And even when I have planned dinners and shopped for them that doesn’t mean I’m going to be ready to cook them day of. I’ve pushed ahead with the postings though and will be taking advantage of the image software I have.

While I’ve been able to post almost every day for the last month, not all of the posts are interesting. I need to work on making the posts about the food compelling so those of you who are reading want to go out and make what I’m making I also want you to come back and to keep reading.

I also want to keep working on the nutritional information. I’m just not sharing it often enough.
Hope those who are out there reading are enjoying it.

This dinner makes me feel about 10x better about yesterdays.

This recipe came from Veggie Life a compelling vegetarian magazine that became a subscription recipe database online. While i appreciate the lack of tree killing, i do miss the magazine as it’s recipes often drew me in in a way that Vegetarian Times could not.

The other bonus is that this is the first time I’ve ever used my Borner V-Slicer and found it useful. This is a tool that I’ve had for a while and never really used all that often. You see it requires that you stick a handily thing into whatever you are slicing and that handily thing is awkward and makes it impossible to cut all of whatever you are cutting. This time I was able to roughly julienne zucchini with it in such an easy manner that I actually have now used it 3 or four more times.

Veggie Enchiladas
Corn tortillas.
water or sauce to dip the tortillas in.

Vegetable Filling 1
2 carrots
2 zucchini
1 head of broccoli
t tbls olive oil
salt, pepper seasoning.

To prepare filling 1 Shred the carrots and chop the broccoli pretty small. Add olive oil to pan and let get hot, add broccoli and cook about 4 minutes, add the zucchini julienned. Cook until soft. then add in the carrots and cook until they wilt.

Vegetable Filling 2
Spinach, fresh
1 head of garlic peeled and sliced
2 cups of mushrooms sliced.

Saute garlic in pan until they begin to soften, then add the sliced mushrooms and cook for about 5 minutes until the mushrooms have condensed. Add big handfuls of spincah on top and saute until shrivled and cooked.

dip tortilla in liquid, either sauce or water. Curl in your hand and spoon in veggie filling and a spoonful of cheese if desired. roll up and place in baking pan. Keep going until all tortillas are used, you have used all your fillings or you have enough to feed your family. Cover with Enchilada sauce, we used salsa instead. sprinkle more cheese on top and bake .

These turned out much better then i believe they would, and Even Aron who was skeptical of them said they were something he could eat.

We’re still suffering from heat, but tonight I threw caution to the wind and turned the oven on for a simple ravioli bake that my family adored.

To be honest, I hesitated posting this recipe. While I very much do want to share what we eat and when I also want to encourage healthy eating. This dish does not fit so well into the healthy. So what to do? Work on it for next time.

Turn oven on to 375
Boil 1 bag of ravioli,
Open 1 can of pasta sauce
Add ravioli, 1/2 a lb of frozen meatballs, and pasta sauce.
Sprinkle with a little cheese,
Bake at 375 until meatballs are heated through.

I served it with a green salad and some pop biscuits that Leah wanted last shopping trip. Overall I’m not pleased as its such a processed dinner, but it did prevent me from spending too much time in a hot kitchen, and it made everyone happy.

So I did cast on the Opal yarn onto my #1 needles and begin working on what will be a crew sock.
The smaller needle is giving me a much better guage see?

I’ve purchased a couple of skeins of Brown Sheep in Charcoal to work on a project for Aron, and also purchased yarn and needles from Knit pics to work on Christmas gifts. Pretty nifty if you ask me.

While I was making Tallin and Phinnia suffer from my noodle salad , Leah made the rest of the family tuna salad. Tuna salad that was so good, that so made me crave it that I had to have it for a picnic dinner as we headed to see “Harry and the Potters”

Leah’s Tuna Salad

Small tube pasta
2 cans tuna
mayo
paprika
-A whole lot of love.

Seriously thats all the pasta salad was. Maybe a little salt and pepper, but wow it really was the best dinner ever as i sat outside the central library waiting to see Harry and the Potters.

The last time we moved my family ate polyester food. I remember loading up the checkout belt with more frozen and preprocessed foods then we had eaten in years. When Phinnia and Tallin got near their move I was firm with Phinnia. Save some of your kitchen for me to pack and I’ll bring dinner.

I bought somen noodles, thinking that they would work well for a cold somen noodle dish with a peanut dressing, marinated tofu, and a cucumber salad. In the midst of the heat on
Wednesday I began cooking, a chocolate tofu pie for my coworkers, and the somen noodle salad. The noodle salad idea came from Net Cooks However looking back http://fatandcrafty.com/fac/wp-admin/post-new.php?posted=108
Fat and Crafty › Create New Post — WordPressi realize that somen noodles take less time to cook and were likely overcooked and soggy from storage.

Since I was out of peanutbutter I substituted sesame oil, and a little bit of soy sauce plus the tofu marinade to lubricate things.

The tofu marinade was less assertive then i wanted, as i didnt realize how close to out we were on soy sauce. Going on the grocery list for next week.

All in all, only one dish of the three worked, my cucumber salad.
Cucumber sunomono
# 1 small cucumber
# 5 tbsp rice vinegar
# 2 tbsp sugar
# 1 tsp salt

Thinly slice cucumber. salt, let set for 5 minutes, drain water off, then add rest of the ingrediants. Marinate overnight and serve.

Do Real Men eat Quiche? I remember picking this book up at a thrift store at one point when I was still living in Chicago. I dont remember much about the book, but I do know that the men in my life have been most happy to eat quiche.

Leah calls Quiche “leftover pie” I usually give it a little more thought then that though. Like tonights dinner Molly Katzen taught me to make quiche. It was during my vegetarian phase and her formula from The enchanted broccoli forest has stuck with me.

Quiche with Bacon Spinach and Onions.

Crust : Often storebought if I’m not making dinner.
Homemade could be flaky pie crust, could be a potato crust, or a nut crust.
Cheese:Cheddar for us. Really anything works.
Flavoring :Carmelized onions , cooked bacon bits, and a half pound of spinach, cooked and well drain.

Layer Cheese, then flavoring on crust, pour over 3 eggs beaten with 1 cup of milk. Cook in a 375 oven until the center is solid. Let it cool for 5 minutes, then serve.

Yum.

This weeks meals went wonky about Tuesday when our weather climbed into the high 90′s. The heat has screwed with my sleep and with my meal planning . After all , if I had my choice I would be eating salads, sandwiches and thats about it. Even the idea of just yogurt and fruit would suffice. Its the time of year that a lighter evening meal and a midnight breakfast once it gets cooler is appealing.

Tonights dinner would have been Pasta with Olive oil and garlic. Simply put pasta cooked then dressed with crushed garlic and olive oil, served with rosemary bread and angel of death cheese. A simple green salad on the side. Simple no?

I adore the simplicty of pasta with garlic and olive oil. The angel of death cheese comes from a friend, and is goat cheese with olive oil and garlic. Spread upon an artisanal loaf of rosemary bread this is the delight of delights.