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  • in Cooking
  • 2 min read

Time for Macaroni & Cheese

2013-11-03 10.19.32

Fall is here in Minnesota and the mornings are crisp and the leaves have turned. Living here in the winter may be awful, but I can see why fall is my wife’s favorite time of year.

After taking our black lab for a 3 mile walk this morning, it was time to warm up with one of my favorite comfort foods. Using a recipe from Hilah Cooking, it was time to make my first batch of macaroni and cheese of the year. This recipe will definitely warm you up – it calls for 4 jalapeños or a can of green chili peppers, giving some kick to the macaroni and cheese. This was perfect as I had 5 jalapeño peppers left from the last CSA box.

Hilah’s recipe is pretty straight forward – watch the video below for how to make it, and she will teach you how to make the roux and béchamel on your way to the finished product. I was worried that four jalapenos would be too much and it would be way too spicy – but it was just right. It warms you all the way through, both the heat of the peppers and the warmth of the mac and cheese. I did dice all of my peppers and did not leave strips as you’ll see in the video. I like my mac and cheese with a crispy topping, so I added some Panko bread crumbs and baked it for just over 10 minutes. Baking it will reduce how creamy it is, so it’s up to you on the tradeoff.

Macaroni and Cheese

What I love about Hilah’s recipes and cooking channel is the recipes are not complex, great for someone like me who is learning the ins and outs of cooking – but the end result is always tasty. Check out the video below and subscribe to her channel.

 

 

[//www.youtube.com/embed/2SSZsiHvKWk]

  • in Cooking
  • 2 min read

Pretzels! (Thanks to Hilah!)

Last weekend, my wife had a craving for pretzels. No, she’s not pregnant, she just loves pretzels. We’re talking the big, huge soft pretzels covered in salt. She wanted them badly enough that she even asked if the Twins were in town – and she doesn’t like baseball. We were also looking up to see if there were any places in the Twin Cities known for their pretzels, but didn’t find much outside of a couple mall restaurants, and we weren’t feeling that brave.

Pretzels!

As I’ve dived into cooking over the last year, one of the best things I’ve found to help teach me to cook has been Hilah Cooking, a website and Youtube channel hosted by Hilah Johnson for beginner to intermediate cooks. I’ve bought her cookbook and watched countless videos teaching me a ton of things I didn’t know, especially about how to cook, not just what to cook. These include how to season a cast iron skillet, smoke points of oil, and more. Some of these things may be basic to those who have been cooking a while, but I’ve never had anyone really show me these things, and learning them has been invaluable.

The best part about both Hilah’s writing and Youtube channel is her humor. I enjoy it and it makes it much more fun to watch than a dry cooking show on some cable channel. Also, being on Youtube, I can just grab my iPad and re-watch the episode while I cook, which is so helpful.

By chance, Hilah posted a soft pretzel recipe two days ago. The timing couldn’t have been better with my wife’s cravings, so I ran out to the store yesterday and picked up some yeast and bread flour. The recipe is very simple and the pretzels turned out great. They took a little longer to cook then the recipe calls for and they’re not as dark brown as shown the video. I’m not sure if that’s due to the beer I used, but they tasted fantastic, which is what matters! The wife agreed and I see us making more of these in the future.

Here’s the episode from Hilah’s Youtube channel as she visits Easy Tiger in Austin, known for their pretzels and beer garden, as well as the recipe.

[//www.youtube.com/embed/gZJcNsUhnkM?list=PLia0F9Sr8Q6RCZBrAtp42oNTLnvCQTMDF]