We're pleased--no, honored--to welcome our first ever guest blogger, Hedgejo. Who's Hedgejo, you ask? She's our nine-year-old neighbor, who announces herself when we open the door with a smile and a big "Hedgejo!" (it used to be "Hello," but the greeting has evolved over time).
Hedgejo is a friend and advocate of canines everywhere, a builder of model volcanoes and towering snowmen, a future badminton champion, and most importantly, probably the most respected mac and cheese connoisseur in the state of Georgia, if not the country. As far as we can tell, in her nine years on earth she has consumed more mac and cheese than almost anyone else. She tells us that if she had her way, she'd eat it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, and for her midnight snack. Needless to say, Chelsea and I were a little bit nervous to be cooking for such a respected expert. We pestered friends and colleagues for their favorite recipes, scoured the internet, and eventually followed the process Mark Bittman describes in How to Cook Everything, putting our own spin on it, of course.
Here's her review--I can't tell you how pleased we are: "Last night I had Mac and Cheese night with Chelsea, Jim, Audrey and Zadie. We watched two movies: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and Hotel for Dogs. The Mac and Cheese was really good and [so were] the carrots. But first they had to cook the Mac and cheese and carrots, so I played with Audrey and Zadie. Mac and cheese night was fun and yummy!"
There you have it, "Mac and cheese night was fun and yummy!" The neighborhood equivalent of Michelin star. Here's how we did it. Four cheeses went into this dish: gruyere, sharp cheddar (which Chelsea and I both concluded wasn't all that sharp), fontina, and parmesan. After grating these cheeses, we added them to a standard roux in our le creuset and then mixed in a pound or so of el dente pasta shells, topping it all off with bread crumbs before putting the pot in the oven at 400 for 15 minutes.
Chelsea also prepared a side dish of carrots in a honey-ginger glaze, which, as you've already heard, was also "yummy." We had a blast!
2 comments:
Hey, you scored by putting honey-ginger on the carrots. The mac and cheese sounds mostly traditional, except for the gruyere.I love the crunchy breadcrumbs after its baked.
Is Hedgejo polish?
Hedgejo the person is originally from China; Hedgejo the greeting is entirely made up!
I think we may be going on a mac and cheese kick -- following our neighbor's example, Jim had the leftovers for breakfast and lunch yesterday. I really want to make lobster mac and cheese too... Jim can't eat shellfish, so we'd probably make half lobster and half pancetta.
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