Grandma L's Famous Mac N Cheese

Ok, so I know I've been going on and on about eating healthy and getting back on track now that we've started a brand spankin' new year, but I'm going to stray a wee bit and share a family treasure that I promised you several weeks ago.

It's Grandma L.'s most fabulous mac n cheese. The epitome of comfort food in my humble opinion. It's classic, it's easy and it'll be a total hit with you and your fam ~ I promise!

The good news is that I made this over the holidays so there is no mac n cheese in the Vegvacious house at the moment (New Years goals are still in tact so far haha)....and I apologize now to any of you that rush home to make this and find yourselves in a cheese coma later tonight....however I promise you that it is totally worth it ;-)

This is one of those family recipes that isn't really a recipe. We all just 'know' how to make it and adjust it according to our taste and preference. The last time I made it, I did make a half-hearted effort to take some measurements as guidelines for you.

Grandma L's Mac N Cheese

1 package of your fave pasta
1/4 c salted butter
1/4 c all purpose flour
1 1/2 - 2 c milk (dairy milk or almond milk work)
2 c (approx.) of chopped up cheese (a sharper tasting cheese makes a more flavourful sauce, so choose your fave cheese)

Cook your pasta according to the package. Salting your pasta water is a must!

In a large microwave safe bowl melt the butter. Add the flour and mix until well blended into a roux. Add approximately 1 c of milk and whisk to blend together. Place the milk/roux mixture into the microwave and cook on high for 2 minutes. After 2 minutes, check to see if the sauce is starting to thicken. If it is (you can tell around the edges of your dish), whisk well. Continue cooking in 1 to 2 minute increments until your sauce is thickened up by quite a bit. I then add another 1/2 to 1 c of milk and continue cooking in the microwave until the sauce is a nice creamy consistency. I would guestimate that this whole process takes approximately 10 minutes in my microwave.

As soon as the sauce is to your desired consistency, add the cheese and stir. Drain your pasta and add it to your cheese sauce. Between the heat of the sauce and the heat of the cooked pasta, your cheese chunks will melt in fairly quickly.  

Give a stir, add a pinch of sea salt and black pepper and serve. You could serve this with a nice tossed salad, or if you're like me, fill up a great big bowl of this carbo-licious pasta and eat it all on it's own.

We used gouda and a medium cheddar for our sauce. Usually I just use whatever we have on hand.

My roux.

When I was little, I'd always sneak in the kitchen about this time and sneak melty cheese chunks right out of the sauce. I swear I don't er only did it once or twice or five times with this sauce :-)

Ahhhhh......heaven.

Aren't old family meals the absolute best?!

At this moment I am forcing myself to stay in my seat and not head straight for the kitchen to make myself a big, big pot :-)

Do you have any childhood food faves that you still love to eat today?

Enjoy your Thursday evening --- only one more day until we are FREE for the weekend!!

Andrea

Easy Creamy Avocado Pasta

First of all, I want to say a quick apology to my Google followers. It came to my attention yesterday that my feed was not updating in Google Reader and today you were bombarded with a bunch of my posts. I hope you enjoy each & every one of them :-), but I do apologize for the overload.

Last night I was up several times with Dora who was having some gastro-intestinal issues (ew!). By 5 a.m. I decided that I might as well get myself up and go to the gym for a 6:15 a.m. Spin Class. The class was great and I felt energized and fabulous until about 1 p.m. and that's when I crashed. The afternoon draaaggged by and I was so happy when we reached the end of the day and I was able to head home because I could barely hold my eyelids open.

Derek had to work tonight, so I had all the dog duties to myself. Luckily today was a beautiful, sunny day so I was able to put the dogs out in the backyard to romp around and play for a couple of hours to wear them out. Sadly, the mud has not yet dried up in our yard, so before they could come in from their fun, it was in the bathtub they went. I swear that they have spent more time in the tub than we have in the past 2 weeks!

By the time all of this was done and I was able to think about my own dinner, I was pooped and just wanted something quick and easy. Enter "Easy Creamy Avocado Pasta."  I've been wanting to do a post about this recipe for a while because this is the easiest, creamiest pasta ever! I've tried a couple of different variations, but they never come out as good as the original recipe, so I am going to share a recipe that I saw on Angela's blog earlier this year.

Easy Creamy Avocado Pasta
Recipe from Oh She Glows

This is a fantastic pasta recipe! It is so creamy and rich and there isn't a drop of butter or cream to be found. The lemon combined with the avocado make this a delicious Spring dish.

1 medium sized avocado, peeled and pitted
1/2 lemon, juiced
2 garlic cloves
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 c fresh basil
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 servings of your choice of pasta (I used brown rice spaghetti)
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
pinch of nutritional yeast for garnish OR lemon zest for garnish (optional)

Cook your pasta according to the directions. I'm sure you've noticed that I use brown rice pasta alot. The more I use it, the less I like whole wheat pasta - I just find it too chewy.  If you've never tried brown rice pasta, I would really recommend that you do. I got this package at the Bulk Barn and it is about the same price as a box of whole wheat pasta. I love that it is gluten free and did you notice it's organic too?

While your pasta is cooking, make your sauce. Place the lemon juice, garlic and olive oil into a food processor and blend until smooth.

The Ingredients - the produce was starting to look pretty sad,

so I was happy to be able to use up so many things in this recipe

Next, add the avocado, basil and salt. Process until smooth and creamy. You may want to adjust the salt to your tastes - I sprinkled more on my serving, but remember I love salt.

Once the pasta is cooked, drained and rinsed place it into a large mixing bowl. Add your sauce and mix until well combined.

Doesn't that sauce look gorgeous?

Serve & enjoy. I garnished mine with nutritional yeast (another Bulk Barn buy) and a pinch of black pepper. Angela garnished hers with black pepper and lemon zest. I'm not a fan of any kind of "zest", so I improvised :-)

Who knew a sauce without cream could come out so creamy?! This pasta dish is divine!

Note: This is a dish that must be served immediately. The avocado does not keep and this will not be good if reheated.

You might notice that I had to use my itty bitty mini processor to blend this sauce. I am happy to say that I am planning to go blender and/or food processor shopping this weekend, so hopefully we will be the proud new parents of some fabulous new appliance within the next few days ;-)

Have you ever tried different pastas that are not made with wheat?
What is your favourite brand of blender - I would love some input when making my purchase!

I hope your Thursday was wonderful and your Friday flies by....now it's time for bed for this gal.

Goodnight y'all,

Andrea