Potential in the Kitchen

So here’s the deal. I actually don’t mind cooking…but I hate a few things about it:

• 1. deciding what to make
• 2. the time it takes
• and 3. the clean up

It’s like bills and taxes…if I was just given an extra ‘x’ hours to my life to accomplish those things specifically I would not mind doing them. Anyway, tonight I decided to cook and have dinner ready when hubby got home. I pulled out our new Rachael Ray 365: No Repeats Cookbook and decided to go for the ‘Mac-n-Smoked Gouda with Cauliflower. Well, I got everything going and of course had to tweak some of the recipe. Part of it called for some onions – hubby can’t stand onions. (I also usually don’t like onions but it seems like Baby #3 doesn’t mind them too much). So, I omitted them. I think in doing this I sort of screwed up the ‘prep’ work to make a decent cheese sauce for the macaroni. Needless to say, when I was all done my cheese sauce was lumpy and weird and overall the dish didn’t have much flavor (I did omit the onions which usually add lots of flavor to dishes). So, in an act of desperation I added a can of cream of mushroom soup and three-fourths a block of cream cheese and mixed it in. I’m pretty sure I saved what would have been a terrible meal. Jared and I ate 3 servings and the girls even ate some of it too – they didn’t seem to be fans of the cauliflower which seemed odd to me since veggies are usually their favorite. I also added dried blueberries to my bowl of mac and boy – that was AMAZING! I would definitely make it again but would half the recipe…this yielded LOTS of food…we probably could eat it for the rest of the week if we don’t get sick of it. So, with that – here’s my ‘tweaked’ version of the ‘Mac-N-Smoked Gouda with Cauliflower’ meal. Ingredients

• 1 pound elbow macaroni
• 1 bag of frozen cauliflower florets
• 3 T all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp paprika
• 3 cups 2% milk
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 3 cups smoked Gouda
• 1 T. hot mustard
• 1 can of cream of mushroom soup
• 3/4 can of water
• 3/4 chunk of cream cheese

Directions Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add salt to season the cooking water, then add the pasta. Cook for 5 minutes, then add the cauliflower and cook for 3 minutes more or until the pasta is cooked al dente and the florets are just tender. Drain well and return to the pot. While the pasta cooks, add the chicken stock, milk, flour and paprika to a pot. Whisk together and raise the heat enough to bring it all to a quick boil. Add the cheese to the mix and stir to melt it, a minute or so. Stir in the mustard. Pour over the broccoli and cooked pasta. Add the, mustard, can of cream of mushroom soup, 3/4 can of water, and cream cheese. Mix until everything is melted and mixed thoroughly. Feel free to sprinkle with dried blueberries (I would let each individual decide if this is something they’d like to try). Enjoy!
PS. I would be posting my 34 week update but I’m getting my hair cut tomorrow so I thought I’d just wait until then…super excited!