As my new year resolution, I have decided to attempt to cook new things (which, with my lack of cooking experience, is pretty much the set of all possible things you can cook). Also, if it is on the healthy side (which is completely up for interpretation), I get bonus points in my totally meaningless system of giving myself points whenever I feel like it.
I did some searching on the interwebs and landed upon this blog. She provides some delicious looking plates (and they're healthy!). I picked out a few recipes that looked extra tasty and at least possible for me to complete without blowing up my kitchen.
Tonight I attempted the Skinny Baked Broccoli Macaroni and Cheese. I had collected all the ingredients on a previous trip to the grocery store.
I was able to cook the pasta and broccoli without much issue. I am cooking-competent enough to at least boil water and cook pasta (ok, most of the time...). After I had that pot going, I started up a pan for melting butter, the start of the cheese sauce. The directions call for a "large, heavy skillet". Well, I have a completely average size and weight frying pan. This will work, right?
Next, I need some minced onions, which allowed me to use my new food processor for the first time! And I still have all my fingers!
After adding in some flour (which involved getting past this craaazy sheep!), it kind of looked like onion cookie dough. Mmmmm!
The next step was where things got a bit tricky. It involves adding a total of 3 cups of liquid to my sauce-producing pan. Here's the result:
What could possibly go wrong? (How am I suppose to whisk this and let it boil?!)
Somehow, I successfully got the milk sauce to boil then thicken (yes, I lost some along the way, but sometimes sacrifices must be made). I'm usually not very good at the whole "salt and pepper to taste" thing, so I just toss in some amount and hope for the best. Now, to add 2 cups of shredded cheese to the sauce. No prob, there's totally enough room in this pan...
Success! I am the best cook ever!
Major Failure:
OK, so if/when I make this again I will definitely start up the sauce-producing pan before the pot of pasta and broccoli because it took much longer. I was barely half way through making the sauce when the pasta/broccoli concoction was already done and the water to boil was nearly gone (note: nearly...). Once the sauce is done, you're suppose to dump the cooked pasta and broccoli into the pan (Also, if/when I make this again, I'm going to use the large pot that I have to make the sauce in). However, I think I had already pushed my luck enough with dumping in all the milk, broth, and cheese, that I wasn't going to attempt to fit anything else in there. So, logically, I thought, I would just dump the cheese sauce into the pasta/broccoli. Well, I may (or may not) totally have forgotten to strain the pasta/broccoli first... In my defense there wasn't much water left in there (and none visible).
Despite my tiny miscue, I was able to mix everything together and get it into the baking dish. I topped it off with the bread crumbs and parm and popped it in the oven for a bit (a little longer than specified because it was a bit watery for some reason...). Finally I got to eat my dinner. It wasn't too bad either, or I was just really hungry.
