The Macaroni and Cheese experiment

I've been trying to improve my basic cooking skills. Even though some people (not my kids) think I'm a good cook, really I just have a few recipes I rely on, following them exactly, and have never really internalized the principles of cooking. But I really want to be a truly good cook, as well as have the ability to create food from what I have on hand, and control the ingredients that my family eats. So I've been practicing on a few basic recipes.

I find Alton Brown to be a reliable source of good recipes, so I tried his mac and cheese and was surprised to find that it wasn't my favorite. So I decided to see if I could make it more to my taste. I remembered making mac and cheese with Mom, and I was just sure it involved making a cheese sauce, and so looked up a recipe for that. After a few times making that, taking notes, and tweaking, I felt I had worked out a workable technique: roux, white sauce, cheese sauce. I learned how to get the sauce thick enough, and how to keep the cheese from seizing (although it's true that maybe it wasn't seizing, but merely not melting). And it was pretty good. But flat. So I considered seasonings. Mustard is common, but Mom doesn't like mustard. I realize that she's only here once or twice a year, but I think it would be nice to have a recipe together that I can serve her. The kids aren't too fond of overly spicy food. And then, out of the blue, I had a thought: Worcestershire sauce. I don't know where that idea came from. But it was a good one. I made the following recipe last week, and it was a hit:

MACARONI AND CHEESE

Based loosely on Alton Brown’s Baked Macaroni and Cheese

½ lb elbow macaroni

3 Tbsp butter

3 Tbsp flour

3 C milk

1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

12 oz sharp cheddar, shredded, divided approximately ¾ and ¼

1 tsp kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

For the topping:

3 Tbsp butter

1 C panko bread crumbs

1. Melt butter over low heat and start your pasta water (see step #2) while assembling mise en place. The 2-qt saucepan is best for this. Turn on broiler.

2. In a large pot of salted boiling water, cook pasta to al dente, per package instructions and altitude requirements (11 minutes for elbow macaroni at this altitude; 9 for rotini).

3. Whisk flour in butter, making roux. It’s a white roux, so only mix for ½ to 1 minute. Add milk and Worcestershire sauce, whisking, and simmer for 8 minutes. It should coat the back of a spoon. It’s now a white sauce, or it would be, if not for the Worcestershire.

4. Meanwhile, melt topping butter in microwave (or on stovetop if no microwave).

5. With burner on low, add ¾ of the cheese, by small handfuls and stirring thoroughly after each addition. It’s now a cheese sauce. Add salt and pepper.

6. Add panko to melted topping butter. Add cheese sauce to drained pasta, then place in casserole dish and sprinkle remaining ¼ of cheese and panko topping.. Broil till bread crumbs are golden brown and cheese topping is bubbling. The sauce will thicken on standing.

Possible substitutions: pasta, cheeses, bread crumbs

Flavors to try: bay leaf, Old Bay, nutmeg, red pepper flakes, cayenne

Now, it's not perfect. It's a little too saucy, so I will try 12 oz of pasta next time. Although it's yummy, it lacks depth of flavor, so I will continue to experiment with seasonings. I'm adding Old Bay next time, and I'll give you a report. Although I think the panko topping is best, the boys prefer that I use cornflakes. I've also used Ritz crackers, and I'll bet croutons would be excellent (I love Mrs. Cubbison's Seasoned croutons).

Finally, Needlework!

On Monday, I finally got to do some needlework. I was very scattered about it, I guess because I'd been away so long I don't know where to start. First, I put one thread's worth of beads on a Christmas angel--the one with beaded wings. Then I tried to to work the Christmas Madonna, but it's on 40-ct fabric (which I got from The Daisy Barrel in Fairborn OH several years ago--it's very near Wright-Patterson AFB) and I was doing over-one stitching on the face, and the light was bad, and my eyes aren't as good as they used to be, so I gave up after a few stitches. That's a sunny-day project.

Because I had been having trouble with the over-one stitching, and because the light was even worse by now, I decided not to try to work on Summer Queen (sorry Danielle!). The thing is, I could have done it, but there was a higher chance of mistakes, and it's really really difficult to take out over-one stitches. And if you don't fix mistakes, then it looks like a pockmarked face.

So I ended up working on the most recent Christmas angel. I had just started this one, and I think I've mentioned that that's one of my favorite parts of a project. I just love to see the stitches "grow" out of the fabric. Here's how I generally start: I find the middle and do one color there, and work my way out. So I started with DMC 677. Can you guess what it is? It's the angel's hair.

You can also see in the picture the needle I was using; it's my favorite needle. It's actually called My Favorite Needle, by Mardina. They do cost from $5 to $6 each, which is on the expensive side. But so worth it! I buy them even though I have "corrosive" hands and so go through a lot of needles (you should throw away your needle when it becomes rough). They are tiny and have a small eye. I like the tininess--larger needles just feel so unwieldy to me. However, I suppose if you have difficulty gripping things, this may not be the needle for you. And you can't thread it with a traditional threader--for me that just means I get to practice threading without one. In case, you know, I ever am stitching after the world falls apart and needle threaders aren't available. Mardina makes an even smaller needle, which I use for beading (the name escapes me). But if you must have a larger eye, I like John James Petites. And if you must have a larger needle, well, you're on your own.

Generally I do one color at a time. Sort of. I start with one, and stitch all the contiguous stitches in that color. Then I choose an adjacent color and do all the contiguous stitches in that color, etc. It cuts down on counting. So next I did DMC 729. I hope you can see it. The designer of this angel (which by the way, is free at www.tiag.com) is Marilyn Leavitt-Imblum, and I think she does the most amazing shading.

You can also see that I've put it on a frame--q-snaps to be exact. Maybe I'll discuss various ways to tauten your needlework in one of these posts. I like my fabric to be taut, even though I can maintain tension working "in hand." I generally only do that when I'm too lazy to get out my box full of stretcher bars, q-snaps, etc. I think it wrinkles the linen.

I did start the next color, DMC 676, but did not finish that. I was planning to work on it on Tuesday, but instead threw all of my clothes out of my closet and put a chair in it, and now have my own private sanctuary to stitch in, or whatever. But no place to put my clothes. But I'm off to stitch now, instead of cooking dinner like I ought to.