Baked Macaroni & Cheese

My  last attempt of baked pasta and cheese didn't turn out too moist. So I decided to try making Baked Macaroni & Cheese for a Christmas dinner with family friends. I know my friend's son loves my baked pasta (tomato based sauce). So this time, I decided to make Macaroni & Cheese instead. 

This time, the macaroni & cheese was moist and very cheesy too. My friends and their children loved it. Here's how I made the moist Baked Macaroni & Cheese.

Recipe for Baked Macaroni & Cheese
(Makes for 10 persons)

Ingredients:
500g Elbow pasta, cooked till al dente, drained and set aside
Some olive oil
2 cloves Garlic, chopped coarsely
300g Bacon, cooked till fragrant
1 can Button mushrooms, sliced
500g Cooking cream (20% fats)
350g Whole milk
Salt to taste
Some herbs, eg. Mixed herbs
300g Shredded Red Cheddar Cheese
300g Shredded White Cheddar Cheese
300g Shredded Mozzarella Cheese (for baking)
150g Shredded Red Cheddar Cheese (for baking)

Method:

1. Heat up a large wok. Add olive oil, followed by garlic to saute. 
2. Add in mushrooms and stir fried for a while before adding the cooked bacon to mix.
3. Add in cooking cream, followed by whole milk and stir to mix well. Add in salt and some mixed herbs if using.
4. Add in the elbow pastas. Mix well with the cream sauce.
5. Add in 300g of red cheddar cheese. Stir well to mix. Add in 300g of white cheddar cheese and mix well. It will become cheesy.

6. When all the cheese has melted and mix in, scoop them into baking dish. I used two glass baking dish of approximiately 9"x9" size. Or you may use one 9" x 13" baking dish.

7. Topped up the macaroni with the 150g shredded red cheddar cheese and mozzarella cheese and spread them out well.

8. Bake in the preheated oven of 190C for 20-23mins or until the cheese on top turns brown.
9. Remove and serve immediately.

I'm submitting this to 'Baby Sumo's Christmas Recipes Collection 2013' hosted by Baby Sumo of  Eat Your Heart Out.

Baked Pasta and Cheese

The best macaroni and cheese I had was when I was in New York some years back. It was only a side dish to the meat platter we ordered. In fact, it was in that restaurant that I had the best mac & cheese, and apple cinnamon. I had been missing the mac & cheese for a long time. It's rare to find a good mac & cheese. I decided to embark on trying out this recipe. The recipe looks simple, but I can assure you, it's not that easy to make a moist, cheesy and soft mac & cheese.

As I do not have elbow pasta, I used other pasta instead. Although my baked pasta and cheese turned out nice, but it was not moist enough. I would like it to be more moist. In future, I'll add more milk. Don't be deceived by my pictures, it didn't do much justice to the taste. It was pretty good. Fortunately my family members like it.

Recipe for Pasta & Cheese, modified from Alton Brown's Mac & Cheese.
(Makes a full 13 x 11 x 3" tray)

Ingredients:
500g Any Pasta (or elbow pasta)
3 tbsp Liv Unsalted butter
3 tbsp Plain flour
750g Whole milk
1 large Egg
500g Shredded Cheddar (I used a mix of red cheddar and white cheddar from Cold Storage. A packet of 150g cost $2.99)
1 tsp Salt
Fresh black pepper

Optional Addition:
3 tbsp Olive oil
2 punnets fresh button mushrooms, sliced
1 Red capsicum, chopped
1 Red onion, finely chopped

Topping:
3 tbsp Liv Unsalted butter
8 slices White bread, trimmed the sides
150g Mozzarella cheese, shredded

Method:

1. In a large pot of boiling, salted water cook the pasta to al dente.
2. While the pasta is cooking, in a separate pot, cook the vegetables. Add in the olive oil, followed by onion. Cook the onion till soft and fragrant, then add in the red capsicum, followed by mushrooms. Cooked till soft. Remove from the pot, set aside.
3. Drain out the liquid from the pot, add in the three tablespoon of butter. Whisk in the flour and keep it moving for about five minutes. Make sure it's free of lumps. Stir in the milk and simmer for a few minutes.
4. Pour the hot milk into the egg in a separate bowl. Temper the egg and pour it back into the pot and stir well.
5. Stir in all the cheddar cheese. Season with salt and pepper. Fold the pasta into the mix and pour into the prepared tray. Topped with mozzarella cheese.
6. Melt the butter in a saute pan and toss the bread to coat. Place the buttered bread on top.
7. Bake in a preheated fan oven of 160C for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and rest for five minutes before serving.

I served my pasta & cheese with grilled vegetables, meatballs, salmon gravlax and gougere cookies. Grilled vegetables include 2 large yellow zucchini, 3 japanese cucumbers, a quarter pumpkin and 3 medium brinjal. Slice them, toss them in olive oil, salt and pepper and fresh dill. These were what I served to a group of 16 people. Meatballs and salmon gravlax are store-bought. Just some ideas for you if you are having guests over.

Wholemeal Egg White and Cream Loaf Bread

I must admit, I'm really slacking in updating my blog. Well, actually not really. I have been baking the usual cakes and what-nots, therefore, I found no value add in updating my blog. Okay, my excuses. Pardon me.

I haven't been baking breads or buns for the longest time. I can only conclude that (1) I have other more important bakes (2) there isn't enough time for the bread process. Okay, enough of my excuses.

I'll just have to admit that this is a backlog. I made this Egg White and Cream Loaf Bread a couple of weeks back. Thanks to HBS for sharing the recipe. The bread was really soft, and there was a slight hint of cream/milk taste in it. To make myself less guilty, I used some wholemeal flour too!

[Pardon the colours on my photos. I'm still trying to find a suitable white balance for my lousy fuji film camera. o_o"]

I also want to share that quite sometime back, my dear friend, Doris, gave me some of her home-made chocolate pasta. Yes, it's chocolate pasta!! I really love the chocolate taste in the pasta, it's so chocky and it went well with the cream! It left a chocolate after taste, which made me think about it after I had them! I'll have to say, she gave me all the necessary ingredients, and I just have to follow her instructions to cook and eat! Thanks Doris! Now, I'll just have to convince my hubby to let me buy the pasta maker...  I shall make it my birthday wish, so that he cannot reject me! LOL!

Chocolate Tartlets

We have this group of family friends whom we usually meet up once a year, either year end, or during Chinese New Year period. This year, I volunteered to be the host. As usual, when it comes to guest that I don't meet often, I usually fall back on foods that I'm confident it will not go wrong.


For this gathering, I made Baked Bolognase Pasta, Smoked Ham Gratin, and Chocolate Tartlets. We also ordered a Turkey from the local supermarket. When my spouse collected it, we realised it was not cooked! I had to hurry through my bakings so as to roast the turkey. Fortunately, the turkey wasn't too tough!


Overall, my guests were happy with the food I served. Thank goodness! :)

Baked Bolognase Pasta

Mini Dark Chocolate Tarts

The chocolate tartlets were very nice. I used a mixture of 55% and 72% dark chocolates for the filling. As I had some leftover chocolate swiss meringue buttercream (SMB), I piped some SMB on the tartlets and it was really "sinfully" good! In fact, one of my friend preferred the tart with just SMB fillings! I like the chocolate tartlet with some SMB frosting. Try it, I'm sure you'll agree!

Recipe for Chocolate Tartlets, modified from Lust by Audrey Tan

Makes about 60 mini tarts

Tart Crusts

Ingredients:

125g Unsalted butter, soften at room temperature

40g Caster sugar

1 Egg

225g Plain flour

25g Cocoa powder

Method:

1. In a mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
2. Add egg and mix till well blended.
3. Sift flour and cocoa powder into the batter.
4. Gather them into a dough.
5. Flatten dough into a disc and cover with plastic cover.
6. Refrigerate for 30mins.
7. On a floured work surface, roll the dough into a 0.3cm thick sheet.
8. Use a round cutter to press out the dough.
9. Place dough into prepared tartlet tins, ensuring that dough is well pressed into sides and bottom of the tin. (I used a 12 mini muffin tray for the tarts).
10. Bake the crust at 180C for 12-15mins.
11. Let it cool completely before filling.

Chocolate Ganache

100g Dark chocolate buttons, 72% cacao

200g Dark chocolate buttons, 55% cacao

250g Whipping cream

Method:

1. Bring the cream to a simmer in a medium saucepan over medium heat.
2. Put the chocolate in a heatproof bowl.
3. Add the hot cream into the chocolate and let it stand for 1 min.
4. Whisk until smooth.
5. Spoon the ganache into the tartlets.
6. Refrigerate till firm before consuming.

Happy new 2012 everyone! Hope we bake more tempting treats in the new year!

Tarty

Since last week, I've had this craving to eat chocolate tarts. I prepared the dough, left it in the fridge. Then the next day, I baked the tart crusts. Then I kept it in the air-tight container. Then, came Tuesday...Wednesday...Thursday. And I haven't gotten the chance to add my chocolate! Finally on Friday, since it was a public holiday, I finally decided to add my chocolate.

Initially, I wanted a dark chocolate tart. And thought of adding some Bailey's Creme Caramel. However, it ended up I used the leftover Strawberry ganache from my chocolate workshop on Tuesday. It turned out to be really nice. My sister liked it very much, and bought some home too!


My parents and sister came over to my place for dinner on Friday. I prepared some simple fare - baked pasta and oriental salad. The recipe for the oriental salad was given to me by Amy, who was our instructor for our Wedding Cake Decoration in BITC. She has given us quite a number of recipes for salads and dips. She's really very good.



To backtrack a bit, I baked pita breads last week. It was a bit too thick. My sister requested for it for her hummus. I've not heard of, or taken hummus until she made it. It was supposed to be taken with pita bread. It was really healthy and good! It wouldn't be my last try too!

Small Celebrations, Big Preparations

The whole week was spending preparing for Aloysius, my eldest boy's birthday. He turns 9 this year. Born on the same year I got married! So it's very easy to know my wedding anniversary and his age. On a lighter note, if you think it's a shotgun marriage, I'll let you guess. I got married in March and he was born 37 weeks in December. Now you tell me...aren't I just lucky? ;)

Ok, back to preparation for his "big" day. Although it was just a small celebrations with my family, lots of preparations were put in place since Monday!?!?! This was my dinner menu:

Starter
Brown Rice with mixed nuts Salad

Main Course
Pasta with cream sauce or tomato sauce

Desserts
1. Choice of Rum & Raisins or Cookies & Cream Ice-Cream
2. Birthday Cake - Chocolate Fudge

Drinks
Lemongrass infused tea

Preparation before the actual day were:
1. Rum & Raisins Ice Creams


Recipe from Camemberu: No-Churn Rum & Raisin Ice Cream.

2. Cookies & Cream Ice Creams


Recipe from The Kwoks-Viewfinder: Cookies & Cream Ice Cream.

3. Lemongrass infused tea


4. "Lightning McQueen"


5. Baking of Chocolate Cake one day before.


Actual Day preparation were:
1. Brown Rice Salad with mixed nuts salad


Recipe from Kitchen Culture Demo.

2. Pastas
Since I used mainly canned sauces and added chicken & minced beef separately, there was nothing much to show. :p

3. Chocolate Fudge Birthday Cake Frosting



Recipe extracted from Kitchen Capers Forum.

4. Rosemary & Garlic Foccacia
Somehow, I might either have killed the yeast by the heat of my mixer, or put in too much water to the dough.:< The dough was so liquid, almost like soup. But I went ahead to bake it anyway. It was still very fragrant, except it doesn't really taste like foccacia.
Recipe from Happy Home Baking.

The Chocolate Fudge Cake was really good. However I think I might have underbaked them slightly. The recipe is here to stay for me!

A New Attempt

It was another day of "busyness" in the kitchen. My best companion has its mood swings at certain time. He is none other than my Delonghi! He was hot at 190C sometimes or at 100C. Either mad in the head, or mad in the heart. He "sees" red most of the time while I tried to monitor his temperature with the oven thermometer. Heehee...Okay, back to what I bake today.

Purple Sweet Potato Chiffon Cake
This was a TOTAL FLOP (even though the colour was really attractive!!) The end result was exactly like my Mango Chiffon Cake two days ago. I don't know what went wrong, but the smell and taste of the cake was really nice. Another recipe from Kevin Chai. Is it him, or is it me?? :p

Pizzas, baked pastas & Garlic breads with Rosemary
Five pizzas with different toppings: Teriyaki Salmon, Teriyaki Prawns, Minced Pork with Black Bean Paste, Bacons & Mushrooms. Baked pastas with mixed herbs and garlic breads with fresh rosemary herbs.


Intense Chocolate Souffle
This was requested by my sister. She wanted souffle for dessert tonight. So I tried to surf the web for a good recipe. I've not tried this before. It's a new attempt! Since my younger sister just bought the Ghirardelli chocs for me, I managed to find one recipe from that site: Intense Dark Souffles. I halved the recipe. I was quite reluctant to use up the whole packet of the chocolates since I only have one packet. So I saved half for myself! ;)

On a separate note, I bought the purple sweet potato last Saturday. So I told my helper to add it to the porridge to cook (like normal sweet potato). Finally, we had purple porridge for lunch. The sweet potatoes were really sweet and nice. Makes the porridge so yummy!