Cravings for Cheese Much?

This November has been a month a white sauces... and I never make white sauces.
Last week I made an attempt at cheese fondue, and it didn't turn out, so I made macaroni and cheese from the melted cheese/milk/butter mixture. Last night I made cheesy potatoes because the potatoes were sprouting and I needed to use them up. Both of them required a white sauce and both of the white sauces were kind of funky. The macaroni cheese sauce was grainy, and the potato cheese sauce wouldn't thicken!! Clearly I need to learn how to make white sauces!

                        

More Snow, More Food!

I'm not sure that I have mentioned that I started cutting out recipes from magazines and putting them in an empty, old photo album. Well, it has been interesting to say the least. I have been disappointed with how some of them have turned out, (See Squash Casserole) while others were pretty tasty (See Holiday Fruit Pies). But to be honest, the recipes that are consistently good are the ones that are online. When I go to a site like allrecipes.com and there are rave reviews about the Molasses Cookies, I know they are gonna be amazing. And even better, a lot of the comments are very constructive - reviewers discuss substitutions they made and try to clarify some of the directions. It's kind of like Peer Review in scientific journals - as people test this "chemical reaction" they are checking the validity of the experiment and making it better! 

Yesterday, I made Macaroni and Cheese from scratch. I had a recipe from Rachel Ray in my recipe book/photo album that used 3/4 lb of gruyere cheese, which I just happened to have way too much of because I absolutely love it. Just from the picture she supplies, I was a little skeptical.  

The lack of color struck me right away and when I looked at reviews online, many people had added vegetables and pork or chicken. However, I was not deterred, and I think our version was much more appetizing.  

It's just not quite as beige!