Mom's Homemade Mac and Cheese

Ingredients:

1lb. elbow macaroni
1lb. Velveeta cheese, cut into 1/2" cubes
1 stick of butter (or margarine)
1/2 cup flour, stirred or sifted
4 cups milk (whole milk is best)
1 t salt
1/2 t pepper

Topping:
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
2 T butter
1/2 cup panko

Directions:
Cook macaroni according to package directions, rinse and set aside. Grease or spray a long shallow pan (I use a 9 x 13). In a large saucepan over medium-high heat melt butter, remove pan from heat, add flour, salt and pepper, stirring to make a paste. Return pan to heat and slowly add milk while stirring constantly. Bring to a boil and stir until mixture is completely smooth, add Velveeta cheese and continue to stir until well blended. Pour into greased pan, top with cheddar cheese. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes, or until bubbly. Melt 2 T of butter in a small fry pan, remove from heat, add panko, making sure the panko is well saturated with butter. At the end of the 45 minute baking period, sprinkle panko mixture over the mac and cheese and return to the oven until the panko is nicely browned, about 5 minutes. Enjoy!!!!!

*** This recipe may be doubled and will feed about 25, doubled.

BLT Pasta Salad

Ingredients

 1 (16 ounce) package medium seashell pasta
1 pound sliced bacon
1 1/2 cups light Ranch-style salad dressing or Poppy Seed Dressing
1 small onion, chopped
2 tomatoes, chopped 

  Chopped Romain Lettuce (add desired amount)

Directions

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add the pasta, and cook until tender, about 8 minutes.Drain,     and rinse under cold water to cool.  Meanwhile, cook the bacon in a large deep skillet over medium-high heat until browned and crisp. Remove from the pan and drain on paper towels.  In a large bowl, stir together the Ranch dressing, onion, and tomatoes. Mix in the cooled pasta. The pasta will absorb some of the dressing, so don't worry if it seems like too much. Refrigerate for several hours or overnight. Crumble bacon and add chopped lettuce over the top just before serving.

Creamy Balsamic Dressing

1 c. mayo

1/2 c. balsamic vinegar

1/4 c. olive oil

2 cloves garlic, pressed

Kosher salt

black pepper

Combined all ingredients except Olive Oil,  Using a wire whisk slowly add Olive Oil, chill and serve.

Hard Boiled Eggs (easy to peel)

Prep time:  10 mins

Cook time:  5 mins

Total time:  15 mins

Ingredients

• Eggs (as many as you like to fill the bottom of the pot rack)

• 1 cup water

• Instant Pot electric pressure cooker

Pour the water into the pot, and place the eggs in a steamer basket if you have one. If you don’t, just use the rack that came with your pot.

Close the lid, set for 5 minutes at high pressure.

It will take the cooker approximately 5 minutes to build to pressure and then 5 minutes to cook. I let the pressure naturally reduce for an additional 5 minutes after the cooking cycle completed, and then did a quick pressure release. That’s around 15 minutes, total.

Place the hot eggs into cool water to halt the cooking process. You can peel immediately, or wait– it’s up to you. 

INSTANT POT EGG NOTES:

• You can play with the cooking time a bit, if you like. Try adding an additional minute or so if you want your eggs very, very firm. I’ve tried 7 minutes, with no quick pressure release, which worked fine, but left me with eggs with a green-rimmed yolk (a result of over-cooking). Five minutes results in a perfectly cooked, yet still yellow, yolk for me.

• If you don’t want to do a quick pressure release, that’s totally fine. You can just leave the eggs in there until the pressure cooker cools down natural

    

Plain Shredded Chicken

Uses:

BBQ Chicken Sandwiches,  Chicken Salad,  Tacos,  Enchiladas,  Pot Pie,  Soup, Hawaiian Haystacks, Chop-Chops, etc. 

INGREDIENTS:

• 4 lbs chicken breasts or 18 chicken tenders (approximately 6 breasts)

• 1/2 c water or chicken broth

• 1 tsp salt

• 1/2 tsp pepper

INSTRUCTIONS:

              Add all of the ingredients to the EPC.   Press the “poultry” button then using the plus symbol add 5 minutes for a total of 20 minutes. If you are using frozen meat, add another 5 minutes.  Once the pressure cooking time has finished, carefully turn the valve from “sealing” to “venting” to quick pressure release. (This will allow the steam to escape and you’ll be able to open the lid sooner than waiting for natural release).  Place the chicken onto a plate or cutting board and let it cool for a few minutes.  Use two forks to shred.  Store the chicken in an air-tight container with some of the liquid to help keep the meat moist.

Rice Pudding

This recipe is great when you have leftover rice and it is not super sweet with only 2/3 cup of sugars.

1 1/2 cups of cooked rice
1/2 cup raisins ( I like golden raisins ... this is also optional)
2 eggs
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
1 1/2 cups of milk
1 t vanilla (I use Mexican vanilla ... great flavor)
1/8 t cinnamon (more if you like a real cinnamon flavor)
Nutmeg (optional)

Prepare an  8 x 8 baking dish, butter the bottom and side very well. Put rice and raisins in bottom of pan. In a medium size mixing bowl whisk eggs, add sugar, milk, vanilla and cinnamon, blend thoroughly and gently pour over rice. Sprinkle with nutmeg if desired. Bake in 375* oven for 45 - 55 minutes or until knife in the center comes out clean. Serve warm or cold.

Homemade Spaghetti Meat Sauce

1 lb Lean ground beef ( or 2 lbs ground beef if not using sausage)
1 lb mild Italian Sausage
1 large sweet onion diced
6 cloves of garlic (4 diced/2 whole)
8 oz sliced mushrooms (optional)
3 large (28 oz) cans of puréed tomatoes or 15 med fresh tomatoes diced (seeds and all)
4 T Italian Seasoning
1/2 t cinnamon
1 T pepper
1 1/2 T brown sugar
Find of Parmesan Cheese or about 1/3 C
Salt to taste

In large pot ... Sauté onion in about 2 T of EVOO for 5 minutes on medium heat, add mushrooms cook another 3 to 5 minutes, add diced garlic cook another 2 minutes remove from pan and set aside. Add meat and brown, add Italian seasoning and mix well, add onion mixture, tomatoes, whole garlic cloves, cinnamon, pepper and sugar. Simmer on low heat for a couple of hours, add cheese rind and simmer another 10 minutes or until melted ... serve as with favorite pasta. Leftovers may be frozen ... makes 4 to 5 quarts ... its even better the day after, so make it a day in advance!!!!

Shrimp (or Chicken) and Broccoli Stir Fry

1 T EVOO
1 1/2 lbs. medium shrimp (cooked, peeled, deveined) or cooked chicken pieces
24 oz or 5 cups broccoli florets
1 teaspoon sesame seeds
1 med yellow or sweet onion, sliced
3 green onions, thinly sliced

for the Sauce:
6 T soy sauce
3 T oyster or fish sauce
2 T packed brown sugar
2 T rice wine vinegar
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 T freshly grated ginger or 1 t ground ginger
2 T sesame oil
3 T cornstarch

Which together in a small bowl, soy sauce, oyster/fish sauce, rice wine vinegar, brown sugar, ginger, sesame oil, garlic, cornstarch, set aside.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat, add onion cook 3 to 5 minutes, add broccoli and cook stirring frequently for 3 to 5 minutes, add cooked shrimp and soy sauce mixture and combined and cook until slightly thickened, about 2 to 3 minutes. Serve immediately over rice and garnish with sesame seeds and green onions.

Could also be made with cooked chicken or beef.