Easter Sunday

Federal taxes are filed and done! Tax return should be en route later this week. I admittedly should have done them a long time ago, but I always put them off til April (even with they are super easy like they were this time).

Stay tuned for the exciting epic sequel, The State Tax Returns!

Anyway. Enough with questionable puns.

Today we got fed not one but two Easter dinners. I didn't eat much of the second one, but it was still pretty tasty. The Easter treats of yesterday's post were a big hit and instantly stopped all whining in our Primary class today (though that may have also been because treats = time to go home). I made some headway in Royal Envoy (excellent iPhone/PC game especially if you skip the "plot" cut scenes) and picked Dragon Quest V back up after a little hiatus due to the arrival of Professor Layton a few weeks ago.

Most importantly though, I enjoyed the opportunity to listen to the talks in church and remember the Savior's ultimate sacrifice and the joy of His resurrection. I hope you all enjoyed your Easter Sunday as well.

He is Risen!

Easter Treats

My deepest apologies for not posting yesterday. I sat down to write something, and then I fell asleep on the couch. When I woke up, I was so disoriented and exhausted I barely made it to the bed. (I didn't even remember that I sat down to write a post...) Luckily, I slept about 11 hours and I feel much better. In fact, I did 5 loads of laundry today and exercised and made some Easter treats! How productive! (I also found a giant spider in my dirty laundry basket. I swear it hasn't been that long since I did laundry... I guess it's officially spring now that the spiders are back.)

Anyway. Easter treats. Remember the Easter package we got from my awesome in-laws? Yep. That's what we used.

First, we filled the shapes in the bottom of the mold with one color. The easiest way to do this is plop a small spoonful of chocolate in the middle and spread it out with a toothpick. 

Then we filled the rest with another color, put in an Oreo, and let it set up! Easy peasy!

Then we did some the other way around just because.

Finally, I made some chocolate drizzled pretzels with some of the leftover melted chocolate.

I covered the bottoms of the Oreos on the first batch, but we didn't bother doing that on the second batch because the Oreos were just barely too fat to be covered and still stay inside the mold (I think that's because they were double stuffed).

This is an easy enough project that you can do it with your kids or by yourself for a quick festive treat.

I'm envisioning variations now... grasshopper cookies, or any homemade cookie if you baked them up small enough... or even a modification of these Oreo truffles might work too! Or you could press those square lattice pretzels in instead of a cookie... the possibilities are endless! What kind of hidden treat would you like best in these chocolate bites?

Baked Mac and Cheese

I am shocked to find that I have never posted my favorite mac and cheese recipe! Lucky for you, I made it tonight so it's fresh in my mind. Unluckily, I didn't take any pictures of it. :( Perhaps the leftovers will be photogenic tomorrow?

The recipe in question comes from here, brought to us by epicurious. I will reproduce it below with my added comments and modifications.

Baked Macaroni and Cheese

Ingredients

- 3/4 pound elbow macaroni (I use 3 cups)

For topping:

- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter

- 1 cup panko (Japanese bread crumbs) or coarse dry bread crumbs (It originally calls for 2, but that's way too much for my taste. Even 1 cup is pushing it. I normally use regular bread crumbs though; panko might be better.)

- 1 cup coarsely grated extra-sharp Cheddar (about 4 ounces) (I usually use a preshredded mix of cheeses from Costco; feel free to substitute your own favorite blend if you so prefer.)

For cheese sauce:

- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter

- 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

- 1/2 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes (can be adjusted to your personal tastes - this amount gives a hint of a kick without being super noticeable)

- 2 3/4 cups whole milk

- 3/4 cups heavy cream (or you can reduce to 2 c. milk and use 1 can (12 oz) evaporated milk if you don't have cream)

- 4 cups coarsely grated extra-sharp Cheddar (about 1 pound)

- 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt

- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400°F and butter a 3-quart shallow baking dish. (I use a 9x13 Pyrex pan.)

Make topping:

2. Melt butter and in a bowl stir together with panko or regular bread crumbs and Cheddar until combined well. Topping may be made 1 day ahead and chilled, covered.

3. Fill a 6-quart kettle three fourths full with salted water and bring to a boil for macaroni.

Make sauce:

4. In a 5-quart heavy saucepan melt butter over moderately low heat and stir in flour and red pepper flakes. Cook roux, stirring, 3 minutes and whisk in milk. 

5. Bring sauce to a boil, whisking constantly, and simmer, whisking occasionally, 3 minutes. 

6. Sometime in here, when the macaroni water begins to boil, dump in the macaroni. Cook as directed on the package. Be sure to stir occasionally. 

7. Back to the sauce. Stir in cream, Cheddar, mustard, salt, and pepper. Remove pan from heat and cover surface of sauce with wax paper if the macaroni is not yet ready.

8. Cook macaroni in boiling water until al dente. Reserve 1 cup cooking water and drain macaroni in colander. 

9. In a large bowl stir together macaroni, reserved cooking water, and sauce. Transfer mixture to baking dish.

10. Sprinkle topping evenly over macaroni and bake in middle of oven 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden and bubbling. Serves 6-8.

It does take a bit of doing to get the sauce and pasta done at the same time, but I have found the sauce to be pretty forgiving. Tonight I added in evaporated milk (instead of cream) right after the regular milk began boiling - no waiting 3 minutes, and everything else followed soon thereafter. (That's because the pasta I was using cooked in 7 minutes, and the sauce can take much longer if you let it.) As long as you give the cheese enough time to fully melt at the end, you'll be fine skimping a bit on the middle steps. It can be served as a main dish (if you're not in the mood for meat) or paired with chicken. I find it's well worth the effort to put it together, and it tastes good leftover too! 

Do you have a favorite made-from-scratch mac and cheese recipe? I'd love to see it!

Easter Surprises

Things I accomplished today:
- went to work
- cleaned out the fridge (finally)
- took out (with much of Nathan's help) the massive pile of trash and recycling threatening to overtake the corner of my kitchen
- filled and ran the dishwasher
- did all the hand dishes (But not all the nasty tupperware from cleaning out the fridge. That will wait for the next dishwasher load.)
- made biscuits (again) (and they may have been dinner... again)
- went for a walk
- read outside

Sometimes I need little lists like that to remind me that I did, in fact, not fail today.

We also got a lovely Easter package in the mail today from my mother in law!

Oreos, yellow and chocolate candy melts, balloon animal kit, Cadbury eggs (plus two we ate already), and a mold to make Oreos+candy melts into Easter treats!

We will probably attempt to make the Easter treats later this week when I feel adventurous. I'm also interested to try making my own cookies that would fit in the mold, but we'll see how successful I am at that... or maybe I could do a caramel filling instead. Experimentation, here I come!

Life Lessons Learned from Bread

I apologize in advance for the shortness of this post. For whatever reason, I have a lurking headache and and my body is screaming for an early bedtime. Nevertheless, I wanted to share an amazing discovery I made before I succumb to the lure of the blankets.

Wait for it... wait for it...

Longer kneading = better bread!

I know, I know... everyone has taught me for years and years that you have to knead bread to develop the gluten. But I fell into the trap of thinking that if I used my Bosch mixer, that I could skimp on that step. It cleaned the inside of the bowl, so it's done. That sort of thing. I even used dough enhancer to feed my laziness. Well, a week or two ago I realized that maybe my laziness is why I get so many crumbs when I cut bread, and why I can never cut it very thin. Novel idea, right? (Sometimes I can be incredibly dense to these details if I don't want to notice them.) So I did an experiment and forced myself to let the Bosch beat my dough into submission for an extra 5 or 6 minutes.

It made a huge difference. I'm not kidding. I have effectively rediscovered the wheel of bread making. I don't even need dough enhancer anymore (which is good, since I'm nearly out). I just need a book on hand to read for a few extra minutes while I hold the Bosch and prevent it from walking off the counter as it beats that dough into submission.

So the moral of the story is: don't be lazy, and sometimes (in baking and in real life) a little extra effort makes a big difference inside, even if the outward appearance looks exactly the same.

Progress Report

I just want to say that progress on the steampunk goggles is coming along nicely... and they aren't quite done yet. But maybe next session we will finish them!

Today we put on the nose straps and made the straps that will go around the back of the head. (There are 6 - 2 for each pair, because we're using buckles. It will make sense in the end, I hope.)

Next up: attaching buckles to the straps, attaching the straps to the eye pieces, and cutting out the plastic overhead projector sheet to make "lenses". Then putting on the final touches and we should be done!

Crochet Project: Psyduck

This weekend was General Conference, so I had 8 hours to burn on crocheting while I listened. Nathan requested I make him a Psyduck, and I conveniently had all the right colors. So off I went!

He's about 3.5 inches tall.

I choose you, Psyduck!

I'm pretty pleased with how he turned out. I used #10 crochet thread and a size 7 hook, with ecru, black, white, and yellow (not sure on the exact color name, unfortunately) for the colors. It took me almost exactly 8 hours to make him, which was very convenient. The pattern (linked above) was pretty easy to follow too. (I like her patterns a lot.)

Now on to the next project... we're working on our steampunk goggles some more tomorrow. Hooray!