Foodie Friday

First of all—sorry if the title of this post is cheesy. You’ll forgive me though, when you check out this super tasty recipe created by the awesome Giada De Laurentiis. If you love to cook, like me, then you know who she is. She is the main cook behind Everyday Italian and Giada at Home; and boy can she cook. Her Italian food is so delicious and she makes her recipes simple so that we can create Italian cuisine at home, with ease. I’ve attempted a few of her recipes and by far my favorite is her macaroni and Cheese Recipe; and, I recommend you give it a try.

The directions are super simple—click here to view the ingredients and instructions.

I’m going to show you how I make it, and hopefully offer some tips.

First I grease my 13 x 9 inch baking dish. 

Next, I boil a large pot of water and once it comes up to a rolling boil I add in a hand full of salt and my wide egg noodles. Then remove them once they are tender. 

Then cook up a couple pieces of bacon (I use bacon instead of ham). Next chop the bacon into small bits and chop up your parsley as well—then side aside. 

Next, I get a large bowl and grab the following ingredients: 2 cups cream, 2 ½ milk, 2 tsp. flour, ½ teaspoon salt, and pepper. Toss them into your bowl and whisk. I usually whisk for about 5 minutes because I want the mixture to thicken a bit. 

I also use different cheeses for this recipe but it still tastes so good! I just buy two containers of the three cheese blend, and use 1 ¾ of both containers of cheese combined, and save ¼ of the cheese mix for the top of the macaroni. Once I’ve done that, I add the cheese, bacon, and parsley to the cream mixture and mix. 

Next, add the egg noodles. 

Then add to your baking dish and top with the remainder of your cheese (that’s if you’re making it my way) and place into your oven. Another tip I have is leave the macaroni in the oven until the cream is bubbling and the tops are a little toasty. Then let the macaroni sit out for about 10 minutes. It will come out perfect if you do it that way.

Then when it’s done, serve it up! Nom nom. 

Happy eating! I’m hungry now…

+ Thank you to my lovely sister Angie for assisting me with this macaroni so I wouldn't get my camera dirty :-) 

How Do You Eat Your Raspberries?

I was inspired by the latest edition of Martha Stewart Living for this blog post. She had a list of her favorite ways to eat raspberry dishes, and I thought, “Hey, my favorite way to eat raspberries isn’t in there”. So, I wanted to share that here on my blog—being that summer is just around the corner and the need for cool treats will be in demand in all of our homes.

Ingredients

1.       5-6 raspberries

2.       ½ cup of vanilla yogurt

3.       Handful of raisins

4.       Handful of nuts

What I do is start by rinsing my raspberries, and then I mash them with a fork and add them to the half cup of vanilla yogurt and mix. Next I add the raisins and nuts—and eat!

How do you eat your raspberries?

Affordable Last Minute Easter Cake

     If you’re like me you don’t think of what you’re going to make for Holiday parties until the last minute, and this year I thought about making a cute—cheap, Easter themed Cake. If you have eggs and food coloring at home in your pantry already then this cake will only cost you a little over $5.00. To make this cake all you’ll need is:

·         2 boxes of white cake mix ($1.00 each)

·         2 containers or white icing  ($1.59 each)

·         2 or 1 small round baking pans

·         Food coloring

·         Vegetable oil

·         6 eggs

·         Water

What I did for the first batch was simply follow the instructions on the back of the cake mix box—once that was done, I divided the batter in half—in separate bowls, then added yellow food coloring into one bowl and pink food coloring into another. Then bake! Once they are out, wash and dry all the dishes and pans, then repeat—but with the purple and blue food coloring instead of the pink and yellow. Once they have cooled on a rack you can start icing. What I do is place the first cake layer facing up and then trim the top off to insure the cake will be level (I do this for each cake layer). After you have trimmed the first layer, simply spread about 2 tbsp of the icing on top then repeat those steps for the other layers. It should look something like this: (sorry for the poor image quality I did this last night and I didn’t have much natural lighting, lol).

Then from this point you can simply use the remaining frosting to finish it up. Then you are ready to serve or take it your party!

I hope you all have enjoyed this post—and I hope you have a GREAT Easter!

Also, stay tuned for……