Super Cheesy Mac N’Cheese

Mac n’cheese is a favourite food of mine. I remember when I was little and my mom would make a mac n’cheese casserole with hot dogs in it. It was one of my favourite meals so I figured I would try it out myself, with a bit of a spin of course. Now the other day I was talking to my aunt about recipes and realized there are two kinds of people out there: the type that follow recipes to a T and measure absolutely everything out (her) and the type that never measures and just wings everything (me, unfortunately for you). So on that note here is what I think I put into my mac n’cheese…

Ingredients
2 medium tomatoes, crushed (about 1 cup)
2 Tbsp margarine
3 cups cheddar cheese
1 cup Parmesan cheese
1 cup milk
2 cloves garlic
3 Tbsp flour
450g dried elbow macaroni
Breadcrumbs
Optional: 2 cups protein, cooked
Optional: Cayenne pepper, red pepper flakes to taste

I started by boiling, peeling, and crushing two medium sized garden tomatoes. 

Add to this the margarine, cheddar, Parmesan, milk, and garlic. Melt this down on low-medium heat until it’s smooth. I find it best to use a whisk and stir continually to get a good consistency and avoid burning the cheese. While this is melting, prepare your macaroni. Once your macaroni is almost ready, whisk the flour into your cheese sauce. I chose to add a few shakes of cayenne pepper and red pepper flakes to mine for a bit of heat but you could also add other spices for a different taste. 

 
Now mix the sauce, macaroni, and your choice of protein (I used leftover chicken). Pour it into a casserole dish and top with a thin layer of breadcrumbs. Toss this in the oven at 350°F for 10 minutes or until it’s brown and crispy. Dig in and enjoy! 

Pizza!

Sunday is pizza night in our house. It has been for awhile but has undergone some changes throughout the year. We started with take out pizza when we lived in town. It was a great way to end the busy weekend (I didn’t’ have to cook!) but left us all with that bloaty, greasy feeling. Ick! So we moved on and I started making homemade pizza. I had a recipe from my mother-in-law for your basic yeast crust and my hubby wouldn’t let me do anything different. I mean what’s better than mom’s cooking right? It was a good crust but doughy and I am not a fan of doughy. So a few months ago I decided to try my hand at a thin crust pizza. I tried out a few recipes that still involved yeast until I found this beauty!

This recipe is seriously so simple you will doubt that it can be called pizza crust… here it is:

- 2 Cups flour

- 2 Tbsps. Vegetable oil

- ½ Tsp. sea salt

- 2/3 Cup warm water

That’s it! Just throw it all in a bowl, mix, knead, do whatever you have to do to make it look like pizza dough (sometimes I add a bit more water to get all the crummies off the bottom of the bowl) and voila! No waiting, no rising, just pizza!

Roll it out so it looks like this 

HELPFUL HINT: I like to put parchment paper on my baking sheet because it makes cleanup easy and I can slide the pizza onto my cutting board and not ruin my baking sheet!

Top with whatever sounds good to you. I used salami, mushrooms, red pepper, onion, and of course a heaping amount of cheese! 

Bake at 450F for 15 minutes.

This is by far the simplest, crunchiest, tastiest, healthiest, and quickest pizza crust I have ever made! ENJOY!

Berry Oatmeal Snack

There is nothing better than a warm, healthy, and yummy snack.  Here's a super simple one:

-Put about a cup (or 1 purple container) of mixed berries (I used raspberries and blueberries) in a bowl
-sprinkle with cinnamon
-top with 1/4 cup of oatmeal (1/2 of a yellow container) and 1 tsp of pure maple syrup
-add just under 1/2 cup of water
-microwave for 1 min, stir, cook 1 more minute
-ENJOY!

Turkey Stuffed Peppers

First of all I would like to say I am no expert in the kitchen! In fact I am the furthest from it and the majority of stuff that I attempt does not turn out even close to how I would expect it to.  Secondly, this was my first time attempting stuffed peppers and I did not follow a recipe or measure out my ingredients.  I am that "cook" that just throws things together and hope it tastes good... or smells good since I rarely taste my food until I actually sit (well stand and feed the baby) and eat... anyways onto the "recipe".

I knew that I wanted to stuff my pepper with some ground turkey but really you could use any type of ground meat.  Since I'm doing the 21 Day Fix I will be using the colour coded containers as a measuring system.  So I browned my meat and then measured out two red (protein) containers worth of it and stored the rest in the fridge.  I figured one whole pepper to be about one green container's worth of veg so I filled an additional green container with odds and ends like mushrooms, onions, and some diced tomatoes in their juice but you could really add whatever fix approved veggies you want.  Just toss the veg and some seasoning (garlic powder, chili powder, and cayenne) into a pan and cook it down.  You want a bit of the tomato juice so it doesn't get all burnt and crispy but not so much that it looks like hamburger soup like mine did... but if you happen to have too much juiciness going on just strain it out and keep on going!

Then I cleaned out my pepper while the meat was cooling.  It's easiest to not overthink this and just cut the top out and use a spoon to scrap out the seeds.  And don't forget to wash your pepper of course!  Next line a baking sheet with some tinfoil (easy cleanup!) and put your pepper on it ready for stuffing!  I just used my hands to stuff as much meat as I could into the thing and, even though it was slightly overflowing, I managed to get all the meat into it.  Top it with a blue container of your chosen cheese (I picked Feta) and cook at 350F for about 45 minutes or until the smell is tantalizing you, the peppers look wrinkly, and the cheese is all melty and delicious looking!  

My hubby and I learnt the hard way that this dish is not a "clean eat" so be prepared to get a little messy! You may want to opt for a bowl over a plate... just sayin'...