Recipe: Italian Macaroni and Cheese

A couple of weeks ago, I got together with my bestie Ally to hang out, talk wedding, and cook the most delicious macaroni and cheese ever. I've had a couple of requests to share the recipe, so I took pictures during the process and would like to share them here with y'all!

Ingredients:

-12 ounces wide egg noodles
-3 cups whipping cream
-1 1/2 cups whole milk
-1 tablespoon all purpose flour
-1/2 teaspoon salt
-1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
-2 cups (packed) grated fontina or cheddar
-3/4 cups (packed) grated mozzarella
-3/4 cups (packed) finely grated parmesan
-4 ounces ham, diced
-2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Butter a 13x9 inch glass baking dish, set aside.

Pan sear diced ham, set aside.

Cook noodles in salted water until tender, but firm.
Drain, but do not rinse.

In large bowl, whisk cream, milk, flour, salt, pepper. Stir
in 1 cup fontina, 1/2 cup parmesan, 1/2 cup mozzarella, ham, and parsley.
Add noodles, and toss to coat.

Transfer noodle mixture into baking dish. Top with remaining
cheese, and bake until sauce bubbles and cheese melts and begins
to brown, approximately 20 minutes.

Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

We also put together a simple salad,

And a fresh sliced French bread, paired with
a homemade garlic butter.

Voila, dinner is served!

Meow.

Group projects, soup, and banana bread.

This week, the group project for my Computer Science and Internet class began. We were assigned to groups yesterday, and our first task was to take a poll on what concept and theme we wanted to use for our podcast. We also had to supply our group members with our contact information and give them our availability for the next week and a half. These are not at all difficult to accomplish. There are five other people in my group, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little worried. I don’t even know who all of the members in my group are, because some of them have elected to create user id’s that don’t include their full name, or are made of parts of their names that I can’t quite put together.

It seems like the bulk of our group efforts will be done next week. If our group doesn’t decide on a group leader within the next few days our instructor is suppose to assign one, and it’s that person’s job to take all of the pieces everyone else creates and turn them into one cohesive podcast with an introduction and citations. Though I haven’t volunteered to be our group’s leader, I don’t think it would be terrible if I wound up with the job.

So that’s what’s going on in my life right now. Exciting, yeah? I am going to a hockey game on Saturday, so there’s that. Also, lunch with my bestie today was fantastic, as usual. I ended up spending the afternoon up at her house, and we made banana bread and drank coffee mixed with hot chocolate, nutmeg, and cinnamon. It was delicious.

Not pictured: delicious breadsticks.

Homemade banana bread.

Somehow, I ended up surrounded by animals. Not that I'm complaining.

Oh! I colored my hair black a couple of days ago, so there's also that.

Pinterest find: Sharpie® nail art

I have a slight addiction to Pinterest, but it's rare that I actually attempt to duplicate something I've seen pinned. However, I've decided to branch out a bit and try new things. A friend of mine pinned a tutorial for Sharpie® nail art, and I just had to give it a go.

It seemed pretty simple:
-Apply a base coat of your choice. Allow it to dry completely - this is very important.
-Use a sharpie marker to draw designs onto your nails. The tutorial I found is specifically for the gold and silver sharpies, but I used a regular black one and it didn't give me any issues.
-If you make a mistake, don't worry! You can take the sharpie off with rubbing alcohol and not ruin the underlying base coat.
-Allow the sharpie to dry, and apply a top coat to protect your nails.

I started off with clean, unpainted nails.

It just so happens that one of the things I got for Christmas is this amazing color of nail polish that I am in love with. It's Boy oh Boy by Jordana, and it's almost like a robin's egg blue.

Hello, gorgeous. I only wish the color showed up better, but I'm working with a cell phone camera and hence cannot be picky.

The dog in the background is Angel. She's sleeping, I promise, nothing to be alarmed about.

I applied my usual two coats, getting nail polish everywhere in the process. I cleaned up my messy fingers as best I could and waited (impatiently) for the polish to dry. I had no issues with this brand of polish - it applied easily, didn't bubble or separate, and the color is amazing.

I had the idea to try to make tiger-like stripes along the tips of my nails. In my attempt, I learned two things:
-I can't really make tiger-like stripes.
-Because I have to keep my nails so short, I don't have much room for doing an elaborate tip. It took up about 1/3 of my nail and just looked weird.

But never fear! There's that magical rubbing alcohol trick that will fix my problem!

Except not.

I don't know if it was my method of applying the alcohol (I tried a paper towel and a cotton ball), the fact that I used a regular sharpie instead of the special gold/silver ones, or just simply that my nail was being defiant. Either way, it didn't work. No issue, though. I simply painted another coat over, which didn't effect the color of the polish and covered up the weird stripes very easily.

Why yes, that is Parenthood paused in the background.

In the end, I opted for a more simple design: allover polka dots with a little bit of definition at the tips. Though my polka dotting skills may need work (you should see my left hand - seriously), the pin worked out well and applying a top coat did not effect my sharpie design.

Overall, I loved trying this out! Though waiting for the base coat to dry seemed to take forever, I'm glad I waited to ensure that I wouldn't be damaging the polish when I used the sharpie. Also, using the sharpie gave so much more control than trying to paint a design (even polka dots) using either a regular nail polish wand or even a polish pen. The best part? I get to move the original pin from my "Beauty" board over to my blossoming "Did it!" board!

Dear Melynda,

The point of this post: Once a week, I'll be dedicating a post to my friend and fellow blogger Melynda, who writes over at Despite All Logic. Go check her out - she's hilarious and pretty awesome.

Dear Melynda,

So I'm up at Angelica's this morning, minding my own business (aka passed out on the couch) when suddenly, I find myself under attack.

A wild Raia appeared out of nowhere, apparently deciding that it was time for me to wake up. Now, Raia has a very... let's say special way of waking people up. It involves jumping on you, walking up and down for awhile, and randomly assaulting you. Don't believe me? I have proof.

Raia, why are you trying to eat my hand?

Oh, good! She's laying down. I'll finally have some peace.

Spoke too soon. Hey, Raia, please stop trying to eat me. Please?

Are you comfy down there, Raia? Well, that's great. Please stop stepping on me, it hurts.

So that was my morning. Lovely, yes? Seriously, you should spend the night on Angelica's couch some time to become acquainted with Raia's morning ritual of harassment. No, really. You totally should.

I'll leave you with this:

<3,

Me. (and Raia.)