Colby Jack Mac - CTC Week 1

Week 1 in my Chow-Time Challenge! I decided to start with baked macaroni and cheese - something that seemed like it'd be pretty simple but still tasty. After all, there are few things better than ooey-gooey melted cheese!

I started off with this recipe from Allrecipes.com, but I changed it up a bit based on what I had on hand - I didn't have regular elbow macaroni noodles, so I used rigatoni instead, and I only had a bit of cheddar cheese left, so I used that and made up the difference with colby jack.

It was an okay recipe, but not perfect. There was definitely too much milk for how much pasta I had - it was really runny even though I let it bake for the full forty minutes and the noodles were cooked through and the top brown. I did add a bit more cheese than the recipe called for, which was good, but it lost a lot of the gooey cheese factor I was looking for because of the milk. I did grate a bit of my colby jack over the top of my mac & cheese when I ate it and that helped somewhat.

(Before I post the pictures, I should apologize for my less-than-stellar photos. But who can argue with an excuse to work on their photography?)

The top of it looked pretty good - gooey with just enough crust.

Now you can see the runnyness - the white stuff is the bits of cooked egg mixed in with the milk. Also yay for extra cheese!

Overall, I think it was a decent start to the challenge. It wasn't a terrible recipe, and I think with some amount adjustments it could be pretty good. The leftovers have been pretty tasty with a nice helping of cheese shredded over the top.

I am excited for this challenge, though - I'm already planning my next dish! What about you? Any interesting recipes you've tried lately?

My 2011 Chow-Time Challenge!

I baked pumpkin seeds for the first time this past fall!

I mentioned this in an earlier post, but I've really been wanting to issue some sort of food/cooking related challenge to myself to force me to try to make new dishes and break out of the box of eating the same thing over and over again. And here it is!

I, Emily, hereby challenge myself to create one new dish/food that I have never made before every week for the rest of the year.

It's fairly broad, but a girl has to start somewhere! They could be cooked dishes, but they might not be. They can be entrees or desserts, whatever, as long as it meets the criteria of something I have never made before, and is not too similar to something that I've made previously. ("I made a sandwich but used swiss cheese instead of cheddar" does not count, for example!) I already have a few dishes planned, but I am always open to interesting suggestions if you have any!

And now if you'll excuse me, I'm rather hungry and think it might be time to start on the first dish of the challenge...

Nom Time - Waffles and Brownies!

I'm not the best cook in the world. Honestly, for someone who considers herself a fairly creative, artsy person, I have next to zero creativity in the kitchen. (Oh, what's that one thing I made with someone that one time? I will make that now forever all the time.) But I'm a decent baker and can follow a recipe, things I'm trying to use to my advantage in my desire to break out of my kitchen comfort zone.

My latest foodstuffs:

Waffles from scratch! I got a waffle maker for Christmas (awesome present, BTW), and have been eating my fair share of waffles ever since. But until now they were all from box mixes. I never realized how sad and flat the waffles from a mix were until I made these and they were so fluffy they threatened to overflow from the waffle iron entirely. Soooo good.

Pre-wrapped little chocolate squares are so cute! I love them, but I love them even more for what I made with them..

Brownies! This is the most amazing ooey-gooey goodness ever. If it wasn't for the fact that it would mean no brownies, I would be tempted to eat all of this straight from the bowl.

I hope you can appreciate the delicious even with the low-quality phone photos!

As it was, I didn't, but I made sure not to let the batter stuck to the sides of the bowl go to waste. ;) A spoon and a glass of milk took care of that in no time.

And of course the finished product! I guess they turned out pretty well, as they were nearly gone by the time I got around to taking a picture!

I'm considering issuing some sort of food/cooking challenge to myself to help me break out of my culinary box a little more, but I haven't quite worked it out yet. If I do, I'll keep you posted, of course! And if you have any ideas you'd like to share, I'm all for hearing them. :)