baked macaroni – not as heavy, but just as cheese-pleasing

orange food almost always does well. mind you, macaroni can be white-ish too and just as tasty, but for now, let’s all envision golden melty macaroni with a gooey-crunchy top and warm soft middle. this recipe stems from one my dad made up; the main difference being I’ve added a few more things to flavour up the pasta and some panko for extra crunch. so, if you please, crank your oven and get yourself hungry!

pulled out of your fridge and cabinets:

half a bag of macaroni, 450g or so
1/2 a small onion, finely diced
1/2 tsp salt
lots of cracked black pepper
3-5 shakes of worcestershire, depending on how bitey you like it
1 big egg or 2 little ones
1/2 C milk
1/2 a medium tub of cottage cheese, 250 ml-ish
1/2 tsp white sugar
3-4 C sharp cheddar grated
1/2 C panko or bread crumbs

. preheat thine oven to 350
. boil the macaroni, but drain it 2 minutes before it’s properly cooked. it will finish tendering-up in the oven
. in a bowl, add the egg, diced onion, pepper, salt, sugar, worcestershire and beat with a fork
. add the cottage cheese and milk and stir
. drain the pasta and pour the milk/cheese mix over the pasta and stir

. dump half the pasta into a nice casserole dish
. sprinkle just less than half of the cheese on the pasta so it’s evenly distributed
. dump on the rest of the pasta, and the rest of the cheese on that
. sprinkle the panko on top and give it a few cracks of pepper

. either put a lid on your dish, or lightly wrap it in tinfoil and bake for half an hour
. remove lid/foil and bake for another half hour or so. you may want to turn on the broiler for the last 2 or 3 minutes if you’re partial to a crispy top

I like this with cheddar, but a cheddar/mozzarella blend is nice, or gruyere and fontina… or maybe add a little blue cheese if you like it zippy. so many cheeses, so many dinners…

 

uke-lady thanks giving pyrohy

my absolute favourite thing to contribute is food; that should be fairly obvious. what you may not know is that my favourite food to contribute to any big holiday meal, is perogies, pyrohy in ukrainian… of which I am descended from on both sides of my family. I didn’t grow up with any particular ethnic culture, but had a few little things around the house that symbolized the heritage my parents had to show they were proud: painted easter eggs, pysanky, a tiny traditionally painted vase, and a very special book: Traditional Ukrainian Cookery by Savella Stechishin.

This book was given to my mom by my dad, with an inscription referring to it as a ‘cookski bookski.’ within these hallowed pages was/is a recipe so good, so fantastically awesome that I can’t keep it to myself. PYROHY – the most heartwarming, stomach pleasing, happy-fun-time-dumpling EVER. My absolute favourite food, yep, I love them even more than macaroni.

unlike so many others, I follow this recipe exactly, so I felt it unnecessary to retype it for you here. Rather, a photo of the real thing!
BUT, before you make the dough, you need to allot yourself a good three hours or so to making these overwhemlingly lovely little bastards. simply put, it’s worth it… so make lots. I make triple the amount of dough the recipe calls for.

so, either the morning of or the night before you want to make pyrohy, you need some nice russet potatoes. I like russet because when you mash them, they stay super fluffy and don’t need any butter or cream. you could use other potatoes, which I also did this afternoon because I was short on russets, but cook them separately. in the below picture, you can kinda see the difference in texture. I used the more gluey ones for the dough and it worked like a charm!

For the filling… for my filling you will need:
10 LARGE russet potatoes
3-4 C grated sharp cheddar, the older the better… but not, you know, moldy
2 tsp table salt

. boil potatoes as you normally would for mashing
. drain and then dump back into pot
. put salt cheese on top and then lid on top to steam the cheese all melty
. mash
. set aside to cool, or if you’re doing this the night before, cool and then refrigerate

when the potatoes have cooled, start on the dough recipe pictured above. Keep in mind, the filling guide above is for triple the dough, so if you only want to make a few, make much less filling.

. when your dough is nicely put together and has had a nice rest, divide it into three balls (or don’t if you’re doing the single batch)
. lightly flour your rolling/cutting surface
. put a big pot of water on high, so when you’ve got a few pyrohy ready, you can just put them in to boil while you fill more. it’s efficient
. take one of the balls and squish it down a bit with your hand on the rolling surface, let’s say, the counter
. keep in mind this is a fairly elastic dough, like a very rich pasta, so no matter how you roll it, it will spring back a little, which is good
. roll the dough to the thinness shown below… I don’t know how thin that is in numbers. basically, thick enough to have some stretch for the filling process, but thin enough so that the pyrohy isn’t all dough with a little potato

. with a sharp knife, cut the dough into squares… or rectangular triangle shapes. I like it rustic, so there are no glasses or cookie cutters used here for perfect little semicircle nonsense

. take one of the dough-shapes and grab a bit of filling as such:

. not too much, but maybe a little more than you think would fit in one. pull all the edge together in whatever way you find easiest. just folding them over, or with the trickier looking pieces (long triangles) fold them more like a samosa. whatever you choose, make sure to cut off the excess bits of dough that gather where you’ve pinched it all together. I also like to kind of reshape them a bit with my hands so they’re somewhat compact

. when you’ve got 4 or 5 done, gently place them in the pot of boiling water. after a minute or so, give them a stir to make sure they’re not stuck to the bottom. also, never crowd them: max 5 per pot, and if they’re biggins, only 2. trust me

. grab a cookie sheet that has edges and a wire cooling rack
. when they have floated to the top of the water and are circling about, they’re ready to come out. gently place them on the cooling rack so the water can drip/steam off them and they can cool for 10 minutes

. when they’re cool enough to handle, very lightly coat them with oil so you can put them in a big casserole dish or roasting pan without them all sticking together

. when it comes time to cooking them, I like to COAT them in onion butter, which goes like this:

1 big ol’ yellow onion, grated
1 lb. unsalted butter, cut into meltable pieces

. in a pot over low heat, chuck in the butter and grated onion
. let this simmer away until the solids of the butter come to the top and it absolutely reeks on onion
. pour this all over the pyrohy, and maybe set a little aside for pouring on at dinner iffin you like
cover the pyrohy with tin foil or a lid, and bake at 350 until heated all the way through. keep in mind they’re already cooked, and shouldn’t stay in the oven so long that they get tough or leathery

it’s a lot of work, but I think to make these twice a year for thanks giving and xmas is a pretty fabulous treat for you and whoever you’re feeding. funny, these are normally an easter thing for ukrainians, but being a ukrainian canadian without much schooling in traditional ways, I do them this way for the people I love.

bacon, cheddar and caramelized onion scones of tender loving… or róny sconies for short

well friends, it’s time for baking to get savoury. yes? yes. ok, so today it’s the salty goodness of bacon; the tongue tucker of sharp cheddar; and the sweet yielding lilt of caramelized onions all nestled together in a flaky scone. it’s a collld blustery ought-to-be-spring day, but it’s clear and sunny and it smells nice… so logic dictates scones. plus, I had invited my mom over after work for tea and a snack.

out of the pantry will fly:

5 rashers of streaky bacon, cut into strips
1 medium onion sliced thin
2 C self rising flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
a pinch of salt
several cracks of black pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne
1/4 tsp paprika
1 full tsp dry mustard
1/3 C cold unsalted butter
1 1/2 C grated sharp cheddar (or applewood cheddar if you’re feeling smokey and in the autumn spirit)
2/3 C buttermilk plus a bit more for brushing the scones before they hit the heat

. crank yer oven to 425
. get a frying pan on medium high heat. fry the bacon until it’s crispy. drain it and set aside to cool
. turn the burner down to low. when the bacon fat has cooled a bit, add the onion and stir to coat in the grease. put a lid on it and let slowly sautee until golden brown and translucent. you’ll have to stir it a few times, and it should take 15 to 20 minutes to get it done rightly. it’s worth it. when they’re done, take off the heat and allow to cool

. while the onions are going you can mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl
. add the butter to the flour mix. use your hands, not a spoon, to squish the butter into the dry stuff until it becomes a fine sort of crumble. it will be quite dry, but fear not, milk will save the day

. add the bacon, cheese and onions. again, with your hands get in there and make sure everything gets covered with the dry mix. you want to avoid clumps of bacon or onion, so be thorough and tender, it’s baking remember?
. add the milk and start squershin’ around in the bowl again to get everything combined. the consistency should be quite stiff, but not falling apart. if you need to add more milk, only do so a tablespoonful at a time to avoid getting it too mushy. of course, the more you work it, the tougher and less flaky they’ll get… so beware.
. lay out the dough on a cutting board and shape into a rectangle or circle that’s at least an inch thick. cut into crescents, wedges, squares, whatever, and put them on a baking sheet. give them a brush with some milk so they get nice and golden. I like to sprinkle a bit more paprika on top and some pepper too
. fire them into the oven for 10-18 minutes, until they’re goldenish and cooked through

if you would prefer a more savoury scone, forget about the onion and chuck in a couple diced scallions instead. if sweet is your thing, try adding 1/3 cup of frozen corn niblets. and of course you can experiment with flavoured butters too… but that’s a whole other blogg…