Baked Macaroni and Cheese, minus the macaroni

My friends assure me that any pasta with cheese sauce can qualify to be labelled as "mac and cheese", even if you don't use the macaroni "elbow" shaped pasta. Fusilli has all these curves and holds sauces really well, which is why I stock it in the pantry. Anyhow. Be it fusilli, celantini, macaroni, or shells, it should all be equivalent in how much you cook for one 9" x 13" batch. I wouldn't advise using bowties or large pasta shapes to make mac and cheese.

Smoked Cheese and Pasta

I added diced green chiles to the cheese sauce to enhance the flavor; and while I only added two tablespoons, I think I should have added the entire 4 oz can. Compared to the smoky mac 'n' cheese that I had from Vancouver's food cart Esoteric BBQ, my version pales in comparison. There's no beating the smokiness of a real wood-fired smoker; plus Esoteric's might just have more salt in theirs.

This batch used 8 oz Gouda, 8 oz medium cheddar, and 4 oz Parmesan.

At any rate, here's the recipe I used. It makes roughly 9 servings.

Gluten Free Buttermilk Cornbread

The texture of this is a little grainier than say a cornbread made with wheat flour. The egg helps it stay together pretty well and it has a nice crumb texture. The amount of batter looked far too much for an 8" round cast iron skillet, so I used an 8" x 8" baking dish instead. I get my stone ground cornmeal from the Cedar Creek Grist Mill during their open house events; Bob's Red Mill or your grocery store's bulk yellow cornmeal will suffice as a substitute.

Ingredients

2 c stone ground yellow cornmeal
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp sea salt

1 1/2 c buttermilk
1 large egg, beaten
4 tbsp raw honey
4 unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

0. Prepare an 8" x 8" baking pan by lining it with parchment paper. It is not necessary to butter the parchment.

1. Sift dry ingredients together. Set aside.

2. In a small saucepan, heat butter and honey together.  Let cool. Stir into dry ingredients.

3. In a 2-cup measure, whisk egg and then stir in buttermilk. Stir in butter and honey.

4. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Stir until combined.

5. Bake for 20-30 minutes.

Kitchen Notes: Matcha Swiss Roll

This was my second time making a dessert in the "Swiss Roll" style; meaning it's a soft, sponge-like bread with a sweet cream-based filling. The pumpkin roll with candied ginger came out pretty good and well-liked by TDay2015 eaters.

There were several things that went terribly wrong but I didn't scrap the recipe and start over:

• The sponge batter came out extremely dense; thick like a gorilla glue heavy; it also didn't cook all the way through in the oven and perhaps I didn't spread it out thick enough on the baking sheet because...
• Before folding in the egg whites, the sponge batter wasn't liquid at all.
• When it came to the rolling the sponge up to cool down in a linen kitchen towel, it stuck to the towel - ugh. In fact, when I tried to unroll the sponge to put in the filling... the sponge broke in several pieces because it was sticking to the towel.
• And, not wanting to cut my losses, I produced an extremely unappetizing but edible dessert
• Definitely a #failed #kitchenexperiment

I subbed two ingredients: almond milk for regular cow's whole milk; and 3/4 c AP flour plus 1 tbsp cornstarch sifted together for cake flour.

Ginger Beer: an alcoholic batch

It would appear that I have made my first alcoholic batch of ginger beer, which when fermented correctly yields a carbonated soft drink. I was experimenting with ratios and added more of everything except the yeast (just a teaspoon). Effects-wise, I'd say that I might have reached between 4-5% alcohol and that was only after drinking 8 oz of it.

I'm still unsure of how to properly use a hydrometer; as I don't have enough liquid to test for the size of the hydrometer that I have, nor do I have a container with enough slender volume that I can measure the beer in.

Here are the tested ratios:

1/2 c grated ginger (vs 1/4 c)
1.25 c organic granulated sugar (vs 1 cup)
10 c water (vs 9 cups)

As for the fermenting time: 3.5 days instead of 2
Avg room temp for the ferment was 55-60 F

This batch yielded 2 liters plus 1 pint.

After thoughts:

Too much raw ginger flavor. It was potent and felt like a kick to the head.

The extra sugar did nothing to make the beer sweeter before decanting into flip-top bottles, in fact, the yeast ate it all.

Also, the Active Dry Yeast was very fresh (yes, that's bread yeast).

Crockpot Maple Baked Beans

I have always found that most commercial brands of these beans are too sweet for my taste; though, I wonder how sweet these are supposed to be. Recently I've been watching a food channel on YouTube about 18th Century cooking by Jas Townsend and Son. At least I don't have to build a fire pit or clay oven to bake these.

While it involves simple ingredients, it is fairly time consuming in preparing dry beans for eating. One day I'll have to research why the beans are called navy beans since they are neither navy in color nor boat-like in shape.

In a 5-quart bowl, rinse and soak in filtered water 2 cups of dry navy beans. I soaked these overnight (roughly 12-18 hours), tossed the soaking liquid and boiled the beans on a simmer for another hour.

Soon to be maple baked beans...

Then...

Into the crockpot (slow cooker) for 8-10 hours on low with the following ingredients:

3/4 c filtered water
3/4 c organic maple syrup
3 tbsp brown sugar
2 tsp ground mustard
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp ground ginger

Give that a few stirs with the beans before setting the time and putting the lid on.