The quote on my last blog entry was about forgetting yesterday and moving on to a new tomorrow. One of the main reasons I often want to "begin again" is because of my ongoing dinner stress. This past week has been filled with eating out or eating icky at home...so tonight I was in fix-dinner mode. Since dinner was turning out so lovely, I decided to take a few photos and post them on my blog - you know, to inspire you.
I got out my best pan to prepare this
homemade macaroni and cheese. The pasta is boiled and the white sauce is made. Oops, I forgot to take a picture before I dumped all the macaroni in, so I reenacted the pouring so you could see my gorgeous yellow Tupperware strainer. It's vintage! from my 1974 wedding shower. The melt mark is a sign that I'm really a cook - what good is Tupperware if it can't survive a little heat. In this photo, I'm also showing a "technique" of mine - using a paper plate as a spoon rest. Hang on because later I'll show you how to re-purpose that paper plate into something really functional.
If you make everything in the same pot, the dinner dishes are kept to a minimum. Here I'm stirring the macaroni into the white cheesy sauce. It's a basic white sauce with shredded cheese mixed in. If you don't know how to make white sauce, you better learn soon. It's a kitchen basic you can't live without.
Here's a tip if you're planning to make white sauce. See in the photo above how the burner on my stove is really really red hot. That's how I cook...with the stove always on high. Notice in the photo how the pan is only barely touching the burner. This is how you can control the heat on the pan. Just push it on and off and the white sauce will stay white and saucy not black and lumpy.
After you have everything mixed up, pour a little more cheese in for good measure.
Then for nutritious protein and extra flavor, add some chopped up ham from Sunday dinner. Look - here's that paper plate again...now being used as a cutting board.
Because I care about serving a lovely dinner, I decided to go with an all-orange theme. I threw on the orange paper plates and found a few more orange things including carrots, little cups of mandarin oranges for our fruit serving, and little bags of Reeses Pieces for dessert.
