Skillet Macaroni and Broccoli and Mushrooms and Cheese

You know what happens if you don't get around to serving this for lunch until almost 3pm? Those that you're feeding will smell lunch finishing off in the oven and say hopefully, "Wow...that smells really good." And then when you set it out on the table, they'll say hungrily, "Ooh...that looks yummy." After a few contented bites, my boyfriend B declared this comfort food perfect for a dreary rainy day. Made me smile because I had found the recipe in a New York Times blog post called "Vegetarian Comfort Food at Thanksgiving." That's right, this hearty vegetarian dish is filling enough to please even the carnivores at the table (handy for potlucks).

I was looking forward to serving this up in my cast-iron skillet but mine wasn't big enough to hold everything so I transferred things to a square baking dish. I just shredded the cheddar cheese instead of grating it. Is it even possible to grate cheddar? I only used 2 cups of milk instead of 3. I didn't have an pasta shaped like shells so I used cellentani instead. And I think I boiled the broccoli for more like 2-3 minutes instead of just 1. I think that's all the changes I had to make.

It's another dreary rainy day today. I'm tempted to make this again but I think I might try making the mixture with even less milk (if any) and then pouring it onto pizza rounds instead of mixing it in with pasta. Try making this pasta dish. It's satisfying even if you don't wait until you're really really hungry first!

( Click for Recipe and Bigger Photo )

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day (ABi5): Basic Boule

I love fresh bread. Many years ago, my then boyfriend gave me a bread machine for Christmas. I was still in college at the time and after dinner, my roommates and I would throw ingredients into the bread machine and turn it on. Then a few hours later, we'd have fresh hot bread for our study break. It was magic! I tended to make this Cranberry Bread, which was my favorite bread machine recipe. Over a decade later and I still have that bread machine.

As I finally accepted cooking as a hobby instead of a chore, I decided I wanted to bake bread from scratch, but was intimidated by the process. Then mellybrelly posted step-by-step instructions and made it seem doable. I loved the resulting white bread and the sense of accomplishment that that bread had been made in my kitchen.

However -- it was tiring and I didn't attempt to bake bread again for 2 years after that. I'm glad I returned to making bread but it was still a time-consuming process. I wanted bread every day but I couldn't really work that into my schedule. Enter the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François. The title's a little misleading in that it sounds like you can have fresh bread in just 5 minutes (yay!) but they're only counting the time spent actively working on making the bread. Still, even though it's closer to 10 minutes of active work a day for me, that's an acceptable investment of time to have fresh bread on a regular basis.

It tastes better than any of the plain white breads in the sliced bread aisle of the grocery store. It's as good as, or better, than the similar types of bread in my grocery store's fresh bakery section too. Granted, I didn't think the basic boule bread tasted amazing, but it certainly tasted good enough given how little effort it required. Certainly much less expensive. And for so little input, we enjoyed the gift of fresh, warm bread on a near daily basis.

Once I got comfortable with the basic recipe, I started playing with the dough and turning out variations that kept tasting better and better. First it was just adding some herbs to the dough, then sprinkling some cheese on top. We made pizzas and flat breads. My current favorite variation is cheddar cheese bread. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll start with the Basic Boule recipe and save the variations for future posts.

I know...if the variations taste better, why not start with those? Well I figure it's easier to work out the kinks with a basic recipe first. That makes it a little easier to figure out where you might have gone wrong. And then once you're comfortable with the master recipe, we can add more steps and variations.

So go ahead and try this. If it works, then great! You have bread made from your own two hands. If it doesn't work, then the ingredients weren't too expensive and you didn't have to waste too much effort in trying it.

( Click to see instructions and photos )