Pasta with Béchamel and Peas

Fancy name, eh? My daughter hangs out with Grandma, Grandpa, and her favorite cousin every week. One of their favorite dinners on "Grandma Days" is Grandpa's pasta with white sauce and peas. He keeps jars of Alfredo sauce on hand, just for this dish, and the kids eat it up!

Today was a really long day, and the kids were total troopers. (We hit up the aquarium after school. Coming home, I made a few wrong turns, and ended up stretching a 20 minute drive into nearly 90 minutes. Ouch.) I decided to make something I knew the kids would love, but it had to be QUICK. Quicker than frozen pizza. I already had some leftover (plain) pasta in the fridge, so this came together in about 5 minutes. Easy peasy! (Heh. See what I did there?)

(Oh, and about that name? My daughter asked me to please add this to our dinner rotation...so I told her she had to learn the proper name if she wanted me to remember what I made. No doubt this isn't a real béchamel, but...whatevs. It's cute to see a 6 year old asking for béchamel!)

I learned the recipe for this white sauce from my father when I was about 12. He, in turn, learned it from his grandmother. It's fool-proof, and easily customizable. Add cream cheese and rock shrimp, and you have an incredible dip. More cheese, and it's a great mac and cheese. Less cheese, and it could be a simple topping for poached eggs. This can also be used in white lasagnas, or over vegetables. Oh, and a classic béchamel would also have nutmeg in it, just a pinch.

LoLo's Pasta with Béchamel and Peas
Serves 4-6

Ingredients:
1 pound pasta (cooked, drained and set aside)
4 Tbsp. butter
1/4 cup flour
approximately 2 cups milk (I use skim, but nearly anything will work. Even evaporated, from a can!)
1 cup shredded cheese
3 cups frozen peas
Salt, Pepper to Taste


In a sauce pan, combine your knob of butter and flour over medium low heat. Whisk it as the butter melts - you need it to be lump free. It should be runny enough to not just clump up in your whisk. Add more butter if necessary.

Let your butter and flour cook for about 1 minute, until it starts to get slightly golden brown, and slowly whisk in your milk. Just a bit at a time, then let it cook. You want the consistency to be like melted ice cream, or just a bit thicker. The flour thickens as it cooks, so make sure you take your time, and keep whisking!

When the sauce is the right consistency, whisk in your shredded cheddar cheese and stir until melted. Add your frozen peas, heat through, and taste. Depending on your cheese, you may or may not need the salt, pepper, nutmeg, etc. (This is where you can make the sauce your own - White pepper is nice here, because it won't put black flecks in your sauce. Cayenne pepper would surprise people, too!) Pour all of your sauce over your pasta and fold to combine.

Enjoy!

Vanilla Yogurt

Homemade  yogurt is something you should do, REALLY.  It's easy, inexpensive, delicious, and healthy.  Pretty much has everything in its favor!

You can use your favorite kind of yogurt as a starter- I really like Tillamook vanilla bean  yogurt, it has three active cultures, and makes a creamy set.  You can absolutely use flavored yogurt as a starter.  Just be aware that most store bought yogurts have additional ingredients- flavors, sugars, thickeners.  So those will end up in your final product, albeit in a very small amount.

Ingredients:
1/2 gallon whole milk
8 ounces store bought yogurt, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar

In a large pot, over low heat, heat milk to 185 degrees Farenheit, stirring occasionally.  It will form a skin, and will have bubbles around the edges.

Remove milk from heat and let cool to about 110 degrees Farenheit.  It needs to be below 120 degrees, to not kill the yogurt bacteria- 105 to 115 is best.  Stir in sugar, vanilla, and yogurt.  1/4 cup sugar makes a fairly tart yogurt, 1/2 cup sugar is totally kid friendly (and still far less sugar than store bought yogurt.)  You don't want to whip bubbles in, but definitely stir enough to mix the yogurt in.

Pour into two, very clean, wide mouth mason jars and screw lids on tight.  (You will have about a half cup left over- drink it!)  Put jars into a small cooler, and fill with hot tap water.  Shut the lid, and let sit undisturbed until set, 4-8 hours depending on how warm it stays.  You can change the water part way through to keep it warmer, or cover with towels.  

Creamy Sausage Breakfast Casserole

I think Breakfast Casserole is the best thing to call this. It’s a pot of potatoes, onions, peppers , cheese, crème and sausage, baked until it’s all melty and delicious. It’s very rich, and insanely comforting. It was a favorite at a recent House Party highlighting Philadelphia Cooking Crème, and there was just enough left over afterwards for me to have a bowl when I came home late that night from a speaking engagement.

 

(Ok, yeah. That sounds way fancier than it was. I gave a ten minute presentation to a large group at church about how to use blogging and our online presence as a good example and represent our church. Still, I came home at 9:30 starving, and this hit the spot!)

 

Creamy Sausage and Potato Breakfast Casserole

5 potatoes, peeled and chopped

2 small onions, diced

1 green bell pepper, seeded and diced

1 tub Original Philadelphia Cooking Crème

Salt and Pepper to taste

2 sausages or bratwurst, sliced

2 cups grated cheddar cheese

 

Preheat your oven to 375. Spray a covered baking dish with cooking spray and set aside. In a large bowl, combine potatoes, onions, bell pepper and Cooking Crème. Taste the sauce and season with salt and pepper. Dump your potato mixture into your baking dish and top with sliced sausage. Cook, covered, for 30 minutes. Remove the dish from the oven, top with cheddar cheese, and return to the oven. Bake another 20 minutes uncovered, or until the cheese is golden and crispy around the edges.

 

 

PS – This recipe was made with Philadelphia Cooking Crème, which was given to me free of charge for review purposes. The coupons came in a box full of “swag” for me and my guests, including a new skillet, and other kitchen wares and coupons. I was not otherwise compensated.

Creamy Teriyaki Rice

 

This was hands-down my husband’s favorite dish at a recent House Party featuring Philadelphia Cooking Crème. My brother liked it as well. The combination of teriyaki sauce and crème isn’t an obvious one, but it definitely had fans! We left the rice plain and had this on the side as a topping, but if your entire crowd is dairy-loving, then you can go ahead and mix this together. It is good either way.

 

Creamy Teriyaki Rice

(Adapted from original Kraft recipe, found here)

Cooked Rice

3 cloves garlic, sliced

4 slices ginger, minced

2 tbsp. oil

1 package frozen peas

4 carrots, julienned or shaved

1 tub Original Philadelphia Cooking Crème

Teriyaki sauce, to taste

 

Put oil, ginger and garlic in a skillet and place over medium heat. Cook until the garlic is fragrant, about 1 minute. Add carrots and cook until tender, about two-three minutes. Remove carrots, garlic and ginger to a bowl and set aside. Cook peas until thawed and bright green, breaking apart with a wooden spoon. Add carrot mixture back in and stir to combine. Add cooking crème and stir. Season to taste with teriyaki sauce and serve over rice.

 

PS – This recipe was made with Philadelphia Cooking Crème, which was given to me free of charge for review purposes. The coupons came in a box full of “swag” for me and my guests, including a new skillet, and other kitchen wares and coupons. I was not otherwise compensated.

Make Your Own Drinkable Yogurt

Have you seen the drinkable yogurts at the store?  Perhaps in technicolored packaging, meant for kids?  Super simple to make!  They're only thinned-down yogurt, after all.  I hesitated to post this- it's so basic, but such a quick and easy and NUTRITIOUS snack.  (Probiotics, low fat, good protein...it's nutritious, right?)

I like to plop some yogurt into one of those plastic tupperware shakers- you know, the kind with a big ol' star insert and a flip top lid?  Pour in milk, and then whatever flavors look good that day.  Today it was honey and a bit of thin jam, I just used the liquid-ish portion of my favorite plum jam and left the fruit chunks behind for another day's sandwich. I make my own yogurt, and it's pretty tart, so that's why the double dose of sweet.  Plus, I'm pregnant.  I just really like sweets, OK?

This makes an easy and quick breakfast, or an afternoon snack.  A spoon and a big cup would probably work just as well, but you'd have to work a little harder to get the lumps out, and I don't like to work that hard!

I actually prefer my yogurt this way, it gets rid of any texture issues left over from my childhood.

Creamed Tuna with Peas

When I was a little girl, I adored something called Tuna Wiggle. (I think it could also be called Tuna Noodle Casserole, but I had my trusty little Klutz cookbook, and they called it Tuna Wiggle. So…Tuna Wiggle it is.)

Tuna Wiggle was one of the first things I learned to cook. It usually came in the form of Creamed Tuna on Toast. This was even easier to make, and the recipe went something like this: In a medium saucepan, combine one can cream of mushroom soup, one drained can of tuna, one 1 lb. bag of frozen peas. Add a little milk if it’s too thick. Serve it on toast, and eat with a knife and fork.

 

As tasty as that was, when I was craving something creamy and warm and tuna-ish the other day, I knew I could do better. (Besides, I had not one can of cream of anything in the pantry.)

 

And I think I’ve done it. It starts with a basic white sauce, using the recipe that my father taught me. He, in turn, learned it from his grandmother. Add to that a can of your favorite tuna, as many frozen peas as you like, and a few generous handfuls of cheese, and you have a delicious and grown-up version of a childhood favorite!

 

We served this over rice because I’d been craving some creamy, cheesy casserole-type rice, but it would be equally delicious over noodles, toast or quinoa!

 

(Ok, so nothing’s different from the original recipe except that I used a homemade cheese sauce instead of the canned cream of mushroom soup. Still, it’s something that I don’t keep in the pantry anymore. If you do…well, then, follow the recipe above.)

Creamed Tuna with Peas

Ingredients:

2 T. butter

4 T.  flour

2 cup milk

2 cups grated cheese

1 pound frozen peas

1 can tuna, drained

salt and pepper, to taste

 

In a skillet, melt your butter. When it is good and melted, add your flour and stir it up. Cook this for 2-3 minutes to make sure your finished product doesn’t have a Raw Flour Taste. (Not good, my friends!) Pull out your milk jug and add milk, a little at a time, whisking as you go to make sure you don’t get any lumps. Continue to stir in milk, whisking like mad, until you get the consistency that you want. (2 cups is really an approximation. I usually just pull out the jug, and keep adding milk until it looks right.) As the sauce continues to cook, it will thicken, so this whole process will take a few minutes.

 

Once your sauce is to the consistency that you like, it’s time to add your peas and tuna. When the peas are cooked through, then it is time to add the cheese. Make sure it doesn’t boil after this point, because the sauce will revolt and leave you with…something not great. (I’m not sure what will happen. This fact was so drilled into me as a child, I’ve never let it boil! I think the cheese will cook and fall apart, leaving chunky, oily sauce.) Season with salt and pepper, and you’re golden!

Serve over rice, noodles, quinoa, boiled wheat or anything else that would benefit from a creamy, lovely sauce!

Apricot Frozen Yogurt

Nectarine Frozen Yogurt
Ingredients
2 cups vanilla yogurt
8 apricots
Sugar to taste

Rinse, halve and pit apricots, and blend with yogurt and sugar in a bowl using a hand blender. Skins will either be blended up or will wrap around the blade of the immersion blender- you can clean them out when you're done. Taste for sweetness and add sugar as needed.

Pour into ice cube trays and freeze until solid. Working with half the batch at a time, "pulse" cubes in a food processor 20-30 times until finely blended and it's gathered into one or two "football shaped" balls. Serve it up! It will be a little on the soft side- you can refreeze if you like to "ripen." Because of the low fat content, this has a grainy/flaky consistency- if it's made with a proper ice cream custard base, it's quite creamy and perfect! (HT to Kenji Alt-Lopez for this technique)

Making Butter(milk)

Step 1. Get your hands on some heavy whipping cream and a jar with a lid. Oh, and a pair of strong arms.

Step 2. Pour the cream into the jar. (Note, about half way through the shaking process, I put half of the cream into another jar. You want to leave plenty of room for the cream to MOVE. Don't fill your jar more than 2/3 of the way full. 1/2 way is better.)

(Oh, and yes - these are baby food jars you're looking at. We didn't have much cream on hand.)

Step 3. SHAKE IT. Shake it up, shake it sideways, shake it like those bartenders you see on TV. Whatever floats your boat. First it will slosh around, then it will slosh slower and slower. Then, it will be really hard to slosh. That's when you grab the jar with both hands and...

...SHAKE it UP and DOWN, like those glass ketchup bottles in diners that never let the ketchup out without a fight. Pretty soon....PLOP. You'll hear your butter hit the top of the jar while the buttermilk sloshes around inside the jar. Shake it another minute or so to make sure the fat is good and stuck together, and then...

...VOILA! You've got butter! Strain the buttermilk out (save it to make pancakes!) and wash your butter until the water runs clear. You want to get all the buttermilk of of your butter - it will keep it fresh longer.

Now, go find yourself some yummy bread and start spreading your homemade butter!

(Note - this butter is really sweet and tasty, but it would taste better on bread with some salt in it. Anyone know if I'm supposed to add the salt pre or post shaking?? I wasn't sure how to work salt into already-made butter...so I just left it as is.)

Homemade Yogurt

I think I'm turning into my mother. At about the age I am now, she gave up white flour and refined sugar, made her own yogurt and whole wheat bread, planted large gardens, and danced to MTV in the living room, with us in a baby carrier. OK, that last part is all her own thing, and she still plants huge gardens every year, but here I am making wheat bread with her Vitamix, making yogurt, and contemplating using cloth diapers for our next child. She just smiles now and says "Just wait till you start eating nothing BUT sugar."

I think I've mentioned before how I discovered an entire case of powdered milk, pull-dated this year, in our food supply recently. Up to this point, I've made my family drink gallons of the stuff, turned it into Magic Milkshakes and peanut butter balls, and made a completely failed batch of pao de queijo. However, it makes a very nice yogurt!

I had trouble finding precise directions online, and finding more than one source to back up any particular method. Seems like that's normally the case with "cottage" type products. At any rate, here's my mix of a few different sources (probably Hillbilly Housewife and WikiHow). Seems to have worked!

Yogurt
Ingredients:
3 1/2 cups water
1 cup powdered milk
2 Tablespoons plain yogurt with active cultures

Supplies:
Quart jar with lid
Saucepan
Thermometer (I used a barista thermometer)
Small cooler
small jars or glasses

1. In the saucepan combine water and milk powder. Stir to combine totally, clip thermometer to pan, and heat to 185 degrees stirring occasionally.
   
2. Remove from heat, and take your yogurt starter out of the fridge to warm up on the counter.
3. Let your milk cool to below 120 degrees (105-115 is best), stirring frequently to make sure your thermometer reading is accurate.
4. Add the yogurt starter to the milk, stir to combine, and pour into a very clean quart Mason jar. Seal tightly, and put in the cooler. Surround your jar with open jars or glasses of very hot tap water, shut the lid, and put a few towels on top for extra insulation. (Not sure if that's necessary, but it's what I did!)
   
5. Leave, undisturbed, for 8-14 hours until set. I changed the water once, right before I went to bed, and put it in the fridge in the morning. If you mess with the yogurt early, I'm told it will take a lot longer to set up. Store in the refrigerator.

We've tried it with sugar, honey, and jam and it's all nice. Although it's not as sour as store-bought plain yogurt, it's still a little sour for our tastes right now, when served plain.