Macaroni and Cheese - Comfort Food

It is winter, and one of my favorite dishes for a cold Sunday evening is Baked Macaroni and Cheese.  Don't worry about points or calories.  This is a diet buster of a dish.

6 Tablespoons butter
3 Tablespoons flour
3 cups of milk (no fat is fine)
2 teaspoon dry mustard
2 teaspoon yellow mustard
1 t. salt
1/2 lb shredded swiss cheese
1 lb shredded cheddar cheese

1 lb raw macaroni
cornflake crumbs

Melt butter on stove in large pot.  Stir in flour gradually.  Remove from stove.  Add milk, stirring constantly and blend well.  Return to the stove and heat on medium heat.  Add cheese and stir until cheese melts and mixture thickens.

Cook macaroni as directed on package.

Put macaroni in buttered 9 x 13 pan.  Cover with cheese sauce.  Sprinkle with cornflake crumbs.  Bake 350 for one hour.

Lemon Scones

A few years back, I blogged about the delicious lemon scones from Panini's.  I never published the recipe!

Lemon Scones


4 cup flour
2 T sugar
1.5 t baking powder
.5 t. kosher salt
1 T grated lemon zest
1/4 lb unsalted butter, cut into slices
1 1/4 c buttermilk (I use milk with a bit of lemon juice)



Pam up two cookie sheets.

Preheat oven to 350

Place flour, sugar, baking powder and kosher salt in food processor with steel blade. Pulse to combine.

Add zest and butter and pulse until mixture resembles cornmeal.

Gradually add buttermilk and pulse until incorporated.

Place lumps onto sheets.

Put in over 35 min. (In my oven, I switch the pans halfway through not only top and bottom, but turn them 180 degrees also)

Set aside to cool.



Icing

1/4 lemon juice and about 2 c powdered sugar. Put juice in bowl and add powdered sugar until icing forms.



When scones are cool drizzle icing on top.

Blizzicane

I don't know about you, but this blizzard wiped me out.  Now I keep hearing about this mythical 100 year storm.  Somehow, I have lived through a bunch of them.  Of course in 1978 I was a little kid, and it was a winter wonderland, until I lost my red boot in the snow.  And I didn't need to shovel.

WBZ in Boston claims that the worst snow was February 17, 2003.  Yup, I was around.  Mark was about 9 months old.  He had a nice LL Bean sled, that I pulled around like I was a horse!  The kid loved it.  Then the second storm is THE BLIZZARD . . . .

The third storm happened in 1969, and I wasn't there!  Not invented yet!

The fourth was the April 1, 1997 storm, and I remember that one really well.  Adam and I were engaged and we were supposed to drive to Philly that day for his great uncle's funeral.  The rest of the family made it.  Adam shoveled out in Somerville, and I was at my parents house in Marblehead.

And then number five was this one.  The storm that Naomi got stuck in the snow.  The storm that required three shovelings in one day, and we are not done.  The storm that caused school to be canceled on Friday, EVERYTHING to shut down on Saturday and who knows what for Sunday (No Hebrew School and No tennis).

I remember the Perfect Storm.

I remember in October 1996 the Boston Floods. . . . Kenmore station was flooded.  I also remember the rains of 2010, and the rainy season of 2006 - the year Naomi was born.  Of course I remember Irene and Sandy of the most recent past.

The 100 year storm happens much more often.

As a side note, I am so happy this storm didn't happen one year ago, since we had a HOLE in the side of the house and roof for our addition!

Happy Anniversary!

One year ago, on Superbowl Sunday I cooked my last dinner in our old kitchen!  About a year ago, we had made so many decisions about cabinets, knobs, appliances, granite, flooring, lights, tile, kitchen sinks, windows, doors, air conditioners and so many other things.

One year ago we said goodbye to white cabinets and blue counter tops.

We said goodbye to a junk drawer that never opened.

We said goodbye to our back pantry that was falling apart.

We said goodbye to the red door that was hard to open.

We said goodbye to the old kitchen.

We said HELLO to a temporary sink in the living room.

We said HELLO to two kids living in one small bedroom.

We said HELLO to our new temporary kitchen in the dining room.  Where we ate waffles once a week.

We used the bread machine alot.

And then on Mother's Day 2012, a beautiful kitchen was presented.