Better Than Anything in a Box (Except Diamonds)

A few months ago, one of my Facebook friends posted, "Nothing beats Kraft macaroni and cheese for dinner sometimes!" and it prompted a fury of agreeing comments from all of her friends.

Er, I stand to disagree - the one major dish that beats Kraft macaroni and cheese (or macaroni 'n cheese, I should say) is real, homemade macaroni and cheese. Y'all agree?

I'm not totally against processed foods for convenience or even for familiarity's sake; after all, most recipes I loved while growing up began as a can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup. I don't make a habit of using these ingredients, mostly because it's often cheaper to make them at home.

I don't know why people don't make food at home anymore, or why they don't do it more often. It is so. much. better. than its storebought counterpart.

It's true for mac 'n cheese, and it's true for chocolate pudding. This homemade chocolate pudding comes together in 10 minutes on the stovetop, and even though the directions say to eat it cold, I prefer to let it sit in the fridge only until it cools to room temperature, or I eat it warm for the ultimate delicious, easy and fast comfort dessert. It's creamy, light and indulgent. In a word, it's perfect.

Chocolate Pudding
Ingredients:
* 2 tablespoons sugar
* 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
* 1/8 teaspoon salt
* 1 cup good-quality chocolate milk, 2% or whole
* 1 egg yolk, lightly beaten
* 1 1/2 teaspoons butter
* 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 2 tablespoons chocolate chips, optional

Directions:
In a small saucepan, combine the sugar, flour and salt. Gradually stir in chocolate milk. Cook and stir over medium heat until thickened and bubbly. Reduce heat; cook and stir 2 minutes longer. Remove from the heat.

Stir a small amount of hot filling into egg yolk; return all to the pan, stirring constantly. Bring to a gentle boil; cook and stir 1 minute longer. Remove from the heat. Gently stir in butter and vanilla.

Cool for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Transfer to dessert dishes and sprinkle with chocolate chips. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour. Serves 2.

Photo Credit: iStockPhoto:sallyjshintaffer

It’s Butter and Biscuits, and I Helped!

I can make my own butter, and I’ve done it a few times – only because I was out of butter at the time and happened to have cream on hand. Each time I make my own butter for a recipe, I want to shout out to everyone, “YOU KNOW THE BUTTER IN THERE IS HOMEMADE!?” but then I also feel sort of ashamed, like they won’t believe that I created not only the dish, but an actual ingredient for it. It’s such a tough situation. Sigh…

But then again, y’all, making butter is really the easiest thing in the world (well, next to making granola. See previous post.)… if you have a KitchenAid mixer. (If all you have is cream, a really large jar and weak biceps, I don’t envy you.) Just pour cream in (however much you have/need/want) the bowl of the mixer, and, using the whisk attachment, turn the mixer on 8 or 10, as high as it will go. Let it whirl around for about 10 minutes, until the solids turn pale yellow and separate from the liquid. Let the cream pass the whipped cream stage. Once it starts to look like a very liquid ricotta cheese (i.e., the solids separate from the liquid), turn the mixer off, and pour the mixture into a bowl lined with a clean kitchen towel. Gather the ends of the kitchen towel and squeeze out the liquid, and then open the towel. What’s left is pure, unsalted, delicious homemade butter – complete with a cool kitchen-towel pattern.

This morning for my work’s weekly potluck breakfast, I made garlic and cheddar biscuits with country ham and used that lovely homemade butter. Feel free to just slather it on good bread; my farmers market has pecan bread that would serve as a perfect butter vehicle. Or, use a store bought butter – either way, the biscuits below were gone from my weekly potluck in 30 minutes. I’d like to think it was the homemade butter that put them over the top.

Garlic and Cheddar Cream Biscuits with Country Ham Filling

Ingredients:
- 1 ½ c. whipping cream
- 2 cups self-rising flour
- 1 c. grated sharp cheddar
- ¼ tsp. garlic powder
- 3 Tbsp. butter
- 1 ½ c. ground country ham

Directions:
For the biscuits: Preheat oven to 500 degrees F. Combine whipping cream, flour, cheddar and garlic powder in a bowl until mixture forms a dough. Pour mixture out on a floured surface and knead a few times, patting the dough out to a 1-inch thickness. Cut 8-10 biscuits out with a 2-inch round cookie cutter, combining the scraps and patting out the dough again if necessary. Place biscuits on a cookie sheet two inches apart, lined with a silicone mat or parchment paper, brush the tops with melted butter and bake for 6-7 minutes.

For ham filling: Combine the ham and butter in a food processor and pulse until combined. Check ham package to make sure ham is cooked – if it’s not, fry the butter and ham mixture until lightly browned, 3-5 minutes.

Cut the warm biscuits in half and fill each with about a tablespoon of the ham filling. Makes 8-10 ham biscuits.

M-M-M-Myyyyyy Granola!

Let's temporarily (read: permanently) forget how I haven't updated this blog in, oh, eight or nine months. Instead, let's talk about m-m-m-myyyyy granola (sung to the sound of "My Sherona," in case you couldn't tell).

Since my husband and I started watching Suze Orman religiously over the winter, we've really buckled down to boost our emergency fund. In other words, we've been very frugal the first part of the year and have saved a significant amount of money. When we sat down to budget, I knew right away where my problem area would be. Say it with me... "Food!" So I sort of became obsessed (but in a pleasant way) with green- and frugal-living blogs, such as Our Little Apartment, Cheap, Healthy, Good and WiseBread. The writer at Our Little Apartment is pregnant and blogs mostly about that these days, but still, every now and then she encourages me to venture out and make something homemade that formerly intimidated me.

Such was the case with granola... a few months ago. Now, having made it a million times, I can't believe I was ever intimidated by it. It is, seriously, the easiest recipe ever. You just dump a lot of ingredients in a bowl, stir it, spread it out on cookie sheets and... well, it's all in the recipe below. :) What was NOT easy was tweaking the recipe to make it taste similar to Cascadian Farms Dark Chocolate Almond Granola, otherwise known as My Favorite Granola Ever. I must have read the ingredients on the back of it a million times (Cane juice? Is that even available to me? Or do I have to somehow hack down a sugar cane and extract its juice...?) before I finally found the secret to its goodness tonight - pure almond extract.

So now, armed with the granola recipe that may just be my keeper recipe, I share with you my version of Dark Chocolate Almond Granola, which is cheaper and has less fat than Cascadian Farms' recipe.

Dark Chocolate Almond Granola

Ingredients:
- 4 1/2 c. rolled oats
- 1/2 c. flax seeds
- 1 c. slivered almonds
- 1/2 c. good dark chocolate chips, or chopped dark chocolate
- 1 c. unsweetened coconut flakes, optional
- 1 tsp. salt
- 3/4 c. brown sugar
- 1/4 c. good maple syrup
- 2 Tbsp. olive oil or canola oil
- 3/4 c. unsweetened applesauce
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp. pure almond extract (not imitation)
- Dash cinnamon
- Dash nutmeg

Directions:
Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl. Spread mixture out on two large cookie sheets lined with parchment paper or silicone mats. Bake for 20 minutes and stir, bringing the granola from the outer edges in and vice versa. Bake for an additional 20 minutes. Let it sit in the cookie sheets on the counter for at least 10 minutes, allowing it time to crisp more. After it cools, store it in an airtight container for up to three weeks --- though it probably won't last that long. It never seems to last long in my house. Enjoy with milk, in yogurt or over sliced bananas.

* Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons; (c) David Corby