Adult Mac and Cheese

This mac-and-cheese contains gruyere, gouda, fotina, cheddar, and parmesan. Enjoy with champagne, a nice green salad, and gratitude for one's lack of children. 

I've been thinking obsessively about mac and cheese ever since I had the best version known to man at Caseus in New Haven. Their version lists the component cheeses:

I have never had raclette or comte in my life. And what on earth is Der Sharfer Maxx??? Sounds like a bad-ass biker cheese.

I set about trying to recreate this insanely mind-blowing food experience, but with the cheese offerings of my local Alberston's:

Ingredients!

I ended up using fontina, gouda, gruyere, and my all-time favorite, extra-sharp aged white cheddar from Cracker Barrel. 

This was the first time I've made mac and cheese at home. Why? Well, a small part of the reason is that my husband is lactose intolerant: the price of a dairy-heavy dinner is being hot-boxed all night by noxious, unrelenting ass. 

But really, the main reason I haven't even though to make mad and cheese is that it's a food associated with the worst eaters in humanity: American children. You think mac and cheese, you think a picky four year old who only eats mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, fries and apple sauce. You think dinosaur-shaped pastas drowning in neon hell sludge. You think of children's menus.  (why the fuck are children's menus even a thing? Can a child in a restaurant not simply eat a smaller amount of gnocchi or risotto or lamb chops? Why do we send children the message that hot dogs and grilled cheese are specifically their food? Why lead them down a fake-cheese and chicken-finger paved road to impacted bowels, obesity, culinary philistinism and a lifetime of microwaving Swanson's freezer bags of failure?) 

Nightmare. 

The culturally accepted food of American children is foul, beige, processed, bland bullshit, and as a rule I want nothing to do with it. 

My house, kitchen and life away from work are adult-only spheres: rare meat, dark green salads, anchovy vinaigrette, noodles with chiles and fish sauce, gorgonzola, strong homebrew, Scotch, large travel expenditures, 11 am weekend wake-ups, homemade hot pickles, The Wire, casual nudity, and multi-day cooking projects. 

I'm sure if we ever actually produce a small human, it will automatically pop out enjoying stouts, short ribs and braised cabbage and I won't have to change my habits at all. 

Anyway--the mac and cheese at Caseus changed my whole mac-and-cheese paradigm. As I shared a bottle of wine and dug in I realized: mac and cheese is legit amazing, in certain forms. And! Perhaps mac and cheese can be a suitable adult foodstuff! My mind was blown. 

Let's spend the whole afternoon eating mac and cheese and drinking champagne on the deck! 

Consuela loves this sort of thing. 

My version didn't really compare to Caseus. But it was still super bomb. I served it for the monthly meeting of my cookbook club. Only three members of the club could attend this meeting, including Consuela.

Ingredients
1 pound of large pasta shells

1 quart of whole milk 

4 tablespoons of butter

3 tablespoons flour

2 teaspoons dry mustard powder

1 head of garlic, minced

1.5 ish cups shredded gruyere (just shred the whole block) 

1.5 ish cups shredded gouda 

1.5 ish cups shredded fontina 

2 cups shredded extra-sharp white cheddar 

2 cups panko bread crumbs 

1 cup shredded parmesan 

So much cheese. 

What to do

Boil some salted water for the pasta. Cook the pasta for 2-3 minutes less than the cooking time on the bag / box calls for, as you will also be baking it, and you don't want it to get mushy. 

Grease a casserole. Preheat the oven to 350. 

Melt the butter in the bottom of a large pot. When it's completely melted, add the flour and stir constantly, allowing the flour to become caramel brown, about 3-4 minutes. You made a nice roux! Add the mustard powder, about a tablespoon of the minced garlic, and a big pinch of black pepper. Stir for another 30 seconds to fry your spices, then add the quart of milk. 

Whisk the milk mixture until it steams up, just on the edge of boiling. Then, add all the shredded cheese and whisk like crazy. Keep the pot on the heat, whisking, until the sauce is smooth and hot, just on the edge of boiling.

cheese sauce!

Add the cooked pasta. Mix the pasta into the sauce, then pour into the greased casserole. It's ok if it looks a bit soupy at this point--as you bake it, a lot of the liquid will be soaked up by the pasta, and some sauciness will only enhance the luxury of the final product. 

Add the bread crumbs to a dry saute pan. Add the remaining garlic and the parmesan. Toss over a flame until golden and crunchy, then scatter evenly over the top of the casserole full of pasta and cheese sauce. 

Bake at 350 for about half an hour--until cheese is bubbling and the top is golden. 

Serve with a side salad. 

This was delicious. But I feel I could improve it even more--maybe using smoked gouda and adding some chevre to the sauce? Maybe toasting the bread crumbs in truffle oil? The possibilities are endless. 

 Enjoy! 

Easiest Ever Baked Brie

This recipe is courtesy of Eric, one of my favorite people.

Me, my brother, my sister, Eric. My apt on Colorado Blvd, 2010? About to head to Casa Bonita for "Reno Night"

Eric was / is my brother's best friend since middle school. They met when Kevin joined the school play in New York, shortly after my mom moved there. Kev brought Eric back to the house to play Xbox, and he fit right in! From then on he was sort of the fourth sibling--he made Christmas cookies with us, my mom yelled at him about his grades, he napped on our couch and cuddled my mom's wiener-dogs, volunteered my mom's museum parties, gossiped with my mom and grandma, wore amazingly chic, colorful clothing even on average Tuesdays.

Me and Eric in fake Mexico.

Eric was still living in my mom's bleak upstate New York town when I moved to Denver. I happened to have an unnecessary 2 bedroom apartment--so I started lobbying him to move to Denver and live with me. And he did! And promptly took the city by storm--Eric is a gifted maker of friends. We were roommates for a couple years. Before my first date with Adam, Eric helped me pick an outfit and did my hair--his advice was "something slutty. Not too slutty, but slutty" and that is the WHOLE REASON I AM NOW HAPPILY MARRIED! Thanks, Eric!

My brother, me, Adam, my sister, Eric--the wedding!

So Eric has a lot of positive qualities. But being a good cook--not one of them. As a teenager eating at our house, he claimed to hate "anything green". Then when we lived together in Denver, his diet consisted entirely of: a. Vodka b. Gummy worms c. Free drugs d. the sweat of sexy people he met on Colfax. Seriously. He ate nothing but candy and intoxicants, and mesmerized the mile high city with his homemade booty shorts. His idea of a home-cooked meal was opening some cheap wine and a bag of skittles. 

Well, imagine my surprise when Eric recently invited Bree and I over for dinner, and cooked an amazing, delicious dinner. He made pesto-stuffed chicken, broccoli soup, and this awesome baked brie recipe for dessert.He described how to make it, and I re-created it for two parties recently, where it was a huge hit.

This is the easiest possible thing to bring to a party, and everyone loves it.

Ingredients

1 brie 

1 package of croissant dough

about half a cup of jelly or fruit preserves (I used hot pepper jelly, because that's what we had)) 

What to do 

Unpeel the croissant triangles and lay them out on a cookie sheet making a star shape of sorts. Place the brie in the middle and put the jelly on top of the brie.
Wrap the brie with the pastry triangles. No part of the cheese should be showing--cover it completely.

Use the leftover croissant dough to cut out a shape for the top--for a friend's recent Bachelor party, I made a dong. 

Bake at 350 until the dough is golden brown. Serve while it's warm, alone or with crackers. 

Enjoy!