Martha Stewart's Mac-N-Three-Cheeses with Roasted Garlic Tomatoes on the side
Impulsively, my mom and I used Martha Stewart's suggested dinner menu to make a fantastic meal last night - Macaroni and three cheeses with roasted garlic tomatoes on the side, plus an apple upside-down cake for dessert.
You can find all the recipes here:
Martha Stewart's Dinner Menu - Macaroni with Three Cheeses and Roasted Garlic Tomatoes
Our modifications:
We'd read on the Martha site that some of the other cooks had found the macaroni too bland, so we got the sharpest, best-quality white cheddar that we could for extra flavor. We shelled out for the aged Irish white cheddar, and it was great - not too sharp in the final dish, but kept it from being bland. We also added parmesean cheese to the mix, so ours was really mac-n-four-cheeses. Instead of making breadcrumbs, I used half panko and half parmesean cheese - that turned out just perfect.
Being a hater of both green beans and mushrooms, we skipped that vegetable and went for steamed broccoli instead. We did our shopping at the local fresh market store and saw some great, fresh artichokes too, so I boiled those as an appetizer and made hollandaise sauce as both an artichoke dip and a broccoli topping.
The recipe doesn't note a temperature for the tomatoes, so we did ours at 400 degrees along with the mac. They seemed done early, but no burning - we let them cool while we finished the mac, and they turned out WONDERFUL. HIGHLY recommended.
We didn't really modify the apple cake much, though we doubled the cinnamon. We served that alongside no-sugar-added, slow-churned butter pecan ice cream, and it was FANTASTIC.
You can find all the recipes here:
Martha Stewart's Dinner Menu - Macaroni with Three Cheeses and Roasted Garlic Tomatoes
Our modifications:
We'd read on the Martha site that some of the other cooks had found the macaroni too bland, so we got the sharpest, best-quality white cheddar that we could for extra flavor. We shelled out for the aged Irish white cheddar, and it was great - not too sharp in the final dish, but kept it from being bland. We also added parmesean cheese to the mix, so ours was really mac-n-four-cheeses. Instead of making breadcrumbs, I used half panko and half parmesean cheese - that turned out just perfect.
Being a hater of both green beans and mushrooms, we skipped that vegetable and went for steamed broccoli instead. We did our shopping at the local fresh market store and saw some great, fresh artichokes too, so I boiled those as an appetizer and made hollandaise sauce as both an artichoke dip and a broccoli topping.
The recipe doesn't note a temperature for the tomatoes, so we did ours at 400 degrees along with the mac. They seemed done early, but no burning - we let them cool while we finished the mac, and they turned out WONDERFUL. HIGHLY recommended.
We didn't really modify the apple cake much, though we doubled the cinnamon. We served that alongside no-sugar-added, slow-churned butter pecan ice cream, and it was FANTASTIC.