Comfort Foods: the Best Mac and Cheese

I have a hard time dealing with winter. I'm one of those people who is usually still wrapped up in a blanket if it's 70 degrees and sunny outside, so come weeks like this when it snows more days than it doesn't and I know it's only a matter of time before the temperature get stuck in the negatives, I start to lose a lot of my willpower. On the negative side, that usually means that my house is a lot less clean and I'm a little concerned about what it will mean for the homework I'm going to be getting next week. But on the positive side, it can end up with some spectacularly tasty (if not very healthy) comfort food that makes me feel warm enough that I can stand the ice crystals on the windows.

This last week, Henry and I went to a Comfort Foods class at the Cooks of Crocus Hill. Their classes are always spectacular, and we've always especially enjoyed ones such as the one we took this week, which pairs food with both wine and beer. These are always great for quite a few reasons--they're a fun night out with a great 5 or 6 course meal, allow us to taste new food and learn how to make it, and expose us to new wines and beers that we otherwise probably wouldn't find to try. This course was taught by Chef Mike Shannon, sommelier Leslee Miller and cicerone Michael Agnew. All three of them regularly impress me with their skills, excitement and their passion to share their knowledge, and knowing that they will be teaching the class can frequently be enough to swing my decision to take it. This time was no disappointment; the food and wine was spectacular, and I even found some beer that I didn't mind drinking, which is a big step for me!

While there is a lot of knowledge I could share after my experience in this class, I'm choosing to share my favorite experience from the class, which was the macaroni and cheese. I know it sounds like a simple dish, but I have to say that this was far and above the best mac and cheese I have ever tasted. It is by no means healthy, and so January may not be the best time to be sharing this, but YUM. It's worth it. If you're trying to lose weight, it's worth the extra few hours in the gym to work it off. It's also worth throwing your diet into the wind for a week or so. Not that I mean to be a bad influence--but sometimes I just can't help it!

Mike Shannon's Four Cheese Mac and Cheese
This makes a 9x13 pan of incredibly solid mac and cheese. When I say solid, I mean he turned the pan on end and it didn't even move.

Ingredients

• 8 oz. macaroni, penne or ziti
• 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt, plus more for cooking pasta
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup finely chopped shallots
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cups dry white wine
• 1 cup milk
• 2/3 cup heavy whipping cream
• 8 ounces Gruyere, grated
• 4 ounces white cheddar, grated
• 2 tablespoons gorgonzola, crumbled
• 2 tablespoons minced fresh chives
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne
• 2 eggs, whipped
• 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
• 1/4 cup parmesan, grated

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Cook the noodles in a large pot of boiling, well-salted water until just cooked, ardoun 7-12 minutes. Drain, and set aside.
3. In a large saute pan over medium-high heat, melt 2 tablespoons butter. Add the shallots and cook until just browned, about 3 minutes.
4. Sprinkle the warmed butter with your flour and then cook, stirring continuously, for one minute. Add the wine, milk and cream and stir well.
5. Pour in the Gruyere, cheddar and gorgonzola cheese, and stir until melted. Add 2 tablespoons chives, mustard, 1/4 teaspoon salt and cayenne. Stir cooked pasta into cheese mixture, then add eggs, mix well and pour all into a shallow baking dish.
6. Melt remaining butter and combine with panko. Salt to taste.
7. Sprinkle bread crumb mixture over pasta and cheese and bake in 9x13 pan until top is browned and cheese is bubbling, 15-20 minutes.
8. Eat way, way too much. Don't feel guilty.

Snowboarding part 2

I have graduated to being able to snowboard down a hill (rather than have Henry pull me around in his flat yard) AND I didn't even hurt myself! Except for every muscle in my body, which definitely hurt for a few days.

I'm seeing the potential to enjoy snowboarding, especially if I can strengthen my legs and get snowpants that fit me so snow doesn't continually get inside my clothes. Right now, my proud moment was going about 15 feet without falling down--it did take me about an hour to make it down the hill that kids sled down in Lakeville 3 times. But, I've been working hard at the gym to strengthen my legs so that it isn't so difficult for me to turn, stop and stand back up once I've fallen, and I'm hoping that will start to make a difference. At my last outing, I fell down quite a few times on purpose after finding out that my legs were way too tired to turn me the way I wanted to go. I still consider that a success, as I substituted falling in the snow for running into trees (or Henry)!

I have the next week off for Christmas, so I'm hoping to get to try again--maybe I'll make it a quarter of the way down the hill this time!

Merry Christmas!

Winter sport experiments #2: Snowboarding

In spite of my rather embarrassing end to my last winter experiment, I decided to once again try a winter sport. Henry was pretty enthusiastic about this decision, because he loves to snowboard and most of his snowboarding friends moved away up north, so he promised to teach me (and let me borrow all his old equipment, so all I had to buy were boots!).

I can't really say that I successfully snowboarded today, because the biggest hill I attempted was about a foot high. I learned from my last experience that I need to start ridiculously small because I HATE the feeling of sliding along when I'm not controlling where I'm going. So, I spent what felt like about 6 hours but was probably only about 45 minutes (at most!) jumping, shuffling, sliding and being pushed around Henry's yard while strapped to a big piece of wood polished to be very, very slippery.

It reminded me again, several times, that something about the cold makes Minnesotans go a little nuts. The worst part is, we've only had snow for a couple weeks now--what am I going to decide to do when the cabin fever actually sets in?

At any rate, when I was just going very slowly on flat ground, it was a little less scary than I expected. I still fell down upwards of 15 times and learned that long jackets and high pants are VERY important (I've been inside for half an hour and am just starting to regain feeling in my butt) BUT by the end, Henry pushed me in a circle all the way around his yard before I fell down! This was a very big step from the 3 feet I made it the first time and leads me to believe that maybe by March, I'll be ready for the bunny hill (although Henry's plan is closer to early December....) On the plus side, if I keep this up, I will absolutely not need to take Steamboat Willie up one her offer to have a trainer friend come up with the strength training plan. About five minutes in, my calves started to feel vaguely like they were on fire...it slowly spread to the rest of my legs and I'm pretty sure that I ended up getting better exercise there than I have in anything since Tae Soo Do.

I'm sure there will be more updates...hopefully in them the number of falls will go down! I promised to try again on Wednesday night, so hopefully I'll be in good enough shape to head all over Minnesota to eat turkey!

Boris' Christmas Adventures

My dog hates snow, ice and anything involving the cold. His usual reaction to being outside between October and April is to hobble around on three legs, while holding the other one up as high as possible to convince us that his leg is broken and we need to carry him in. This starts when the weather hits around 45 degrees and continues until it's back up to 70.

Being the sympathetic dog owner that I am, my response this Christmas was to take him to my parents' house, where there is an extra few feet of snow and a whole family full of people who think it's funny to watch his dramatic show. Imagine my surprise, then, to see my drama queen of a dog take off after a squirrel and suddenly realize that snow is fun.

So congratulations to Boris on his Christmas adventure...and becoming a little bit less of a wimp. Next, we'll try to conquer water!