Chobani Night: Veggie Mac & Cheese

Girls night! For our book club (that we don't read books for) we decided we would have a food theme of Greek yogurt. This has thrown us all in a loop trying to figure out what we can swap the yogurt in for, or for what recipes already call for the yogurt!

What we made tonight:

• Plain Chobani with some olive oil, salt and pepper and consumed with pita chips. 
• Plain Chobani with quartered grapes, peanuts, and a scoop of jelly and and a scoop of peanut butter. I ate it with wheat thins.
• Mango Chobani combined with guacamole and crushed almonds then topped with spicy corn relish served on wheat thins.

I decided on a veggie mac & cheese casserole. I've made my godmother's mac and cheese recipe before, so I figured this one wouldn't be too different. This recipe is adapted from the Chobani website and from this recipe for Confetti Mac & Cheese. It is a tangy mac and cheese that could be due to the cheeses and the yogurt. I don't know, I've never had Gruyère before. I added in the veggies to bulk up the recipe but also so we could pretend we ate something healthy.

If you are making this ahead of time (the day before), use lots of the milk and cheese as it will absorb into the noodles and not be as cheesy. The recipe below does not reflect the addition of more milk and cheese. If you were curious, I would add in an additional cup of cheese and probably a few splashes of milk to get to a creamy consistency. 

Melted butter, Add flour, It will clump.

Added Milk, Spices, and Cheese. It is thick!

Pre Broil

Nom!

Veggie Mac & Cheese Casserole
Makes 1 9x9 pan

3 cups pasta (I used ziti)
2 tbsp of butter
3-4 tbsp of flour
1 1/2 cup 1% milk
1 tsp ground mustard
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp black pepper
1 heaping cup of Gruyere cheese, shredded
1 heaping cup of mild white cheddar, shredded
1 6  oz container of plain Greek yogurt
Panko breadcrumbs
about 1 - 2 cups of frozen veg of your choice

Cook pasta according to box directions, but 1-2 minutes less than al dente.

Melt butter in frying pan or sauce pan. Add in flour and whisk. Slowly add in milk and whisk to remove clumps. (I don't have a whisk, I used a spatula and mashed the lumps outs). Once a smooth slightly thickened sauce add in ground mustard, garlic powder, and black pepper as well as the cheese.

Remove from heat. Stir in pasta, yogurt, and optional frozen veggies. Pour into 9x9 pan. If you are eating it that night, top with bread crumbs and pop under broiler for a few minutes to get the bread crumbs golden. If you are making this ahead, omit the breadcrumbs. When you are ready to heat the mac & cheese, top with the bread crumbs, cover with tin foil, and heat in 350F oven for 30 minutes or until hot. Take off foil and broil for a few minutes, until top is golden.

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Let the turkey have its day!! Happy Thanksgiving to all! I hope you spent it with your family and friends and had delicious things to eat.

This is my first cheesecake making experience. I'm quite certain my next cheesecake will go much smoother! For example, I will buy all 3 blocks of cream cheese at the same time instead of going out twice!

I purchased a springform pan months ago and have been waiting for a recipe that needs it. This recipe was a winner since I could use my food processor AND the springform pan. Here was the original recipe base and inspiration for the pumpkin cheesecake.

I omitted the cloves as I didn't have any, substituted the sour cream with plain Greek yogurt, reduce the white sugar from 1 1/2 cups to 1 cup, and used dark brown sugar instead of light since that is what I had.

I loved this crust and will be using this in the future for other pies and cheesecakes.

Lessons Learned

• Read all the directions. Seriously.
• Do research on cheesecake making - there are many techniques and only you can decide what will work best for you! Here some links: Prepared Pantry, Allrecipes
• Start with room temperature ingredients (take cream cheese out of the fridge for a minimum of 1 hour prior to using)
• The general cheesecake rule is 1 egg : 1 8oz package of cream cheese
• Beat the cream cheese for about 5 minutes so it is creamy, smooth, and light - otherwise you end up with lumpy cheesecake batter
• If you DO have lumpy cheesecake batter, whirl it through your food processor (or fine mesh sieve...if you have one)
• Adding flour makes it more cake like vs a more dense/creamy/rich/custard texture without it
• Reduced fat ingredients can prevent it from setting. Also - its cheesecake, don't worry about it being healthy
• It is done when the center (about 2 inches wide) is still jiggly but the rest of the cake is set (I have no idea if this was the case after the 1 1/2 hours was up, but it was lovely when I took it out of the oven at the end of the process)
• I put a pan of water underneath the cake to help with the moisture and humidity - ideally will also help reduce risk of cracking
• Preheat oven to 350F, put cake in, reduce heat to 250F. Cook 1 1/2 hours. Leave in oven for another 3 hours then see if it is close to room temp and then put into fridge - If you cook it like this, start early! Starting at 8 was not my most brilliant plan.
• Flip the base of the springform pan upside down - so the rim is underneath. This will allow you to run a knife between the cake and the bottom and easily slide it off. You also can use a circle cut out of parchment paper on the base as well.

  

  This edge should face down for easy of removal

Future Ideas and Inspiration

• Other cookies or crackers for the crust (biscotti, ginger snaps)
• Add different spices or nuts to the crust (ginger, walnuts, macadamia nuts)
• Making a plain cheesecake to top with a fruit compote (blueberries or strawberries!)
• Try it without the flour (texture test!)

Good luck, Happy Cheesecake Making/Eating, and Happy Thanksgiving!!

Add butter, brown sugar, & cinnamon

Press into pan

Fill pan with cheesecake, bake!

Delish!

Pumpkin Cheesecake

One 9" Cheesecake

Crust-
1 3/4 cups graham cracker crumbs (1 sleeve = 1 cup of crumbs)
3 tablespoons light brown sugar
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (heaping)

Filling-
3 (8oz) packages cream cheese
1 (15oz) can pumpkin puree
3 eggs
1/4 cup Greek yogurt
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon (heaping)
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg (heaping)
2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (heaping)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350F

Crust

• In food processor pulse the graham crackers. Once pulsed into crumbs add the rest of the ingredients and pulse until combined. Press crust into the bottom of a 9" springform pan.

Filling

• Beat cream cheese until smooth. 
• Add pumpkin, eggs, yogurt, sugar and spices. Blend until combined. 
• Add flour and vanilla, and beat until well combined. 
• Pour filling into prepared pan.  
• Put cheesecake in and turn down heat to 250F. Bake cheesecake 1 1/2 hours. Leave it in the oven for another 3 hours, try not to open the door. Put it in the fridge overnight, serve chilled. Top finished cheesecakes with whipped cream.

The cheesecake can be stored in the refrigerator up to 2 days.

Chicken & Veg soup

I'm on a soup kick if you hadn't noticed. I also adore veggie soups, the veggies add so much flavor to the chicken broth.

I find this to be a very filling soup and also can be assembled quickly. One of the changes in timing is the chicken. If you have left over, rotisserie, chicken in smaller bits... it shortens the time. I generally start with a frozen chicken breast, so that increases my cooking time.

Spices can be easily adjusted. I use 1 heaping tsp poultry seasoning and a bay leaf, as well as salt & pepper, but you can be specific with the thyme or rosemary too, I just don't...Sometimes I add in a tsp of oregano too.

Green beans, zucchini, broccoli, celery, carrots, cut them up!

 Cut veggies. Heat oil in a large pot. When hot add in carrots, celery, and kale stems. Let them soften for a few minutes. Add spices and chicken now.

 Add broth, green beans, zucchini, broccoli and cook for about 5 minutes.

 Add beans and kale when everything is cooked. These ingredients just need to heat through. The zucchini could be added in here if you want too.

Serve over pasta, rice, or as is!

Celery & Carrot Soup

I make soup and then end up with extra celery and carrots! I could eat them plain.. but no thanks. Instead I decided I'd find a new soup recipe to make up. Ta da!

Celery and Carrot Soup!

5 carrots, sliced them up, not peeled.
4 stalks of celery, sliced them up, includes leaf part
1/2 Onion/onion powder, 1 tsp
2 small cloves of garlic, or 1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp dried tarragon
1/2 tsp oregano
2 cups chicken/vegetable broth
1/2 cup white wine

Heat some oil in a pot. Add onions and garlic and cook for about 3-5 minutes. Add in celery and carrots, tarragon. I also added some oregano (a few shakes). Stir and let this start to soften for about 5-7 minutes. Add in broth and white wine (I used Riesling) and simmer for an additional 15 minutes.

I pureed a few ladles of the soup and then added it back in.

Serve hot!

This made enough for 2 servings.

I could imagine using less broth and making it into a thicker sauce and using it on pasta. Or with a nice turkey club sandwich on the side. Or maybe add some ginger too! I thought about adding in some cream, I've never made a cream based soup though so I didn't know how much to put in. I think it would have added a nice dimension to it.

Spinach Puffs

Light little cloud puffs with spinach and feta... the perfect combo. This recipe is similar to Greek spinach pie (Spanakopita) but without layering the filo dough. I didn't change much from the original recipe except that I used onion powder and omited the dill. I used a light cream wash instead of an egg wash.

This looked and tasted as good as I hoped. I might make these in mini muffin tins for some holiday appetizers!

This is also a recipe that can be adapted very easily. You could do fruit and cream filling, add meat (like bacon!), change the cheese, mini quiche, etc. I imagine the spinach filling would also be good in a fried ravioli... I'll keep you posted if I try any of these!

 Also, spray the muffin tin well because some stick to the bottom and are not possible to remove without squishing them.

Spinach and Feta

Mix with the rest of the ingredients

Once the egg was added

Keep this chilled, otherwise it sticks to the surface

Spray the tin, add the squares, add in the filling

Fold the corners into the center, used a light cream wash

 

Spinach Puffs
Makes 9 puffs

1 10 oz package of frozen chopped spinach, thawed
1/2 cup crumbled feta
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp minced garlic (1 big garlic clove)
salt & pepper
1 egg
1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed and rolled out lightly


Preheat oven to 400F. Spray muffin tin with non stick spray.

Using your hands, squeeze spinach until dry, forcing out as much water as possible to prevent soggy filling. Mix spinach and the rest of the ingredients in a bowl.

Roll out puff pastry and cut into 9 squares (for a regular muffin tin). Place a square in each muffin cup, pressing into bottom and up sides and leaving corners pointing up. Divide filling among cups. Fold corners into the center. DO AHEAD Spinach puffs can be assembled 3 hours ahead. Cover puffs and chill.

Brush with a little bit of egg/milk/cream to help golden up the puffs. Bake until pastry is golden brown and puffed, about 25 minutes. Let puffs cool in the pan for a few. Then flip the tray over and knocked them out. Serve warm or room temp.

Chicken and Rice with Ginger Soup

I was looking for a light soup for dinner tonight, I was inspired by the chicken and rice soup with ginger from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food. This makes a very light broth, but the ginger and cooking the chicken in it gives it flavor. I can't find the recipe online to link so I posted it below.

4 cups chicken broth
3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced,
1 1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and cut into matchsticks
1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/3 cup long grain white rice
3 oz baby spinach (3 cups)
salt & pepper

In medium pot bring broth, 2 cups water, garlic, and ginger to a simmer over medium heat. Add chicken and rice and simmer until chicken is cooked, about 10 minutes. Transfer chicken to a plate, Cover pot and simmer until rice is tender, 10 minutes. Remove from heat. Shred chicken and transfer to pot. Stir in spinach and season with salt & pepper.

Good looking recipe, however I didn't have chicken broth, real ginger, real garlic, or spinach...So here is my interpretation:

Chicken and Rice with Ginger Soup
Makes approx 2-3 servings

1) I made the rice separate.

2) Meanwhile, I heated 4 cups of water, 1 tsp garlic powder, 1/4 tsp ground ginger, salt, pepper, and 2 frozen chicken breasts over about med high heat in a large pot. Since it was frozen it took closer to 20 minutes. Once chicken was pretty much done I added in large cut carrots (1 carrot) and celery (1 stalk). 10 minutes in the pot is plenty of time for them to soften. Shred the chicken when it is all cooked. Add it all back in and some peas if you'd like. Serve over rice!

Great Smoky Mountain National Park & Mammoth Cave National Park

Off on another whirlwind adventure with Nate!! (Well, a few weeks ago)

Day 1
Drive to Great Smoky Mountain National Park in Gatlinburg, TN. Set up the tent at Elkmont Campground. Very nice campground but no showers.

First Views

We had dinner at Smoky Mountain Brewery, pizza was great! We also had the homemade pretzels which were warm and yummy. Nate enjoyed the sampler of their home brews.

After, we explored part of Gatlinburg. There are many touristy shops in the area as well as moonshine tasting.

Here are some first views of TN:

 

This area was very interesting in that the tourist attractions and hotels are all built up along the main entrance roads to the park. Very convenient for food but its a strangely commercialized area. There are also many of the same restaurants in Gatlinburg as well as Pigeon Forge.

Day 2, Monday
Cloudy morning. Hiked Laurel Falls, one of the more well known trails. It is right near the entrance, about 2 miles or so round trip. It started to pour right after we got back to the car.

 

We drove the Newfound Gap and around the highways as well as a section of Blue Ridge Parkway and one of the Foothills Parkway. We also took a turn off the main road and drove around some of the bases of the mountains. Very cool and so different from the White Mountain areas. The hills/mountains are so steep and sudden, the valleys between them are just a few feet across in some areas!

Trails off Newfound Gap... Hike to Maine anyone?!

 

There are actually mountains and views!

For breakfast we had pancakes at the Flapjack's Pancake Cabin, which after sampling almost all the breakfast places in the area, one of the best choices. For dinner we went to the Mellow Mushroom and had pizza again. They had all sorts of specialty and fancy pizzas to pick from.

We went to some more shops around Gatlinburg after and also purchased some moonshine! Nate liked the apple pie flavored one. We did the drive around the Roaring Fork Nature Auto Trail which was scary because its a one way steep winding paved/dirt road. It was dark by the time we were done and so it was probably not one of the better ideas... however, we survived.

There are booklets available at the start of the auto roads and trails that you can purchase for a dollar or something. Some areas you can get them at the visitor center, some are honor system.

Day 3, Tuesday
There be blue sky today!! We didn't want to pay for parking so we went to Pigeon Forge for breakfast. We ate at Smoky Mountain Pancake House.

We drove Newfound Gap Road and were able to stop and see things at the scenic outlooks.

One of the main attractions here is Clingman's Dome which is the highest point in the park! Because we did this a few times, we were able to see the differences as the clouds thickened and cleared out. We also went on one of the few days that it was warmer at Clingman's Dome than it was below the clouds!

The final ascent!

To Clingman's Dome!

Now that we can see the mountains, we notice there are tons of dead trees! Not just trees who have seasonally lost their leaves. Turns out there are two infestations currently at the park. The Hemlock Woolly Adelgid and the Balsam Woolly Adelgid which is mostly under control now. These are just two examples of why you see all the signs to not move or bring firewood from other places.


We did the section of Blue Ridge Parkway because we wanted to do the one way road of Heintooga Ridge Road around Balsam Mountain. On our way to this road, we pass a few areas such as Black Camp Gap and a picnic area. We also see Elk!! Elk were reintroduced to the park in 2001 and have been thriving in the area. The NPS has more information about the Elk here.

By this point, Nate is a certified expert driver (he also drove Mt. Washington Auto Road) and we took this road in first gear. It was about 2 hours of bumping along a scenic remote dirt road. There are a lot of hikes you can do along the road as well.

We took the Newfound Gap Road back to Pigeon Forge for dinner. We had an all you can eat family style meal at Mama's Farmhouse. This reminded me of buffet/dim sum. They used carts to bring you your food and clear your dishes but it was all you can eat. Food was tasty and there was plenty!


Day 4, Wednesday
We had breakfast at the Red Rooster Pancake House which was tasty, but was a regular breakfast place.

Ready for some traffic?? The tour book highly recommends the 11 mile drive around Cades Cove Loop Road but failed to mention the huge back up of traffic. This is a short historic drive that showcases several homesteads and churches. There are lots of pull offs and small hikes you can do.

There was a horse that looked like a cow... or a cow that looked like a horse! :P

We did the Abrams Fall's hike which is one of the more popular ones. This is a nice 5 mile round trip hike with lots of great views. It was fairly steep at some points, but very do able for those at varying levels of fitness.
















After we hopped back into the car and drove to Nashville! For dinner we went to Jack's BBQ. It was cafeteria style so we were a little hesitant, the place could use a face lift. But the line was out the door when we left, and the ribs came right off the bone.

 

Day 5, Thursday
Breakfast at Cracker Barrel, then we drove to Mammoth Cave National Park. This was a mixed bag... the area was pretty, however it didn't compare to the Smokey Mountains. There was also not many restaurants and we hadn't planned for that. There wasn't much to do other than the cave tours. If we could redo this, we would have stopped here first and only spent a few hours to do the tour and used our extra day (that we now had) at the Smokey Mountains.

However, this was a very nice area if you have small kids and/or are looking to explore the water aspect of the area, I think it would be worth it. There are several short hikes (less than a mile) that are fairly flat, the campground sites were big, clean, and easy to park at. The bathrooms were clean too. We didn't look into the water part, but I heard there were rafting and kayaking along the Green River type adventures available.

We took the Historic Tour at 3:00 on a Thursday. We had a group of about 10 adults which was great. We could go a little faster, ask questions easier, and our tour guide could tailor it. Our tour guide Rick was great, he had been doing it for about 25 years and was quite knowledgeable. We saw tour groups earlier that day with up to 75 people.

Green River

The Historic Tour was pretty cool. The cave (so far) is just under 400 miles long and all contained under the national park. The history of the park goes back hundreds of years. There were slaves who were in there to find saltpeter which is used in gun powder AND food preservation (yum!) during the War of 1812. They have been giving tours there since the 1830s. The geological stuff about the cave was interesting, but I need to learn a bit more about rocks before it makes enough sense to me!

Hiking!

White Nose Syndrome is a disease which is killing of thousands of bats. It is a recently discovered disease. According to Wikipedia: 

"The condition, named for a distinctive fungal growth around the muzzles and on the wings of hibernating bats, was first identified in a cave in Schoharie County, NY, USA, in February 2006. It has rapidly spread and as of spring 2010, the condition had been found in over 115 caves and mines ranging mostly throughout the Northeastern US and as far south as Alabama and west to Missouri and into four Canadian provinces."

We had to walk over Lysol covered mats to help kill the potential fungus on our shoes. They also wanted to talk to anyone who had been in a cave since 2005 for extra preventive measures. It is tough since they aren't sure how it spreads.

Lunch was Subway, dinner was El Mazatlan Restaurant. We didn't know what to expect here, but the food was decent. It reminded me of a Plaza Azteca. The portions were good, food was fast and hot, but it wasn't anything special, but it wasn't bad either.

Day 6, Friday
We stopped at the Jim Beam distillery for a quick look see, but they didn't have anything too different than what you can buy at other places. Then we continued on our marathon drive home.We stopped for dinner at Ed's Steakhouse. We were hungry... but it wasn't a very impressive meal. The bread was good. but the service was slow, the food was pricier, and not cooked very well. If you can wait, I would go somewhere else.

Verdict: We would have done Mammoth Caves first. We would have looked at the water adventure things available. We would have brought an extra car charger for my phone. We would have packed more snacks. Pack warmly, during the day it was around low to mid 50s and at night it... I have no idea how cold it got, but it was chilly!!

Thanks for Reading and Happy traveling!!