Jed's Noodles and Cheese

I've been spending a lot of time cooking this past week - it's been a good distraction from the stress of flat searching. One of the things I enjoy most about cooking are the defined stages of the process. First you've got a bunch of ingredients, then you start putting them together, and before long, you have a completed dish. Once it's eaten, it's done.

I made a couple things this week to use up the last bits of things in the fridge - there was a lot of varieties of milk that had been opened; some skim, some whole milk, a container of organic whole milk, some cream... about a liter all together. So, I decided to make Jed some mac and cheese. Alright, it wasn't macaroni, it was ziti. So, noodles and cheese.

I don't have precise measurements, but it went something like this:

1: Dump milk in saucepan, stir briefly
2: Turn the heat on low-medium.
3: Add a tablespoon of white wine vinegar (lemon juice would also work, might to need a bit more)
4: Give a couple quick stirs, then let sit. You should see some curdling right away, and then as the milk warms up it will start to separate even more. Once you've got pretty good separation between curds and whey, you can either pour this through a colander lined with cheesecloth and let sit, or do what I did, and fish the curds out with a slotted spoon. I reserved them in a bowl to the side, and then poured the whey into a container. One of my favorite uses for whey is in place of water when making bread.

okay, so now add a dash of salt to the curds - this will help pull a little more whey out of them, but they'll still be fairly wet, about the consistency of thick yoghurt.


At this point I put on a pot of water for the noodles.

Next I made up a bechamel sauce, then added grated cheddar and parmesan, a splash of the whey, and the curds. Remove from the heat, pour into a dish on the side.

Finally, I chopped up a couple of deli ham slices that were rattling around the fridge, minced up some leeks, and sauted that mixture in a little butter.  While that finishing, I drained the noodles, then added them to the ham and leeks, and then poured the cheese over the top. I stirred this in the pan. Add a dash of salt and lots of black pepper.

Jed was really into it, and it turned out so well that I made another batch for the missus and I for dinner.

Up next: recipes with actual measurements.