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Not Your Mom's Mac & Cheese

9/9/2014

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So we asked you guys via our Facebook Page what were some of your guilty indulgences.  For most humans at some point in our lives we have all had certain foods that we ate because they just taste so damn good even though we know they are unhealthy. Mac and cheese definitely falls into that category.  There are two kinds of mac and cheese in my mind, the first being the kind that came out of the blue box with powdered cheese.  I'm pretty sure that cheese sauce had crack in it because it tasted so good, especially the spirals....but seriously, this is about one of the most processed foods you will find on a store shelf. Frankly, looking back I don't even know if I would call it food.  The second version is the homemade version which is loaded with butter, cream, and cheese, not to mention the vehicle to consume said fat mixture is an enriched white flour noodle.  Just in case that wasn't enough fat, I would usually throw some bacon into my version too.  

So the feat of "healthifying" this dish was going to be a tough one.  I knew that I wasn't going to try to make a powder that somehow magically turned into cheese.  So the other option was to try to recreate the base bechamel sauce that traditional mac and cheese is made from.  Your traditional bechamel is made from fat and flour and it usually incorporates onion. In the case of mac and cheese, you also add cheese to it.  I had heard of someone else making a cream sauce out of cauliflower before so I figured this would be the perfect time to try that out.  I've done a cauliflower puree before, so this was simply making that a little thinner to resemble a bechamel sauce instead of mashed potatoes.  

So I've now got a creamy sauce but then I had to somehow infuse that sauce with a cheese flavor.  Let me just start by saying actually cheese flavor is next to impossible to recreate but I feel this got close.  So a lot of cheeses have a nutty taste to them along with a an obvious saltiness.  Salt is the easy part, so for the nutty factor I used cashews that I had soaked in water for about 4 hours to soften them.  Another ingredient that our friend Lindsay over at The Paleo Paramedic told me about was Nutritional Yeast.  Nutritional yeast has a natural cheese like flavor.  It is also a great source for your essential B vitamins, which if you live in the vegetarian or vegan world can be the toughest vitamins to acquire through food sources.  So I added all of that to get it tasting like a cheese sauce...but that last elusive thing was giving it that cheese color. Tumeric to the rescue.  Not only is tumeric a superfood but is also turns anything it touches yellow.  

So we've got a blob of cheesey like goodness which is actually really healthy for you but do you just drench regular noodles or at best whole wheat noodles in this sauce and call it a day?  You certainly could and you would have a tasty dish...so if you want to stop right there, feel free.  But to ultra-healthify this dish, why not find another vegetable that would resemble elbow macaroni. My brain ran the gamut of veggies trying to think of something that would resemble the texture and size of elbow macaroni.  If you are following us or in the healthy eating community you have probably heard of Zoodles or noodles made out of zucchini.  Typically, most people use a spiralizer or mandolin to cut zucchini into either a spaghetti or egg noodle like shape.  I wasn't able to get that little curve in the noodle or make them hollow by just using a knife, but I cut zucchini into a 1/4" x 1/4" by 1" pieces so that it would resemble macaroni.  
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What would some homestyle mac and cheese be without a topping, right???  So to add that crunch to the top of this dish I just added some crushed almonds that I combined with some dried parsley and oregano.  
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Some possible modifications if you aren't looking for an ultra healthified mac and cheese option or you don't need to follow a vegan diet.  
  • Use the sauce with regular pasta noodles
  • Use a traditional cheese sauce with zoodles
  • Add 1/2 lb of cooked bacon bits
  • Add 1/2 lb of lobster or crab meat
  • Add 4 tbsp of melted grass fed butter to the cauliflower sauce

Ingredients

Cauliflower Cheese Sauce
  • 1 head of cauliflower, rough chopped, leaves removed
  • 2-3 cups water or stock
  • 4 cloves garlic
  • Pinch of red chili flakes (optional)
  • 1 cup raw cashews, soaked in water for at least 4 hours
  • 1/3 cup Nutritional Yeast
  • 2 tsp tumeric
  • 1/2 cup almond milk or coconut milk
  • Salt and pepper to taste
Zoodles
  • 4 medium zucchini, peeled and cut into 1/4" x 1/4" x 1" pieces
Topping
  • 1/4 cup finely chopped/crushed almonds
  • 2 tsp dried oregano
  • 1 tbsp dried parsley

Directions

  1. Soak your cashews in enough water to completely cover them.
  2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  3. In large saucepan or pot add the stock and cauliflower, bring to a boil, cover and let steam for 8-10 minutes until cauliflower is soft.  
  4. In a small skillet, cook garlic and red chili flakes in a little olive oil until garlic is softened but not brown.  
  5. Add cauliflower, cooked garlic, cashews, nutritional yeast, tumeric, almond milk, and about 1 cup of the remaining stock or water that you cooked the cauliflower in to a high powered blender or food processor.  Blend/process until you have a creamy yellow sauce.  Season with salt and pepper.
  6. In a large mixing bowl, mix zoodles and cheese sauce and stir to combine.  You may not need all of the cheese sauce, so start with roughly 1/2 - 2/3 and add more if needed.  This will depend on the size of your zucchinis.  
  7. Transfer mixture to a greased baking dish.  I used a 7" x 11" but depending on the size of your batch you could use anything from an 8" x 8" to 9" x 13".  
  8. Spread the topping mixture evenly over your dish.
  9. Bake for 1 hour.    
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Pork Tenderloin with Bacon, Fig, & Balsamic Sauce and Mushroom Risotto

11/11/2013

 
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Laura and I love entertaining, so we recently had another couple come over and tried out a new recipe.  One of the hardest things that we encounter when we entertain is being able to hang out with our guests and not spend the whole time in the kitchen over the stove.  So with these dishes I tried to pick something that I could prep ahead of time or throw in the oven and forget about it.

Pork Tenderloin

I prepped the two tenderloins by trimming off the fat and the silver skin.  It is very important to remove the silver skin, otherwise it will be super chewy and ruin the piece of meat.  Here is a link to show how to remove the silver skin,
http://www.weber.com/weber-nation/prep-school/food-prep/pork__1/preparing-pork-tenderloins.  Knowing that we were going to just roasting the tenderloin and not searing it I wanted make sure to brine it.  To create the brine I dissolved 1 cup of salt, 1 cup sugar, 2 tbsp. cracked peppercorns, 1 tsp garlic powder in roughly 4 cups of water.  To dissolve you will need to bring the mixture to a boil briefly.  Remove from heat, I had to cool it down fast so I added some ice to the mixture, otherwise you could let it stand for an hour or so.  You don’t want to add a hot brine on top of your meat.  I brined the tenderloin for 4 hours but you could do this the night ahead.  To cook, place in a 425 degree oven for 35 minutes.  Remove from the oven and let sit for 5 minutes before slicing.

Bacon, Fig, & Balsamic Sauce

Ingredients

  • 3 strips of bacon chopped into small pieces
  • 1/2 cup diced onions
  • 1 cup figs, cut in half or quartered depending on size
  • 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
  • 3/4 cup balsamic vinegar
  • 2 cups water or stock
  • 3 tbsp. butter
  • 2 tsp cornstarch

Directions

  1. Chop the bacon and add to a pan, cook until crispy.  Remove bacon once cooked and most of the fat leaving a little behind.
  2. Add 1 tbsp. of butter to pan and once it is melted added onion, cook for 2-3 minutes.  Then add figs and red pepper flakes.  Sautee for 6-8 minutes until onion is cooked though and soft.
  3. Add 1/2 cup  balsamic and reduce for 5 minutes, then add 2 cups of water and simmer for another 15 minutes on medium and reduce sauce.
  4. Melt the remaining 2 tbsp. of butter in microwave and mix in the cornstarch to the melted butter, then add to pan.  This will thicken up the sauce and make it more of a gravy consistency, may need to adjust thickness by adding more water to thin it out or simmering to thicken it up.
  5. Set aside until you pull the pork out of the oven.
  6. Once you pull the pork out rewarm and add the remaining 1/4 cup of balsamic.
  7. Sauce will be poured over the slice pork, and no I didn’t forget about the bacon crumbles.  If you haven’t eaten them all yet, after you pour the sauce over the pork top with bacon and chopped parsley.

Mushroom Risotto

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Ingredients

  • 2 cups Arborio rice
  • 6 cups stock – I used a chicken stock with mushrooms added to it.
  • 2 cups chopped bella mushrooms
  • 1 large onion chopped
  • 4-5 garlic cloves (We love garlic, feel free to tweak based on your taste)
  • 2 tsp dried oregano
  • 1 cup white wine – I used a chardonnay
  • 1 cup shredded parmigiana reggiano cheese
  • 1 cup chopped parsley

Directions

  1. Make your stock to warm up your stock, I chopped up mushrooms removing the stems and added the stems to the stock.  May not have added much flavor but it didn’t hurt.
  2. In a large pot, sauté onions and mushrooms for 10 minutes in olive oil.  After the first 5 minutes add the garlic and oregano.  Season with salt and pepper.
  3. Add rice and cook for 2 minutes, add 1 cup of wine and let simmer for another 2 minutes.
  4. Here is the key to making risotto and not just rice pilaf, DO NOT WALK AWAY FROM THE POT.  Risotto needs to be stirred constantly, your arm will get tired, if it doesn’t you aren’t doing it right. So every 2 minutes or so you should add another 3/4 cup of the warm stock to the rice mixture and stir constantly until all the liquid is absorbed.  Once the liquid is completely absorbed add another 3/4 cup and repeat for a total of 22 minutes, not 21, not 23, 22!  This should be cooked over a medium heat.
  5. So since I was trying to avoid sitting in front of the risotto for 22 minutes with my backs to my guests, I cooked it for 17 minutes and left it undercooked and set aside with a cover on.  This way the only time I needed to be in the kitchen is for the last 5 minutes once I pull the pork out of the oven.  I will say cooking it this way did leave the risotto a little thicker than I would have normally liked but I guess I could have just added a little more stock.  So as soon as you take the meat out, move your pot back to the burner and add some of your stock that you could have kept on low heat this whole time and finish the risotto.  After another 5 minutes of adding stock and stirring mix in most of the cheese and parsley.  Leave a little bit of each for a garnish on top.
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Dan and Laura Suedbeck have embraced an entrepreneurial lifestyle.  They are constantly challenging the status quo and challenge others to do so too.  They believe that you don't always have to change your situation, sometimes you just need to change the lens you view the world through.  Their focus is helping people  find purpose and passion with their lives all while getting healthy.   Click here to find out more about them.  

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