Super Easy Macaroni and Cheese

I am a huge fan of macaroni and cheese. It was a childhood favorite that I never seem to stop enjoying as an adult. The difference is that as an adult, I tend a feel a tiny pang of guilt about how unhealthy it can be and how processed it is when you buy it from the store. I mean, cheese that’s been engineered to remain packaged on a shelf? Despite any marketing, that cannot be ‘natural cheese.’

My husband and I will make a baked version of macaroni and cheese from time to time, usually with some fancy combination of cheeses like Gruyere and Swiss and aged Cheddar. It’s delicious, but time-consuming. And it’s more crispy than creamy. So when I crave the creamy kind of macaroni and cheese I remember as a kid, it’s easy to rely on a box.

Now perhaps you can imagine how excited I was when I came across this recipe from Annie’s Eats that looked easy and seemed to turn out creamy based on her pictures. I’ve never eaten the mac and cheese from Panera, so I can’t attest to how similar it may be. But I can say that even with my rather limited cooking abilities, this dish satisfied a craving and was simple to prepare.

I made a small change and used two kinds of Cheddar (sharp and medium) instead of American cheese (which in my humble opinion, doesn’t pack a whole lot of flavor). So instead of 4 oz. of American cheese, I used 4 oz. of medium Cheddar and 8 oz. of sharp Cheddar. I also didn’t have any hot sauce on hand, so instead I added some cayenne pepper with a little bit of paprika.

It was warm, creamy, rich and absolutely perfect for a chilly Sunday dinner. With a salad of course, because you can’t forget your veggies. It’s still maybe not quite healthy, but I do like that I know exactly what’s in it – and that I can pronounce all of its ingredients.

It seems like a pretty flexible recipe, so I look forward to trying it perhaps with different combinations and ratios of cheese, in addition to varying degrees of spiciness. It was so easy and well-worth the effort, I honestly think I’ll have a hard time eating boxed macaroni and cheese again.

What childhood favorites have you re-created?

Short and Sweet

I hope everyone had a good weekend! Time’s a bit short this evening, but coming up this week, I’ll be sharing red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Hope your week is off to a great start!

Chocolate Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Frosting

So here’s a confession: I had what felt like a large number of kitchen fails for about a two-month stretch during October and November of last year. We’re talking mis-measuring ingredients, baking too long, not baking long enough, not accounting for size very well…..things I felt were pretty basic just weren’t coming together. Kind of a bummer. Not devastating – I mean, it’s just baking – but it started to make me cry a lot wear me down just a teeny tiny bit.

But then you get over these things. Because you need a creative outlet. And you want some cake. Also because you’ve committed to make dessert for some dinner or another.

And honestly, with holiday baking on the horizon, I knew the best thing to would be stick with it and practice. So I stuck with tried and true recipes for the holidays (because honestly, who doesn’t love a chocolate chip cookie at the end of the day?) and started to build my confidence again.

I feel like this frosting was the culmination of me getting back into the swing of baking, especially now that I’m much more adjusted to my new kitchen layout, plus getting back to more of a fearless nature in the kitchen. We’re talking burn sugar three times, clean the burnt sugar off the saucepan like crazy and still stick with it kind of fearless.

The recipe isn’t perfected yet, but still worth sharing as I experiment. Also, it was still very good, so it might just be your thing if you like a light caramel flavor.

I also tried a new chocolate cupcake recipe. They’re the fabulous cupcake base of these super fabulous cupcakes from the marvelous Joy the Baker. Sidenote: Read her blog. It’s really really good and she takes fantastic photos. Anyway, so the cupcake recipe was new and kind of tried and true, because my friend Jackie had made them. And if it passes her chocolate cake test, then it’s a sure thing. Side-Sidenote: Read her blog too!

The real fun here was the frosting.

Spooky Witch Hat Cookies

Halloween is just around the corner. Everyone knows it’s all candy all the time this time of year, but the fun of all that sugar buzz feeling fades probably around the time you stop Trick or Treating. I’d like to think these Spooky Witch Hat Cookies are just cute and playful enough to bridge Halloween candy into something a bit more grown up.

Ghost kitchen towels. From a very expensive store called Target : )

The inspiration for these cookies came from Pinterest. Sadly, I can’t even find the original pin. But in the suggestion, it recommended using those Keebler fudge cookies with chocolate stripes on one side and chocolate coating on the bottom. And then adding the Hershey’s kiss from there.

But let’s be honest, that doesn’t seem like much fun.

Dairy-Free, Gluten-Free, Totally Fabulous Mousse

The follow up to last weekend’s homemade pasta extravaganza was this rich, creamy, fluffy chocolate mousse for dessert. Now admittedly, mousse isn’t necessarily something I seek out often.

The only time mousse really registered on my radar was one time when I was flipping channels and watching some Gordon Ramsay Restaurant Takeover Angry Kitchen Grumpy Judge Reality Show. One of the contestants had a major kitchen fail during a dessert challenge. But she rose above it when she changed course and pulled off a judge-approved chocolate mousse. She seriously had about 8 minutes left in the challenge. I was totally impressed.

Adventures in Homemade Whole Wheat Pasta

This past weekend I decided to give homemade pasta an old college try. My mom is quite the pro at homemade pasta, so I think I’ve always been intimated by some big shoes to fill. But now that I’ve tried it on my own, I can’t believe I waited as long as I did. The effort is totally worth it. Yes, it takes more time but sometimes you just need to slow it down, enjoy the process and pull off a nice dinner.

I chose a whole wheat pasta recipe, both because it seems more nutritious and also because of its slightly-rustic tasting flavor. The texture had a little bit of a bite to it and it cooked to a perfect al dente.

Mini Cupcakes to Share

My blog has been a tiny bit neglected and it makes me kind of sad. It turns out adjusting to a new city is much harder than I anticipated. I underestimated how exhausted I’d feel after navigating and going through a day paying a lot of attention to where I am and where I’m headed.

These days, I’m headed to an office up on the north side of SF, in a part of town called Fisherman’s Wharf. As a new freelancer at a digital marketing agency, I’m excited to meet new people and make new friends. (And, let’s be honest, I might have been a little stir-crazy working from home.) What better way to meet people around the office than sharing cupcakes?

That, and I needed to break in my new kitchen for baking. See how stuff works, how the oven cooks, how the space functions, things like that. It’s definitely going to be….wait for it….take a guess…an adjustment. Appropriate for the trend in my life these days.

A few different piping techniques. Because when it comes to piping, practice makes perfect! Or, at least makes better : )

These are the Vanilla Bean Cupcakes I shared here, made in mini-sized cupcake pans, with the Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream I shared here. I decided to stick with what I knew this time around. There’s always time to get fancy later on and I have some very nice chocolate that’s waiting for me to decide on a decadent recipe – stay tuned!

Have you had to navigate a big change lately? How have you adjusted? And did cupcakes make it any easier? ; )

A Lovely-Inspired Chocolate Frosting

I fell in love with Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream at Lovely, a wonderful and charming French-style bakery in Chicago’s Noble Square neighborhood. I didn’t know what it was at the time, but from the first taste, I knew it was a special icing. My then-boyfriend, now-husband purchased a birthday cake for me from Lovely and I remember savoring the leftover pieces for days.

I wasn’t able to identify it specifically as this type of icing until recently. In fact, I didn’t even expect this recipe to be so similar to the frosting from Lovely. I went into this knowing how to make Swiss Meringue Buttercream, that I had some fancy chocolate to use before my baking supplies were all shipped to San Francisco and a desire to de-stress by making something tasty. So I decided I’d make some Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream to frost those cupcakes that weren’t frosted.

Sometimes Frosting Doesn’t Get Made

And that’s ok.

My husband and I are in the midst of some big life changes. The kind where you pick up and move your life 3,000 miles away. Which is exciting, when you think about it. Discovering a new city (San Francisco!) and exploring an entirely new part of the country. How lucky are we his job brings him to this new place?

It turns out it’s kind of stressful though. As our moving company rep told us, “No one ever wrote a book called The Pleasures of Moving.” Truth. I love going through my treasures as much as the next girl, but wow, it’s hard.

I can get pretty caught up and sentimental and emotional because there are so many people I’m going to miss. Knowing I’ll go for such a long period of time without seeing such wonderful friends and family makes me want to do everything for everyone. I like seeing my loved ones happy and I like to share. Simple enough, right?

But when I decide I want to share cupcakes, on an evening when I’m preparing for an early morning flight, for a weekend where we need to find a place to live (kind of an important detail, right?), in a city I’ve never even visited, something has to give. Even if my crazy-long to-do list has time scheduled for cupcakes, my sanity occasionally kicks in and puts a pause on all the insane things I’m trying to accomplish.

So tonight, my Chocolate Swiss Meringue frosting is on put on hold. I will frost my cupcakes later, but for now, “normal me sans cupcakes” wins over “stressed-out, sleep-deprived me who gives people pretty frosted cupcakes.” And that’s the way it should be. So I’m told, at least. I’m still getting used to such clarity ; )

Decadent & Deceptive Truffles

These truffles taste amazing, delicious, decadent and just about divine.

The flavor seemingly bursts due to their soft texture and bittersweet chocolate. The cocoa outside – a perfect compliment to the sweet chocolate inside. Their small size makes them perfect for two or three bites of chocolate-y, happy bliss. These truffles are possibly one of the best pieces of chocolate I’ve ever tasted.

And it will be years before I make these ever again.

If you’re looking for a recipe that takes way longer than you anticipate, here you go. Looking to start a small kitchen fire perhaps? Use every mixing bowl and spatula you own? Waste ingredients and accidentally scramble eggs? Completely scorch the handle of a pot? This recipe is for you.

Granted, I’m sure it was a lack of skill on my part. But at the end of my truffle making experience, I checked off all of these things.

The catch? The recipe looked super easy. Four ingredients, only a few steps? What can go wrong?

A lot, apparently.