Baked Mac&Cheese

The wind is roaring. I'm freezing. It's a typical July in SF. Therefore, I'm seeking warm and comforting food. I made this mac & cheese partly because I am lazy. I love the idea of not cooking the pasta (one less thing to do, one less dish to wash). The corners might have had too much crunch but the rest of the dish was awesome. Really good. S loved it. Make it the next time you feel cold.

Southwestern Quinoa Salad, by Way of the Pantry

This quinoa salad was so great, even the quinoa hater in my house liked it! The commentary prior to the recipe is quite witty.

I added spinach and used serranos instead of pobalanos, but next time I would try poblanos. I also used some cotija cheese, which was delicious.

Carroty Mac & Cheese

I came across this recipe and thought it might be a good way to eat more vegetables. The end result was that we all liked it, but didn't love it. However, I had some leftovers out of the freezer the other day and thought they were very good. I agree with the comments that adults should maybe add hot sauce.

I should have used a bigger pot.

The carrots are deceiving and really do look like shredded cheddar.

Wendy's Wunderbars

You must make these now. Seriously. They are so good. I mean good. Not overly sweet. All relatively healthy ingredients.

The recipe is from Pure Wow. These kinds of sites tend to get on my nerves because of the amount of email traffic but that doesn't seem to happen with Pure Wow. They got the recipe from Rebecca Katz.

I used pecans in place of the almonds because it turns out that two years in the freezer is too long for almonds.

Make these. Here is the recipe.

PS: the only place I could find unsweetened cherries is at Costco.

Brown Rice Pasta With Tuna, Olives, Fried Capers

Brown rice pasta sounded scary and intriguing. Whole wheat pasta really doesn't do it for me, but brown rice pasta does, apparently! And it's gluten free! Recipe is here.

I made this twice in two weeks, and we both loved it. The first time I used one can of tuna in oil, and one in water. The next time I used both cans of tuna in oil, and I don't think the taste is drastically different. HOWEVER, when I added in too many anchovies (I really have to count these??), it was noticeably saltier. And I love me some salt, but this was bordering on too much. I never thought I would say that. This is the brand of pasta I used:

I didn't fall into the terrible gluten coma I usually do after eating pasta!

Black Rice

Have you heard of black rice? I recently read a good article about it, and other kinds of rice, in Fine Cooking Magazine. Betsy gives me her old copies of that magazine and I really enjoy it. I didn't think I'd ever find black rice and then I went to Costco and saw this:

So I bought it.

I looked up recipes on Epicurious and then I made up my own salad.

It has a little more protein than brown rice. It also has a distinctive taste. I thought it was good and I'm glad I'm not regretting buying a Costco-sized bag.

I added mango, feta, and a few other things I had on hand.

Cherry-nut Granola Squares

Can you believe I subscribe to Good Housekeeping? Neither can I. Funny though, I kind of like it. Perhaps I'm more of a middle-aged mid-western housewife than I think I am?

I made this recipe for Cherry-nut Granola Squares from the March (?) edition. They tasted good, and very sweet for something without sugar. However, they completely fell apart and were nothing like a bar. It was good on its own, but also would have been nice sprinkled on yogurt or ice cream.