Just for variety, I made macaroni and cheese in a different way than usual, by making a creamy cheese sauce first.
Used half pound of elbow macaroni and doubled the cheese sauce recipe below, pouring it over the cooked macaroni, in a large casserole dish. Mix in about 1/2 to 1 cup of grated parmesan cheese for extra kick, then bake for a half hour on 350.
Next time I’ll use ALL extra sharp cheese, no Monterey Jack, as the extra amount of milk really made it a bit milder than it needed to be.
Still, it’s always fun to try something new! And it’s macaroni and cheese, can’t go wrong with mac and cheese!
Cheese Sauce
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground white pepper
1 1/2 cups milk
1 cup grated extra sharp cheddar
Melt butter in saucepan and remove from heat. Stir in flour and seasonings. Gradually add milk, stirring until well mixed. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until thickened and smooth. Cook for 5 minutes longer, and then add cheese. Stir until smooth and well blended. Serve with pasta or vegetables.
Note: To make twice as much, double everything in recipe except only use 2 cups of milk instead of doubling the regular amount. Also, if you use a mild cheese like Monterey Jack instead of sharp cheddar this recipe makes a good base for cream casseroles.
Because it’s one of his favorites, I made another orange cake for John. This time though I changed the recipe a WEE bit – used orange extract instead of lemon extract and vanilla pudding instead of lemon pudding, and the orange flavor popped out MUCH more. (The updated recipe is 
We had breakfast for dinner today – first time making Eggs Benedict for ourselves. First I have to fess up that we did NOT make our own Hollandaise sauce, which, I know, is the key to good Eggs Benedict. But we were more interested, at the moment, in HAVING Eggs Benedict, than spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to make it from scratch for the first time. Maybe at some future time, but this time we used Trader Joe’s Hollandaise warmed and scooped over poached eggs on ham on english muffins, with a side of baked potato cubes….
I told you (or at least I think I told you) that we had a backlog of images/experiences to share – this is one of those posts – heh.
If you’re a fan of orange soda, but don’t like the fake orange, high-fructose corn syrup stuff, you’ll be needing to try Safeway Organics Blood Orange Italian Soda. It’s fantabulous! Really orangey, really tangy, and has great ingredients: carbonated water, organic blood orange juice from concentrate, organic sugar, citric acid, natural blood orange flavor, black carrot juice (for color, which is a little weird perhaps since the soda is like a pinky-orange color, not ORANGE-orange), and natural orange flavor. (Contains 12% juice) And you can honestly say it’s Italian because it’s imported from Italy – LOL.
This isn’t a ‘cooking from scratch’ sort of thing, but that doesn’t make it any less delicious!
Happy 2008 Everyone!