Paula Deen's Macaroni and Cheese

Oh boy. Cheese. Gooey, baked, melted, slightly browned cheese. With token pasta.

If you're looking for a heart attack (otherwise known as food that's actually going to taste pretty awesome), it's to Paula Deen we turn. And so I did when I needed a traditional American side dish for Thanksgiving.

Please let's have a moment of reverent silence for macaroni and cheese.

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup sour cream
2 cups grated cheddar
3 eggs, beaten
4 cups cooked elbow macaroni
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350F

2. Melt butter into cooked and drained macaroni. Add the cheese until sticky.

3. Mix sour cream and eggs, add to macaroni and stir.

4. Add milk, stirring for a few minutes to see if you need to add any more to keep the sauce creamy.

5. Spread out in a greased casserole dish, cover with cheese (yes more cheese) and breadcrumbs if you like, and cook for 35-40 minutes.


And because watching Paula is half the fun (that voice sure is polarising), I've added her here. Happy cheese, y'all!

My Favourite: Foods.

So with food as both an obsession and a hobby, I like anything that has anything to do with it.

How I'm not 900 kilos, I'll never know.

When I saw that Little Miss Fickle (also known as Emily!) had for her top ten favourites a list of food, well I wanted in! What fun to find others who love food also.

So for your voyeuristic pleasure (hey, I like knowing what other people eat too. I have that embarrassing habit of always looking in people's pantries when I visit their house. Please note the 'r'), here are my top 10. Not really in order except number 1!

1. Cheese. Cheese, cheese and more cheese. Gorgonzola, raclette, camembert, gruyere, feta, whatever. I want it.
2. Pumpkin. Roasted.
3. Sweet corn.
4. Anything with a Thai twist
5. Popcorn
6. Salt and Vinegar chips. But they've gotta be thin!
7. Risotto
8. Did I mention cheese? I did? Oh. Well, pickles then. Any and all types.
9. Avocado on rye with lemon, pepper and tabasco.
10. Tacos.


There you have it! A tough gig narrowing down to 10, but hey... I've got a whole blog to indulge my cheesy fantasies.

Bon appetit!

Chocolate Cream Cheese Brownies

The ultimate brownie indulgence!

I always bake a little treat for Veggie Husband’s lunchbox every week, so this is the latest effort.
It is impossibly rich.

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter
60g cooking chocolate
Cream cheese filling… a little further down
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 large eggs
3/4 cup plain flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup coarsely chopped nuts (I omitted these)

Method
1. Heat your oven to 180C. You can grease the bottom and sides of a rectangular 13x9 inch pan or you can be lazy like me and line it with a huge sheet of baking paper!

2. Melt butter and chocolate. I did this in the microwave, in a glass bowl. cook in 20-second bursts and stir after every time. Cool 5 minutes If, like me, you use chocolate chips which aren’t designed to melt… it will take forever. I recommend cooking chocolate!

3. Make cream cheese filling, set aside.

4. Beat chocolate mixture, sugar, vanilla and eggs in large bowl. It looked a little anaemic here so I added a tablespoon of cocoa. Beat in flour and salt.

5. Spread 3/4 batter in pan. Spread filling over batter, and you can either drop random pieces of the reserved batter, or drizzle it like I did.

6. Bake 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack.

7. Try to stop yourself from eating the whole thing in one go.

Cream Cheese Filling

1 packet cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg

Method
1. Beat until smooth. easy, huh?

Recipe from Betty Crocker.