As much as I love macaroni and cheese, it's not the best summer dish. Who wants to fire up the oven when there are so many fresh fruits and vegetables around?
But now that autumn is officially here, mac and cheese started to sound good again. Unfortunately, when I pulled up an old post about
The Best Homemade Mac And Cheese EVER, I realized that I never actually published the recipe, instead noting modifications upon
modifications to a recipe for kid-friendly mac and cheese from
Food Blogga. D'oh.
So, here, in one place, is the recipe for The Best Homemade Mac And Cheese EVER. Since the sauce contains cauliflower, there is no need for a side vegetable. However, this version of macaroni and cheese is especially good with (or followed by) fresh apple slices.
Ingredients1 bunch cauliflower (if you can find it, orange cauliflower boosts the color)
8 ounces pasta (I like spirals, twists, or campanelle)
2 1/2 cups skim milk, divided
1 tablespoon butter, plus butter to coat a 9 x 13 inch baking dish
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
4 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, grated
About 2.5 ounces gruyére, grated
dash grated nutmeg (optional)
salt and pepper to taste (I add more pepper than salt, since the cheese already contains a decent amount of salt)
1/4 cup panko breadcrumbs
Preheat the oven to 375 F.
Butter a 9 x 13 baking dish and set aside.
Bring a large pot of water to boil.
Wash the cauliflower and cut into small pieces.
When the water is boiling, add the cauliflower and cook until tender (10-15 minutes).
Strain the cauliflower from the hot water and set aside.
Add pasta to the pot of hot water and cook per package instructions.
When the cauliflower has cooled, place it in a food processor along with 1/2 cup milk, and process until smooth. Set aside.
When the pasta is cooked, drain it and set aside.
Return the pot to the burner, and melt 1 tablespoon butter over medium heat. Add the flour and stir until the flour absorbs the butter and turns golden brown.
Create a white sauce by adding the remaining 2 cups of milk to the flour mixture, about 1/3 cup at a time. Each time milk is added, whisk until the mixture is smooth and begins to thicken and simmer, then add more milk.
When all the milk has been used, add a generous amount of black pepper and a dash of nutmeg to the sauce, reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer about 5 minutes.
Remove the pot from heat and gently add the puréed cauliflower and grated cheese to the white sauce, stirring until smooth.
Add salt (and additional pepper) to taste.
Mix the pasta into the sauce and stir until coated.
Pour the pasta and sauce into the buttered baking dish, and sprinkle panko on top.
Bake at 375 F for 45 minutes.
Let the mac and cheese sit for about 5 minutes, then serve.
From Paulette Mitchell's cookbook A Beautiful Bowl of Soup: a steaming bowl of apple yam soup, flavored with white wine, ginger, and curry powder, and topped with chopped pecans. A copy of the recipe can be found here.
I love walnuts, so I was intrigued by a recipe for pasta with walnut sauce in the New York Times last week. However, I didn't want to take the time to track down "fresh ricotta" or walnut oil, so I did a little googling and came up with another recipe, one that used basic ingredients I keep around the house (walnuts, bread, milk, parmesan cheese, garlic, dried marjoram, olive oil). Not only are the ingredients easy to find, but the recipe is super-simple: soak a slice of bread in milk, then purée the walnuts, cheese, garlic, and marjoram. The olive oil, soaked bread, and milk are then processed into the sauce. The result is rich, pleasantly creamy, and great tossed with pasta and broccoli. 
As much as I love macaroni and cheese, it's not the best summer dish. Who wants to fire up the oven when there are so many fresh fruits and vegetables around?
Topped with diced apples, walnuts, and maple syrup.
Salads make a great summer meal; I often eat them once or twice a day. However, as we headed into August, I began to want a change from my usual salads. So, I dug through a stack of recipe clippings and found an old Cooking Light recipe (from the days of their Inspired Vegetarian section) for a spelt salad with mint, parsley, artichoke hearts, and cannellini beans. It turned out to be a great pick: the spelt has a nice, nutty flavor; the mint and parsley blend smoothly to create a pleasant herb taste; and who can resist artichoke hearts? (I think they are a close runner-up for "vegetarian bacon.") Plus, the recipe uses canned beans and artichoke hearts; the only real cooking involved is simmering the spelt for 30 minutes. Which is perfect for a salad in August.
From Jack Bishop's Italian Vegetarian Cookbook: a vegan caprese salad, with seasoned cannellini beans in place of mozzarella cheese. The beans require a little work (the recipe calls for dried cannellini beans to be soaked and then simmered with garlic and bay leaves) but can be prepared in advance. Once the beans have cooled, simply toss them with basil, diced tomatoes, olive oil, salt, and pepper -- very easy, and very refreshing.
