Sunday, November 8, 2009

Food and a story

I just made the best Macaroni and Cheese ever! (if I do say so myself.)

My kids love mac and cheese, but the best I usually do is purchase Annie's organic brand for them. However, I recently saw a recipe online that looked easy enough and that I was almost certain the family would love. I was correct. I made a few changes to the recipe (enough to call the end result my own!)

4 pieces of bacon, crumbled (I cooked the full pound in the oven at about 375 for 20 minutes)
1/2 large sweet onion, thinly sliced
about 5 or 6 ounces of elbow macaroni (next time I may try bowtie)
2 cups of shredded mozzarella
4 ounces of blue cheese (I don't even really like blue cheese, but it's great in this recipe)
1 cup of skim milk.

cook the bacon, use a bit of the grease to saute the onion.
cook the macaroni according to directions
in a bowl, mix the bacon, the onion, the blue cheese, 1 1/2 cups of the mozz, and the milk. Add the cooked macaroni and stir. Add fresh ground black pepper to taste. Bake at 400 for about 20 minutes, add the remaining 1/2 cup of mozz to the top and continue cooking for about 10 minutes.

We had this for supper with a tossed green salad and clementines. It was delicious! Sophie just suggested more bacon next time.

Now, for the story. I recently finished reading "Her fearful symmetry" by Audrey Neif..... the author of "The Time Traveler's Wife." Now, I found the time travelers wife to be surprisinly good. When I began, I thought "I know just how this is going to end." Well, I was right, but that didn't diminish the pleasure of reading it. It was just such an enjoyable story and a well told story.

So, I looked forward to reading her next novel. It could not have been more different than her previous! After reading about 1/3 of the book, I was well acquainted with the characters in the apartment. Each was a bit quirky or just plain certifiable. Then, in entered a couple more characters and the book begins to be more about them. Okay, I was fine with that as the 2 new characters were equally as interesting as strange as the first set. Then, a conflict arose. Oh wait, another conflict. At one point I told my husband that every time I turned the page I had no idea which characters were going to be on the page. I guess I would say that the auth0r kept me on my toes throughout the whole book. This is a book I would highly recommend for a dreary week (think cold outside, blanket, hot tea or cider, and a good book inside).

So, finally living up to the name of my blog, some food and some story!