Cooking Tips/Advice & Recipe Thread

[Silvermoon]

Okay, I did a search and it looks like the only threads on cooking are ancient (and may not have survived the move to the new system? - the "official hype cooking thread" appears to have no posts in it, despite being 3 pages) So I hope it's okay that I start a new thread as a place to share cooking tips or advice with each other, or share and swap recipes on the new system

Main reason I'm posting this, is to get some thoughts...

Tonight's dinner is home-made mac and cheese (I know, I know, to some people M&C should only be a side dish). The recipe calls for 2 cups of shredded cheese to incorporate into the roux and mixed with the pasta. Normally when we make this, it gets made with just straight up medium-Cheddar (which is good, don't get me wrong). Me and my sister, though, decided to be a bit different this time and so we have a few cheeses that we got. We got a wedge of nice soft (gooey) Fontina, a small block of Monterey Jack, and some Sharp White Cheddar. We can't decide what ratio to do though. Should we do 1 cup of one of the cheeses and then 1/2 cup of each of the others (and if so, which cheese gets to have more and the others less). Should we only do 2 cheeses (I don't think each wedge/block has enough to do just 1 of the cheeses - so we do need to do at least 2)

Thoughts? Opinions?

 

[Flash525]

Well I don't know about cheese, but you could consider adding garlic granules or chives into the mix? Something different if you want more than just cheese?

 

[Dr.]

If 2 cups shredded cheddar is your normal quantity, I would think the same (total) amount of other cheeses would work. (And the proportions would be determined according to which flavor you want to dominate.) It’s trickier if you want to add soft cheeses like cream, brie or blue (which, obviously, can’t be easily shredded). But for those, I’d be tempted to cut back on some of the milk and use the soft cheeses as a partial substitute. You can also (apparently) use cheeses that don’t melt (e.g. feta). Though, these are recommended as a crumbly topping - not to be incorporated into the main M&C mixture.

 

[C. Lee]

I'm not a cook, so can't tell you how to do it, but a family member makes a great mac and cheese dish where they put some kind of bread crumbs on the top.

 

[Silvermoon]

We've done the bread crumbs... also done corn flake topping too (not sure if we have any though). I think it's mainly the Fontina cheese we're unsure of how much of it we want to use

 

[Guts]

My go to mac and cheese sauce would use 2 parts bechamel to 1 part cheese. So 1 quart of bechamel and 1 pound of cheese. When using a mix of cheese I would usually scale the cheese out by weight. For example, if I'm doing a mix of cheddar and Gruyere, then I might go with 12 oz of Gruyere and 4 oz of cheddar.

 

[Silvermoon]

We ended up doing 1c of the mont. jack, then 1/2c fontina, 1/2c sharp white cheddar. It’s in the oven now. Shall report back on how it turned out

 

[Silvermoon]

Turned out good!

 

[Guts]

Essential books to buy if you are feeling creative and want to make your own recipes.

 

[psylockolussus]

Turned out good!

You should have added more toppings but its okay.

Anyway, in my free time, I always watch cooking tutorials.

 

[Lily Adler]

It's like the Cooking Channel, but at home... Wait.