Comfort Foods

I come from a family of good cooks.  My maternal grandmother was half French and half Belgian; my mom grew up in Frankfurt, Germany.  Me, I'm a mutt, but like to think I learned the best these wonderful women could teach me.  This recipe has been in the top two or three requests at every family get-together, and makes me popular, at least for a while, if I offer to cook.

Macaroni and Cheese Casserole. Caveat Emptor: If your arteries are hard, don't even think about it. 

Start with equal weights of macaroni, rigatoni, ziti or other pasta with holes, and cheese.   I.e., one lb. of cellentani gets one lb. of cheese.  When we were kids, Mom would send us to the store to get cheese ends from the deli.  The guy at the counter would save the ends and we'd get a bag full of cheese of all kinds, take it home, grate it and make this dish.  From scratch, I make this dish with emmenthaler or Austrian Swiss (? oxymoron, all you teachers out there?) mixed with gruyere. 

Put a big pot of salted water on the stove to boil, and while it boils and the pasta cooks to al dente, grate the cheese and grease a baking dish. 

Here is my cheese grater.  It makes short work of grating any kind of cheese, including Parmigiano Reggiano and other hard, crumbly cheeses.  In fact, at my house, when the grater is washed, it goes right back on the mixer. Using any other kind of grater, it is a good policy to have your kids or husband grate the cheese for you.

Meanwhile, grease a casserole dish.  If you use a deep one, you will get a moist, rich result, a shallow one results in a crusty, equally delicious dish. You can grease the dish with butter which adds a dimension, or chicken out an put a thin layer of oil over the surface. 

When the pasta is al dente, drain it.  Put about 1/3 of it in the baking dish, and cover with 1/3 of the cheese.  Repeat X 2.  Dot about 2 tbsp. butter around the top, and pour a cup of heavy cream over the top.  Bake it at 325 degrees for about an hour (or until golden brown on top--less time for a shallow casserole).  If baked too fast, the cream doesn't evaporate, and you don't get those coveted cheese strings. 

When we were kids, Mom would put a layer of spinach or broccoli in the middle (to make us eat our vegetables), and would slice a can of Spam and put a layer under the top layer of cheese.  I have to tell you, it was heaven...Serve with:

Basic Tomato Sauce

This sauce doesn't have to simmer, so you can make it in 10 minutes.  In a saute pan, heat about 2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil to medium temperature.  Add a minced shallot, or two cloves garlic, minced, and stir until translucent, but not yet turning brown.  Add a large (14 oz.) can of diced plum tomatoes.  Season with salt, pepper, and fresh basil and oregano.  Serve on the side with the casserole.

Variations are endless. 

-Adding a little heavy cream to this sauce makes an elegant blush sauce to serve over plain pasta. 

-Sauteed pancetta or chopped bacon, lightly browned and drained before adding the shallot or garlic, also makes a very nice, robust sauce for a main dish.

-Reducing the sauce (made with garlic) by about 1/3, then adding  1/2 cup vodka, allowing that to cook off and then adding 1/2 to 1 cup heavy cream makes a quick and delicious sauce for one lb. pasta.  This should be served with generous amounts of grated parmigiano on the side (yeah, yeah, I mean Reggiano).

Happy eating. Then happy exercising.  And happy dieting.  Really, this is a once-in-a-while dish.

Comments

[panasianbiz]

I stumbled across your blog while I was doing some online research. Reading this made me curious about something. I wonder how many of us associate our grandparents in some way with how we define "comfort foods"?