Butternut Mac & Cheese

I was so intrigued when I saw this recipe on the cover of Cooking Light magazine. I even bought the magazine.

I made a few changes to the recipe, mostly just being lazy. But it was easier to put together than I had expected. I think I'd like to try different combinations of cheeses. The original recipe called for Gruyere instead of Cheddar buuuuuut, its kind of expensive and I already had a lot of Cheddar on hand. I think it was a bit too heavy on the Pecorino. Anyway, maybe there's room for improvement there. Still came out creamy and rich.

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3 cups cubed peeled butternut squash (about 1-pound squash)
1 1/4 cups fat-free, lower-sodium chicken broth
1 1/2 cups fat-free milk
2 garlic cloves
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons yogurt
1 1/4 cups (5 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup (4 ounces) grated pecorino Romano cheese
1/4 cup (1 ounce) finely grated fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, divided
1 pound uncooked cavatappi
Cooking spray
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/2 cup panko

Preheat oven to 375°.

Combine squash, broth, milk, and garlic in a medium saucepan; bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium, and simmer until squash is tender when pierced with a fork, about 25 minutes. Remove from heat.

Cook pasta according to package directions, omitting salt and fat; drain well. Set aside.

Place the hot squash mixture in a blender. Add salt, pepper, and Greek yogurt. Remove the center piece of blender lid (to allow steam to escape); secure blender lid on blender. Place a clean towel over opening in blender lid (to avoid splatters). Blend until smooth. Add Cheddar, Pecorino Romano, and 2 tablespoons of the Parmigiano-Reggiano. Blend until combined.

Pour squash mixture over cooked pasta, and stir until combined. Spread mixture evenly into a 13 x 9-inch glass or ceramic baking dish coated with cooking spray.

Sprinkle panko and remaining parmesan evenly over the hot pasta mixture.
Bake at 375° for 25 minutes or until bubbly. Serve immediately.

See? The cut up squash even LOOKS like Cheddar, doesn't it?

Baby Girl Strawberry Frosting

I really wanted to do strawberry frosting from scratch for cupcakes I made for Angela's baby shower. (Girl. Duh.) I ended up using a mash-up of two recipes; one was the Sprinkles recipe from Martha Stewart's website and the other from a blog called Recipe Shoebox. I made the cupcakes from scratch also, but they came out pretty dry, so I don't think I'll post the recipe I used.
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4-6 whole frozen strawberries, thawed
3/4 cup butter, slightly cold
1/4 cup shortening
3 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 tsp lemon juice
pinch of coarse salt

In a small bowl, mash strawberries.

In a medium bowl, beat together butter, shortening and salt until fluffy. Reduce mixer speed and slowly add powdered sugar until it is the consistency of ice cream.

Add 3 Tbsp of the mashed strawberries, the lemon juice and vanilla. Mix until just blended.

Keeping Apples

I saw this on Pinterest: Cut up an apple into chunky slices, leaving the core in tact, and put a rubber band around it to prevent it from browning while you tote it around or tuck it in your kid's lunchbox for a crispy snack!

Root Beer Float Ice Cream Cake!

Best Idea Ever. I saw this recipe on foodbuzz.com and HAD to try it out. And since my father-in-law is pretty much the Root Beer Float King, and his birthday was last week...it was perfect.

I was surprised at how much the root beer really flavors the cake. AND probably my favorite thing was the way my kitchen smelled as it was baking. Heavenly!

Be Warned: This makes for a sticky, sticky cake. Light, moist, delicious, but sticky! Refrigerate the cakes before you try to take them out of the cake pan. Don't try to plop the cake out onto a cooling rack like I did with the first one; the cake stuck to the cake pan AND stuck to the cooling rack AND stuck to the plate I tried to invert it onto and ended up a big mess. (I squished it into the ice cream layer before re-freezing the ice cream layer and that saved it.) The second cake was much easier to get out of the pan after having been refrigerated and much easer to transfer around with the use of a sheet of wax paper.

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1 box white cake mix
1 12 oz can/bottle root beer (diet or regular)
abt 4 cups vanilla ice cream
16 oz Cool Whip (2 small containers or 1 big one)

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Spray two 9-inch round cake pans with cooking spray; set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together cake mix and soda until almost all the lumps are gone. Divide cake batter evenly between cake pans and bake for 16 to 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Refrigerate to cool (you can even cool the cake layers in the freezer.)

While cake is cooling, prepare ice cream layer: Line an 9-inch cake pan with wax paper and press ice cream down into pan. Put this layer in the freezer until firm, about 1 hour.

Once ice cream has hardened and cakes have cooled, you can begin to build your cake.

Place first layer down on a cake plate. Top cake with ice cream layer by turning wax papered ice cream upside down over cake and then peeling wax paper. Top ice cream with second layer of cake and press down lightly. Re-freeze cake until ice cream is well frozen again, about 20 minutes.

Ice entire cake with cool whip and refreeze until cool whip is set. Slice and serve.

Store leftovers in the freezer covered tightly with saran wrap for two weeks.


(Apologies for no pictures, I was too stressed about getting to Bill's parent's on time with a frozen rather than a melted ice cream cake!)

Pasta alla Philadelphia

I've had this recipe in my mission collection for years, but never tried to recreate it. Until I just couldn't pass up a good-looking batch of sweet Vidalia onions at Whole Foods and needed a good recipe for their flavor to shine. Ohhhh it must have been inspiration. This recipe was made for sweet Vidalia onions and sweet summer zucchini. Unfortunately, cooking with an entire block of Philadelphia cream cheese makes this dish a "sometimes food". Or probably it should.

I had Bill write out the instructions, since he's the master of this dish now.

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2-3 Vidalia onions, peeled and sliced
3-4 small zucchini, sliced
1-2 small yellow squash, sliced
1 pkg Philadelphia cream cheese, cut into cubes
season to taste
1/2-3/4 box penne pasta


Cook onions on high until they start to carmelize, with a sweet brown tint. Include a tablespoon of brown sugar if you don't have sweet Vidalia oinions or they aren't browning.

Add sliced veggies with a 1/4 cup water. Bring to a boil and reduce heat, continuing to cook/steam until desired softness, adding a little water if needed.

Season with garlic powder, oregeno, pepper and salt. A touch of chili powder and paprika if you're feeling spicey, which I allways do!

Stir in the cream cheese a chunk at a time untill all smooth. Buon appetito!

Layered Look

I love this idea of graded color layers. I need to find a great event to try out this idea. Luckily, I know there's a lot of baby showers coming in the next few months!

Good to Know: Lunchbox Safety

I heard a segment on the radio that said cases of food poisoning are on the rise because people are sending their children to school with items that are improperly prepared or refrigerated. What! So, I did some Googling and found a handy little checklist at the Home Food Safety website:

Download the original .pdf for yourself here.