Super Cheesy 5 Cheese Mac and Cheese

So rich and creamy, macaroni and cheese will always be the ultimate comfort food. And the bonus? This savory 5-cheese mac and cheese is fairly simple to make and has layers of cheesy flavor in every bite.

Here's the recipe for my Super Cheesy 5 Cheese Mac and Cheese...

Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 1 garlic clove, chopped finely
- 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 3 ½ cups milk
- 1 ¼ cup lightly packed grated fresh Cheddar cheese
- 1 ¼ cup lightly packed grated Swiss Ementhal cheese
- 1 ¼ cup lightly packed grated Cotswald cheese
- 1 ¼ cup lightly packed grated Swiss Gruyere cheese
- 1 tsp. Tabasco sauce
- 1/2 cups grated Parmesan cheese
- 1/2 cup almonds, roasted and chopped
- 1/4 cup dry breadcrumbs
- 1-2 strips of crispy-cooked Applewood Bacon (crunched into bits)
- 1 pound short tube-shaped pasta (penne or macaroni)

5 Cheese Mac and Cheese Preparation
Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic; sauté until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add flour; stir until well blended. Slowly whisk in hot milk. Bring to simmer, stirring until sauce thickens and there are no lumps. Remove from heat.

Add the first 4 cheeses and blend into the sauce. Whisk until the sauce is smooth. Season with salt, pepper and Tabasco.

Cook pasta to al dente stage, drain well and add to cheese sauce, blending thoroughly.

Preheat oven to 400°F. Butter bottom and sides of 13x9x2-inch baking dish.

Blend 1/2 cup Parmesan, almonds, bacon and breadcrumbs. Add 1/2 almond mixture to prepared dish. Spread gently to cover bottoms and sides evenly.

Transfer pasta and sauce to prepared dish. Sprinkle remaining almond mixture over the top of the macaroni.

Bake until the top is golden and crunchy and the sauce is bubbling (about 30 min.). Cool for 5-10 minutes.

Enjoy!

Warnings:
- This dish may be highly addictive.
- We suggest this dish not be served to anyone with high cholesterol.
- Consumption of this dish may invoke a lethargic reaction.


Do you love bacon? Check out these tasty bacon treats!

• new! Bacon Brownies Recipe
• Brown Sugar Candied Bacon (With a Kick)
• The Bloody Hogger
• Bacon Apple Martini
• Fat Washing Process for Bacon-Infused Liquor
• Grilled Cheese with Caramelized Onion, Applewood Bacon & Swiss Gruyere Cheese
• Super Cheesy 5 Cheese Mac and Cheese
• Pecan-Crusted French Toast

Tuxedo Your Turkey

Dear Readers,

It’s been a dream of mine to host Thanksgiving for a very long time. Although I held many parties of 40+ guests in my brownstone apartment in Brooklyn over the years, I never wanted to host Thanksgiving because I think of it as more of a sit down and gather around the table kind of a meal. That meant I could only have 6 other people for the holiday, which is only part of my family. So this year in our new home in the suburbs, around our giant dining room table, my dream finally came true and for the first time I hosted my most treasured holiday in our home.

For the momentous occasion, Tom Turkey had to come to the table in more of a tuxedo than his every other year duds. I wanted to impress, out do myself, have my family and friends rave about this Thanksgiving for years to come. Thanksgivings tend to run together and since this was my first, I wanted it to be extra special. So instead of the typical herb, butter, and chicken stock baste with onions, carrots, and celery stuffed into the turkey cavity, I stepped it up a score and really dressed my bird. This fowl friend was gourmet to the max with a butter, sage, prosciutto, and chopped hazelnut rub with lemon halves and rosemary keeping Tom moist from the inside as they baked in his cavity.

The best part? It was so easy. After making the butter rub, all I had to do was get my fingers under the skin and rub ½ of the spread into the flesh. The other half of the spread was patted all over the outside of the bird on top of the skin. Then to fully dress - or should I say mummify - the turkey, I wrapped the entire thing in slices of prosciutto. 2 whole lemons cut in half baked in the cavity with 4 sprigs of rosemary and a whole large onion quartered. The prosciutto crisped on the outside and locked in the juices making the meat very succulent, even the white parts. The gravy from the drippings was decadent with a nutty herb flavor rising to the surface from the hazelnut and sage.

Is your mouth watering? It should be; it was absolutely phenomenal. It was without a doubt the best turkey I’ve ever tasted and it did come with the rave reviews I was hoping for. Christmas is coming soon and many of you will be adorning your table with another turkey for the holiday. I encourage you to “Tuxedo your Turkey” and give your guests a luscious treat with this Prosciutto-Hazelnut Crusted Turkey on Christmas day.

Truly & tastefully,
Tara

Prosciutto-Hazelnut Crusted Turkey (a.k.a. Tuxedo Turkey Recipe)

- 3 sticks of softened butter
- 2 tbs. chopped sage
- 1 lb. prosciutto - half chopped, half in medium thickness slices
- 1/3 cup finely chopped hazelnuts
- 2 large shallots finely chopped
- 5 cloves minced garlic
- 1 ½ tbs. white wine vinegar
- 2 tsp. of ground pepper
- ¾ tsp. kosher salt
- 4 sprigs of rosemary
- 2 whole lemons, halved
- 32- 48 oz. chicken broth
- 1 large cooking onion, quartered

Turkey Prep:
For the butter spread mix softened butter sticks, sage, hazelnuts, garlic, shallots, vinegar, ½ lb. chopped prosciutto, salt, pepper in a bowl. Set aside ¼ cup of the butter rub for the gravy. On your washed and patted dry turkey, start at the neck and slide hand under the skin to loosen the skin from the breast, thighs and legs. Once loose, take ½ of the butter rub that was not set aside and slide it under the skin and into the flesh, this will make the skin look lumpy underneath. The other ½ should be patted onto the skin on the outside. Next wrap the whole turkey with the ½ lb of prosciutto slices. Place halved lemons, sprigs of rosemary, and quartered onion in the turkey cavity.

Set turkey on a rack in a roasting pan and pour 4 cups of chicken broth in the bottom of the pan. Turkey should be placed in preheated oven of 350 degrees and should be cooked for the first hour and a half uncovered. After an hour and a half tent foil over the turkey and secure the foil on the sides of the roasting pan. Cook turkey the remaining time needed for the size of your bird. Baste the bird about every hour until cooking is complete, always remembering to replace the foil after basting. Add more chicken broth to the bottom of the pan if necessary. Once meat thermometer registers 175 degrees in the thickest part of the thigh, the turkey is done. Remove the turkey from the oven, place on a cutting board, peel off crispy prosciutto and place aside, re-tent turkey with foil and let it rest for ½ hour. Then carve and serve!

Gravy:
Place roasting pan with the turkey drippings over two burners of stove, over low heat. Chop up the crispy prosciutto from the outside of the turkey and add it to the pan drippings along with the ¼ cup of butter spread you reserved. Whisk three tablespoons of flour into ½ cup of chicken broth to create a thick smooth liquid. Slowly stir the thick liquid into the roasting pan to start to thicken the juices into gravy. Whisking the flour before adding it prevents lumpy gravy. Add a tablespoon or two of Kitchen Bouquet to the gravy and season with more salt and pepper as needed. If you don’t have enough gravy, you can always add more chicken broth and throw in some more chopped sage for flavor. If 3 tablespoons of flour isn’t enough to thicken the gravy, repeat the whisking process until you have achieved the perfect constancy.

Pumpkin Ravioli with Sage Brown Butter: The Easy Way

I’m going to keep this one simple. It’s amazingly delicious and only takes about 15 minutes to make – unless you decide to make the ravioli from scratch.

Ingredients:
- Fresh Pumpkin Ravioli (Butternut Squash Ravioli also works fabulously)
- Fresh Sage Leaves (1 per ravioli)
- Salted Butter (1 Tbs. for every 8-10 ravioli)
- Parmesan Cheese, grated
- Pepper (to taste)

Sage Brown Butter
While the pumpkin raviolis are cooking, in a sauté pan, melt the butter on medium-low heat until it begins to foam and then add the sage leaves. Continue cooking until the butter becomes light brown. This process takes about 5 minutes.

Ravioli
Hopefully you already know how to prep ravioli, but in case you don’t… Fill a pot with 2/3 of water. Place on the stove. Turn the burner on high. Bring water to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and add the ravioli. Boil for approximately 3-5 minutes (or until the ravioli in tender). Remove the pot from the stove and pour the water/ravioli through a strainer. Make sure to strain all of the water from the ravioli.

Plate the pumpkin ravioli. Spoon the butter and sage over the ravioli, sprinkle some parmesan cheese on top and grind a touch of pepper. Voila! A great meal in 15 minutes.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Pear Tart Recipe

My mother made this fabulously beautiful tart for Thanksgiving this year and I talked her into sharing the recipe. This is a wonderfully rich dessert that some would say tastes even better the next day. What I would say: “If you want to bake to impress, try out this recipe!”

Here is the recipe for my mother’s Chocolate Pear Tart:

A crisp, cookie-like hazelnut pie shell supports a rich chocolate custard. Carmel-glazed pear slices lie daintily over the surface, creating an all-dressed-up-with-places-to-go appearance.

Pastry
- 1 ½ cups Whole-Wheat Pastry Flour.
- 1/3 cup Roasted Hazelnuts (chopped)
- 2 tsp. Sugar
- ¼ tsp. Salt
- 6 Tb. Unsalted Butter
- 3 Tb Ice-cold Water.

Chocolate Custard Filling
- 6 oz. best quality Bittersweet Chocolate (melted)
- 2 whole Eggs plus 2 Egg Yolks
- ¼ cup Sugar
- 1 ½ cups Half & Half
- ½ tsp Vanilla

Glazed Pears
- 3 Ripe, but Firm Bosc Pears (peeled, cored, & cut lengthwise in quarters)
- 2 Tb. Unsalted Butter
- 1/3 cup Granulated Sugar
- ¼ tsp. Cinnamon
- Pinch of Allspice

Make chocolate custard the night before (or at least 4 hours before assembling pie).

Custard: Beat eggs until well blended. Beat sugar thoroughly into eggs to make a glossy mixture. Add melted chocolate and mix well. Stir half & half into chocolate mixture and cook in double boiler until custard thickens. Add vanilla. Chill custard.

Prepare pastry shell and bake at 375 until lightly golden. Cool to room temperature.

Make glazed pears: Melt butter in a frying pan and then stir in sugar. When sugar has dissolved, add spices and stir into syrup. Add pears, cut sides up. Simmer at medium-high heat, turning pears over as the syrup begins to caramelize. (Don’t overcook pears.) Cook until pears have given up some of their juices and sugar syrup becomes golden-brown. Cool pears in liquid to room temperature.

Spread custard smoothly in pie shell. Fan pear pieces around circumference of tart. Distribute pear liquid evenly over the top. Bake pie for 15 minutes at 375. Cool pie to room temperature before serving. A dollup of whipped cream adds elegance, but is not necessary.

This Chocolate Pear Tart serves 8-10 people and can be prepared the day before.

Enjoy!

Pecan-Crusted French Toast

This Pecan-Crusted French Toast is one of my favorite brunch dishes, but it’s not for the faint-hearted. Yet making it any other way would not yield the same tasty results.

Pecan-Crusted French Toast Ingredients:
- 2 cups Crushed Glazed Pecans
- 4 Eggs
- ½ cup Cream
- 1 tsp. Cinnamon
- 1 Tbs. Vanilla
- 8 slices Whole Wheat Bread
- 12-14 slices Applewood Bacon
- Grade A Maple Syrup

In a bowl, beat eggs thoroughly. Then mix in cream, vanilla and cinnamon. Pour the mixture into a large Pyrex dish (or any type of dish and will hold the mixture + eight slices of bread). Add bread, making sure to saturate both sides and then place the dish in the fridge. Make sure to flip the bread after 5 minutes to ensure both sides of the bread are equally saturated.

In a frying pan, cook bacon to desired tenderness (or crispiness). Put cooked bacon aside and pour the bacon grease into a small dish. ** Do not completely wipe away grease – you’ll need a nice coat on the pan for your first 2 pieces of French toast (told you this isn’t for the faint-hearted).

Take the bread out of the fridge (the mixture should be fully absorbed at this point). On a large plate, spread out half of the crushed glazed pecans (add more as you go). Take each bread slice and cover both sides thoroughly with the pecans.

Then fry them up, adding more bacon grease as needed – I would suggest keeping the temp to medium/medium-low to keep from burning the pecans.

Add two pieces of pecan-crusted French toast to each plate and garnish with bacon. Drizzle the maple syrup over the French toast, but do so sparingly – the glazed pecans already add a bit of sweetness to this sinful dish.

Enjoy!


Do you love bacon? Check out these tasty bacon treats!

• new! Bacon Brownies Recipe
• Brown Sugar Candied Bacon (With a Kick)
• The Bloody Hogger
• Bacon Apple Martini
• Fat Washing Process for Bacon-Infused Liquor
• Grilled Cheese with Caramelized Onion, Applewood Bacon & Swiss Gruyere Cheese
• Super Cheesy 5 Cheese Mac and Cheese
• Pecan-Crusted French Toast

Marilyn Monroe: Secret Foodie

Beauty, brains and kitchen skills? Marilyn Monroe is hailed for her kitchen talent by a New York Times article that recreates a stuffing recipe of hers from the recently published autobiography, “Fragments”. So she really did have it all, there is a consensus of Marilyn experts saying, yes, the woman can cook. In a recent auction two cookbooks she owned and personally annotated were sold for $43,700 and a set of yellow Le Creuset pans went up for sale at $25,300.

The recipe Marilyn had written on a “City Title Insurance” letterhead was a stuffing recipe that had quite a mixed bag of ingredients including lots of raisins, hard boiled eggs and different nuts. The suspect it to be a recipe of Italian and San Francisco influence with additions like sourdough and particular spices. The New York Times recreated this dish and struggled with it for two hours. They are the ones that may need to practice their cooking. I wasn’t seduced to recreate it for my Thanksgiving feast, but it definitely was unique and meticulous. In a way it was charming to look at Marilyn’s scribbly writing and misspellings on the recipe. Now I know her and I not only share a sexy hour glass figure, but we both have fairly sloppy handwriting. It’s nice to find that perfection doesn’t seem to be as important when she was alone. The book, “Fragments,” is a collection of her original writing, poems and notes that are copied and re-written for clarity. Check out the book and get a glimpse at her undiscovered side. Marilyn Monroe has now been revealed to be much deeper than any number of photos would let on through this recipe and her other personal writing.

Feeling like a pinup cook yourself? Here is her very own recipe:

Time: 2 hours

No garlic
A 10-ounce loaf sourdough bread
1/2 pound chicken or turkey livers or hearts
1/2 pound ground round or other beef
1 tablespoon cooking oil
4 stalks celery, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
2 cups chopped curly parsley
2 eggs, hard boiled, chopped
1 1/2 cups raisins
1 cup grated Parmesan
1 1/4 cups chopped walnuts, pine nuts or roasted chestnuts, or a combination
2 teaspoons dried crushed rosemary
2 teaspoons dried crushed oregano
2 teaspoons dried crushed thyme
3 bay leaves
1 tablespoon salt-free, garlic-free poultry seasoning (or 1 teaspoon dried sage, 1 teaspoon marjoram, 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger and 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg)
1 tablespoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
1 tablespoon pepper.

Preparation:

1. Split the bread loaf in half and soak it in a large bowl of cold water for 15 minutes. Wring out excess water over a colander and shred into pieces.

2. Boil the livers or hearts for 8 minutes in salted water, then chop until no piece is larger than a coffee bean.

3. In a skillet over medium-high heat, brown the ground beef in the oil, stirring occasionally and breaking up the meat, so no piece is larger than a pistachio.

4. In your largest mixing bowl, combine the sourdough, livers, ground beef, celery, onion, parsley, eggs, raisins, Parmesan and nuts, tossing gently with your hands to combine. Whisk the rosemary, oregano, thyme, bay leaves, poultry seasoning, salt and pepper together in a bowl, scatter over the stuffing and toss again with your hands. Taste and adjust for salt. Refrigerate, covered, until ready to use as a stuffing or to bake separately as dressing.

Yield: 20 cups, enough for one large turkey, 2 to 3 geese or 8 chickens.

Recipe & Image from New York Times

Savory Chicken Cacciatore (Hunters Stew)

This is the familiar rustic Italian stew but with a twist to the preparation that enhances its savory flavor. The flavors come together in a bold yet nonacidic manner leaving you desiring more. The chicken is moist and the vegetables remain intact so you get a delicious flavor combination with every bite.


This dish has nice balance with campfire flavor and tomato oregano undertones, providing a wonderfully delicious meal. It’s another perfect dish for those big get-togethers where your guests can serve themselves and keep going back for more.

Hint: you can maximize your fiber by substituting any of the following for the basic noodles that usually accompany this dish. You can use whole wheat pasta, or for maximum healthy fiber, try barley, groats (complete wheat berry), quinoa, or brown basmati rice. They all complement the dish beautifully.

This dish pairs perfectly with a glass of California Zinfandel or Pinot Noir, Italian Bardolino or Chianti Classico or even a cold ale.

Ingredients:
1 ½ -2 ½ pounds chicken (boneless skinless thighs are best for flavor)
1/3 cup red wine (from a bottle you would enjoy drinking)
4 cloves garlic minced
1 cup mushrooms, sliced
½ cup zucchini, sliced
1 cup yellow onion (or use any color), diced
2 oz. tomato paste
2 14.5 oz. cans San Marino tomatoes (diced or whole)
1/2 cup olive oil
1 bay leaf (whole to retrieve when done)
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground black pepper
1 tsp. ground white pepper
2 tsp. dried oregano, crushed
1 tsp. paprika

Side dishes that go well include any of the following:
Pasta, rice, or grain cooked per directions on the package
1 Sweet Dumpling squash (or Butternut)
Green veggies like zucchini or asparagus

Garnish and finish elements:
Finely chopped fresh basil
Baby cherry tomatoes
Pepperoncini (red pepper flakes) for those who like an extra kick
Romano or any grated Italian cheese

Cut the mushrooms, onions, and zucchini then sauté in a dry pan adding a little peanut oil (or high smoke point oil). Once the veggies have sweated add the garlic for two minutes (or so, just don’t overcook/scorch the garlic) then create two clear spots in the pan and add the tomato paste to one and the spices to the other and let bloom. Then add the canned tomatoes stir things up and place the pan in a 400 degree oven. Roast for 30 minutes. Remove from heat and add to the Stock pot Or for the slow cooker method after roasting the veggies add to the slow cooker (set it on low).

While the veggies are roasting fire up your BBQ or grill pan (or use your stock pot to save on dishes to wash; drain the oil leaving a couple of teaspoons in the pot) and brown/sear the meat in a little Olive Oil; do not overcook at this point. Once browned from the grill, remove the meat and add it to your cooking/stock pot or slow cooker. Note: if using stock pot for the cooking prepare the meat first and let rest while cooking the veggies then add to the pot. Cook/simmer for 2 hours or slow cook for 3 hours on low.

Cook the grains or pasta as recommended on the label (use chicken stock instead of water for added flavor). Cook during the final 45 minutes of the stew.

Cook the squash in the oven at 375 degrees…Sweet Dumpling needs to cut in half, remove the seeds, then wrap in foil and place in oven for the final 45 minutes of the stew. If you choose Butternut then cube the squash and place in the pan you removed the veggies from and roast for the final 45 minutes of the stew.

Serve while hot or when you want…can be used as a party dish prepared in advance and re-warmed. Mangia