fontina

Obsessed With Cheese Mac and Cheese Recipe

One of my favorite quotes from Jessica’s cookbook refers to her cooking philosophy. “There is no exact science as to how I began cooking my own recipes—but that’s just it: I started,” she says. ” If you want to learn how to cook and how to put your own spins on dishes, like anything else you just have to START.”

Well said, Jessica.

Anyone that’s discovered the deliciousness that IS the blog How Sweet It Is is very familiar with it’s creator’s obsession with neon, 80’s pop culture trivia and that all things are better with browned butter, bacon, and sprinkles.

I featured Jessica on my first list of 5 Food Blogs I’m Following Now, and my respect and devotion hasn’t strayed. Known among her legions of fans as an inspiring creator for recipes, beauty and simply all things fun, Jessica Merchant can now add author to that list with the release of her first cookbook, Seriously Delish: 150 Recipes for People Who Totally Love Food.

Need she say more? I don’t think so. Her book pretty much says it all.

Jessica’s cookbook is jam-packed with family favorites and homages to her grandmother, nicknamed Mother Lovett, with many recipes featuring her inspiration and tutelage and where her love for cooking began—in the kitchen for Sunday dinners.

Most recipes in her book clock in at 20-45 minutes of prep time making time in the kitchen totally doable for newbie cooks to those that want to spend the time but simply don’t have it, including this Obesessed-With-Cheese Mac & Cheese. And you can enter to win a copy of Seriously Delish for your very own at the end of this post.

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Cheesy Chicken and Broccoli Whole Wheat Pasta

“I like the chicken. And the broccoli is pretty good. But I like the pasta the best.” Music to this mama’s ears, especially given I was delivering whole wheat pasta for dinner.

I’m not going to paint a picture that’s all rosy and rah-rah that says my family agrees with me when I say, “Yes! Let’s eat more healthy whole foods!”

The truth is, my family is a little reluctant when it comes to downing a whole bowl of whole wheat pasta. Case in point when my husband walked into the kitchen and saw this dish on the stove, and said, “Oh. * sad face * Whole wheat pasta, huh?”

Ahhh, not to fear, I have my wiley ways. And things can change pretty quickly around here, including his mind, when I put my mind to it.

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Stovetop Pesto Macaroni and Cheese with Corn and Sun-Dried Tomatoes

This week I’ve been visiting my old hood in Venice, California, where the air has been clear (surprise, no smog at the beach folks!), the sand and surf has beckoned every. single. day. and I’ve woken up each morning to the kiss of the ocean breeze coming my bedroom’s french doors.

I think I’ve finally hit my stride of relaxation and I’m lapping it up as much as I can.

Before I left for vacation I was asked to make you a summertime macaroni and cheese in honor of today being, drumroll please, National Macaroni and Cheese Day!

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Red Potato, Sausage and Rosemary Fontina Pizza and a Farm Tour

Farm Cred. Yep, I got it. I earned it. Farm credibility.

I dug up potatoes, I rode in a John Deere tractor. I tasted a potato chip made from a batch of potatoes that would later that day become a Classic Lay’s Potato Chip to be shipped to a store for happy snackers to munch on the very next day.

I thought that was you.

And I dreamed about ways to cook, bake and eat red potatoes. Like in a potato and sausage pizza.

The only thing I didn’t do on my trip to Black Gold Farms was leave a high school sweetheart broken hearted enough to write a good old country song about me. Maybe next time around.

Being a girl from Utah, you’d think that at some point during my years I’d have crossed the state line to Idaho to partake of potato digging there. I must admit, as my neighboring state, I’ve always thought potatoes were farmed pretty much exclusively in I-da-hoe.

Oh no. Not so my friends.

I discovered this truth when I was getting dirty in Missouri with a group of other friendly food bloggers, in the potato fields worked by the 4th generation, family-owned and operated Black Gold Farms.

Founded 85 years ago by Hallie Halverson and now run by his children and their children, Black Gold Farms is the largest supplier of potatoes to the largest potato chip company in the U.S., Lay’s Potato Chips.

Black Gold Farms also provide table-stock potatoes, the kind you see at the grocery store, the beautiful little red potatoes that are so amazing roasted or boiled and coated in butter.

Or sliced paper thin and layered on pizza with sausage and rosemary. That’s the real deal.

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Fontina Polenta and Easy Marinara

It sounded like a freight train running into our house. And I thought my dog was dying.

We’ve had a winter that has piled the snow higher in our neighborhood than nearly any other along the benches of the mountains where we live.

This winter has put a toll on the snow shovels, the snow tires and nearly everyone’s patience.

With each snowfall the load on our roof gets deeper. And heavier. And with a nearly flat rooftop the snow has nowhere to go. it just. stays. put.

Until it warms up. And then the avalanches begin. And that’s when my dog loses it.

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Ham and Cheese Baked Egg Cups

I’ve been a bit obsessed with food in cups. You could say its due to my uber-busy life right now that I’m looking for ways to maximize my family’s food/eating/nutrition schedule while keeping it nutritious and delicious but fast and portable. Those start-of-school-bells ring early!

I first discovered a version of these egg strata cups 3 years ago at a local bakery that is no more (damn economy), that I’d drop into after dropping off my daughter for pre-school.

I was just going in for a latte, but those breakfast cups would always draw me in, flirting from the deli case, batting their baked bread, cheese, eggey-ness until I would at the last minute tell the cashier, “I’ll have one of those too.”

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