Meatless Monday!

Omg - Guilty pleasure alert! I am a HUGE fan of Mac & Cheese. I mean, absolutely huge fan. As a kid, you know, we ate only Polish foods at home so whenever we had the chance to eat macaroni and cheese (from the box!) I was extremely excited about it. So, I didn't grow up on the homemade stuff but of course now in Croatia you can't get boxed mac and cheese so I decided to make this broccoli and cauliflower macaroni and cheese. It is so delicious, even the leftovers are amazing. I will be making this one again and again! Comfort food at it's absolute finest!

Here's what I used:
500g Whole Wheat (Integralne in Croatian) Macaroni
500g of Mixed Cauliflower and Broccoli Florets
50g Butter
50g Flour
750ml Milk
100g Grated Cheese
4 Tbs cracker crumbs
4 Tbs grated cheese, your choice (Parmesan, Cheddar, etc.)

First, preheat the oven to 200C/400F. Cook the pasta in plenty of boiling water for 8 minutes until just tender. I tossed in the cauliflower and broccoli in with the pasta for the last 5 minutes until almost tender. Drain the pasta and place in a lightly buttered 1.75 litre ovenproof baking dish with the vegetables, mixing them together.

Warm the milk in a medium saucepan over medium heat. I added the nutmeg to the milk at this point. Melt the remaining 6 tablespoons butter in a high-sided skillet over medium heat. When the butter bubbles, add the flour. Cook, stirring constantly for 1 minute. Keep whisking (even if your arm hurts!). It should look like wet sand. While whisking, slowly pour in the hot milk a little at a time to keep mixture smooth. (Seriously, do this slowly because it is HOT! And you do not want a burnt sauce, yuck.) Stir constantly until the sauce is thickened, a good 8-10 minutes. (It's worth it to take your time!) Then simmer for 2 minutes and remove from the heat.

 

Stir in the cheese, any seasonings you like, and pour over the pasta and vegetables. I used gouda (because that's one of the only options here. Gouda is the answer to everything! I miss cheddar but it was still really amazing)

Crush crackers into crumbs and sprinkle the extra grated cheese and crushed crackers evenly over top of the macaroni mixture. Bake in the heated oven for 20–25 minutes until the top is crisp and golden.

Delicious!

Aww yeah!

Ooey gooey AND crispy - yummy!



Hungry Man Meal!

I love having variety in the meals I make. Since I'm still a relatively new cook, there are a ton of things that I have never made yet and I just love to experiment. Making new things keeps cooking exciting for me and the best thing in the world is when I'm making something new and tasting it along the way and it tastes like the best thing I ever made. Yesterday was one of those days.

For a while, we were eating Asian inspired meals almost everyday. After we became obsessed with Thai take-out in the States in May, I spent the summer recreating those flavors in almost every meal. Now it seems, I'm getting really into comfort food. But it's winter, so I guess that's exactly what's supposed to happen! 

We got this really great ground beef and I wanted to try something new with it so I searched the internet for what to make and everything kept pointing me towards Salisbury Steak. I was hoping to try to make my own meatloaf sometime soon so I figured this would be a great way to make a Salisbury Steak/Mini-Meatloaf meal that would be hearty for my hungry man. I scoured the internet, reading reviews on every recipe I found and finally found the one I wanted. It's originally from the Sokolowski University Inn and is apparently from a Polish Kitchen episode, so no wonder I was drawn to it and inspired by it! It was a little daunting to see how long it would take to make it all, especially since I was really hungry after work, but for me, I'd rather make something that will taste excellent, rather than just so so. The extra time made it so worth it!

 

Here's what I used:

• 1 large onion (minced)
• 4 cloves garlic (minced)
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 1/2 pounds ground beef
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup bread crumbs
• 1/4 cup (approximately) parsley
• bunch of sage
• 350g (about 2 1/2 cups) cooked and diced button mushrooms
• 2 Tbs flour
• 2 cups beef stock
• 2 dried bay leaves (to simmer in the beef stock)
• salt and pepper (as preferred)

Directions

Saute onions (reserve about 2 tablespoons for gravy) for about 10 minutes, until they start to caramelize 1 tablespoon butter, then add garlic and half of your mushrooms to the pan and saute for another 5 minutes.  Set aside to cool. Mix beef with cooled onion mixture, eggs, bread crumbs, parsley, sage and mushrooms. Form into 4 patties and saute in the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter until golden brown on both sides and set aside. In saucepan melt 2 ounces of butter and add flour and cook over low heat for 1 minute until wet sand consistency. Begin to add beef stock 1/3 at a time whisking and bringing to simmer each time making sure there are no lumps. I added the remaining onions and a bit of minced garlic at this point. Then, add mushrooms and simmer for 1/2 hour. Place patties in a roasting pan and pour gravy over patties and bake in a preheated 375 degree (190 degrees C) oven for 45 minutes.

 

Since we don't have a deep roasting pan, I used about half of the gravy on the mini-meatloafs that went into the oven. I roasted the veggies, broccoli and cauliflower, on the same pan. The sauce was so good, I couldn't stop tasting it so I made the executive decision to add more beef stock, a bit more flour to thicken it more, and made more gravy so we could pour it over the egg noodles that I served it with. 

 

The gravy was so amazing, T-Slav and I both wanted to drink it up. It's amazing what you can do with the same 3 pans but that's what we've got and I'm making it work. This is definitely something I'll make again and I think my Mom would be proud!