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.