Macaroni and Cheese with Pancetta and Mushrooms

Three nights ago, Hubby whipped up some cheese sauce to pour over leftover home fries and bake them, thus making au gratin potatoes.  They were delicious.  There was, unfortunately luckily, lots of cheese sauce leftover.  So, tonight, he turned it into some very excellent Macaroni and Cheese with Pancetta and Mushrooms.

Here is Hubby's cheese sauce recipe, in his own words:

• 3 tbsp salted butter
• 3 tbsp flour
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 pint heavy cream
• Salt
• Fresh Ground Pepper
• Cayenne

1. Melt 3 tbsp butter in a heavy bottom pan over medium heat.
2. Add flour and whisk together to make a roux.
3. Once thickened, add 1 pint cream, whisking constantly.
4. Once roux and cream are well mixed, add cheese, continue whisking.
5. Add seasoning to taste.

Use with: anyfuckingthing. It's that good.

For the macaroni and cheese, sauté chopped pancetta until the fat is rendered.  Add sliced mushrooms to the same pan, and sauté until cooked.  Finally, mix the pancetta and mushrooms into cooked macaroni along with the cheese sauce.

It's wife tested, kitty approved!

Bacon Palooza!

Last night, Hubby and I went to Bacon Palooza at Olde Magoun’s Saloon.  It’s a local bar in the town where we grew up.  They do rotating specials menus, always based on some theme.  This month, it’s bacon!  Mmmmmm, bacon.

They are doing their bacon thing in the style of tapas (small plates), so of course, we ordered a bunch of things.  Here’s what we got (I apologize that these aren’t great pictures; I only had my cell phone in restaurant-bar lighting)....



Fig-alicious

(figs stuffed with goat cheese and wrapped in smoked applewood bacon)



(a close-up of the cut open fig dish)



Hog Wild Rangoon

(black pepper bacon, scallions and cream cheese stuffed in a wonton,

deep fried and served with a plum sauce)



Bacon Poutine

(waffle fries topped with crumbled bacon, cheese curds and
bacon onion gravy, topped with a soft egg)



Beef Bacon Blue

(mini beef filets stuffed with blue cheese and wrapped in bacon,

with caramelized onions and a pepper port reduction)



Chicken Fried Bacon

(battered and deep fried [Canadian] bacon, served with a bacon onion gravy, grits and two mini southern biscuits)



And finally, for dessert.... 



Praline Bacon Brownie

(it was chocolate cake on top of a chocolate chip cookie, sprinkled with what I think was walnuts and topped with a strip of candied bacon.  Served with homemade whipped cream)



Overall, I have to say that I was not too impressed with most of this.  Fig-alicious I really liked, and the Beef Bacon Blue was terrific.  But the rest, I give only a solid “meh.”  It could have been a lot better.  That’s okay, though, it won’t sway me from visiting this awesome local hangout in the future and tasting everything else they have to offer.  Their food is generally very good, and the other themed menus that they have done in the past were very nicely done indeed.  I still give the restaurant/bar two thumbs up.

Applesauce!

What does one do when the U-Pick apples that you got back in October are about to be past their prime, and you also have some apple cider that expires tomorrow?  Why, I’ll tell you – you grab your handy dandy new stand mixer, a pot, a peeler, and make applesauce!

I just kind of made this up on the fly, but it turned out well.

First, I peeled all the apples.  We had 12 left of various sizes and varieties (I know we had picked Cortland, Golden Delicious, Macoun, Empire, Cameo, and possibly a couple others that I cannot remember).  I only roughly peeled them -- not worrying about bits of skin left on the apples -- I wanted the final product to be somewhat rustic.

Then, I poured what was left of the apple cider into the pot.  I am guessing there was about a cup and a half worth at the most.  I added some water (this turned out to be unnecessary – more on that later), and put it on the stove to cook.

I brought it to a boil and let it simmer (covered) for about 20 minutes.  After 20 minutes it looked like this:

Next, it was time to whizz it up using the stick blender.

At this point, I decided that it was too thin and runny, but luckily I had cheesecloth on had.  So, I lined a colander with the cheesecloth and poured the applesauce in to drain out some of the liquid.

After draining (at least a half hour later), it looked like this:

The last thing I did was add a pinch of sugar and a pinch of cinnamon, which changed the color slightly, as seen in the very first picture above.

Yummy!  The applesauce was very smooth, definitely much smoother than you'd be used to with store-bought stuff.  If you want that store-bought texture, perhaps a simple potato masher would be better suited than a blender of any type.  :)