Grandma D's Easy Mac and Cheese

Keeping with my comfort food theme, here's a simple, kid-approved side dish. My mom brought this to the Lake when she and my dad visited us there on vacation this past summer. Everyone knows that food tastes better: 1) when someone else cooks it and 2) when you're on vacation. So this recipe already had 2 things going for it...but I made it again at home, myself, and it was still good! I tried to make it a little healthier this time by using whole grain pasta, but I think some things are better just kept as good old fashioned comfort food. Back to plain old white pasta next time...

1/4 cup chopped onion
1 tablespoon butter or margarine
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup milk
3 cups cooked macaroni, elbow or spirals
1 1/2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese

In saucepan, cook onion in butter until tender. Blend in soup and milk; add macaroni and cheese. Heat until cheese melts; stir occasionally. Makes about four cups.

Katie's Baked Sweet Potato Fries

This post is a plug for my friend Katie's new blog, and a shining endorsement for her sweet potato fries (and she actually made up the recipe herself, not like my blog here where I just steal other recipes and make a slight change or two...). I made them tonight and they were absolutely delicious. I ate about one and a half sweet potatoes worth and could have kept going, they were that good. Now I just need to get my son to start liking sweet potatoes; I made a few for the baby with just olive oil, salt, and brown sugar...she seemed to like them, but my son didn't want anything to do with them. Then he tried one of the fully loaded ones and instantly declared it "too spicy." Crazy. Oh well, more for me.

Very Creamy Potato-Cheese Soup

If it's not already, January should be "National Comfort Food Month." Or February. This soup is comfort food at its finest; I make this recipe a few times every winter (or fall, if I can't quite wait until winter). The recipe is from one of the Moosewood cookbooks (with a few adapations), I'm not sure which one...it's one of the recipes that I copied from my mom's cookbooks before I moved out on my own after college. I've been making it for a looooong time. The last time I made it, my son originally claimed he didn't like it but then when I was eating the very last bowl, he asked for a bite and then proceeded to eat the rest of it. This weekend, he ate two helpings of it at lunch, so I guess that qualifies it as kid friendly.

3 tablespoons butter
2 cups chopped onion (1 large)
1 large garlic clove, minced or pressed
2 large and 1 medium potato, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 large carrot, unpeeled and coarsely chopped
3 cups vegetable stock or water (I usually use 3 cups water plus one vegetable bouillon cube)
1 teaspoon dried dill
4 ounces cream cheese
1 1/2 cups milk
1 cup grated cheddar cheese (3 ounces)
salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot, saute the onions in the butter until the onions are translucent. Add the potatoes
and carrots and saute for 5 to 10 minutes longer. Add the stock or water and dill and simmer until all the vegetables are tender.
Remove about a half cup of chunks of potato, set aside and chop them up a little bit more.
Add cream cheese and milk and blend with a hand blender. (If you don't have a hand blender, you can do it in a food processor or blender, but it's a huge pain to do it that way...I highly recommend hand blender if you ever make cream soups...) Season with salt and pepper. Stir in the cheddar cheese and reheat gently. Add the extra chunks of potato.

Lentils Monastery Style

Happy New Year...

I have so little free time these days, that it takes some encouragement for me to get anything new posted, as much as I enjoy doing it. The credit for my motivation this time goes to my friend Katie from work; she and her boyfriend have resolved to eat more vegetarian this year and so she was looking for some new recipes. The credit for this recipe goes to my Aunt Ellen. After having this dish a couple times at her house, I finally asked for the recipe because I thought it was sooooo good. Turns out, it's super easy, too. And hopefully pretty healthy, as well, though her handwritten recipe didn't come with any nutrition info. Served with a simple green salad and some corn muffins, it makes for a perfect wintertime vegetarian comfort meal, in my opinion...

1/4 cup olive oil
2 large onions, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram
3 cups stock or seasoned water (I usually use water plus one Knorr's vegetable bouillon cube)
1 cup dried lentils (rinsed)
1/4 cup fresh chopped parsley
14.5 oz can diced tomatoes (not drained)
1/4 cup sherry
1 cup grated Swiss cheese (or as my 4 year old son calls it, "mouse cheese")

In a large pot, saute the onions and carrot in the olive oil for about 5 minutes. Add the thyme and marjoram and saute 1 minute more. Add stock, lentils, salt to taste, parsley, and tomatoes. Cook on low in covered pot until lentils are tender (45 mins-1.5 hrs). Add sherry. Put grated cheese in a bowl and ladel the lentils on top.