Photo.Craft.Book.

I’ve realized a lot of the recipes I prepare include cheese. This really shouldn’t be surprising as it’s one of my most favorite things on the planet. We’ve always got cheese in one or five different forms in the fridge. One of our usual staples was always grated cheddar – usually sharp cheddar because we’re all about loads of flavor.

A few months ago I read on Pioneer Woman to please grate your own cheese and don’t use the pregrated stuff from the grocery. I scoffed a little and wondered how much better could it really be? Cheese is pretty darn good as it is! I also had to consider the pain in the rear end that using a box grater is. Who wants to stand there and do that???

Well, enter the Barefoot Contessa – Ina Garten. On her show, she mentioned using the food processor to grate cheese as needed.

Well, this was something I could get behind! The lovely freshness of grating your own cheese mixed with the laziness of just pushing a button to accomplish it?  This has my name written all over it!  Here’s how it’s done:

First determine how much cheese you want to grate. If you need a specific amount, you can use a kitchen scale like this:

For my recipe I needed 8 ounces so I got out exactly what I needed.

Then, find the grater blade for the food processor. It will look like this:

Cut the cheese in chunks large enough to fit in the shoot but keep them as big as you can to make sure you are able to grate all the cheese. Shove it down the shoot and use the block press to smush it down to the blade while holding the pulse button, like this:

After about 15 seconds, you will end up with a lovely bowl of cheesy goodness:

YUMMY!!!  Now, we only buy block cheese which is WAY less expensive per pound than the pregrated stuff. And, Pioneer Woman was right. The texture is much more creamy and doesn’t have that “chalky” residue like pregrated stuff and the flavor is much more intense. I bet if you tried it you’ll never go back

Jennifer

This one should probably be called “Homemade Hamburger Helper” because that’s basically what it is. However, the taste of this creation is far and away better than anything you can get in a box so I’m sticking with the “Creamy Mac & Beef” name.  I didn’t make this recipe up but got it from Kraft.com but here it is, along with my revisions because you know I can’t just follow a recipe exactly:

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb ground beef
2 (14.5 oz) cans beef broth
1 cup water
8 oz elbow macaroni (2 cups)
1 (12 oz) can evaporated milk
1/4 cup Cheez-Whiz
8 oz Shredded Sharp Cheddar Cheese

Note, the original recipe called for only one can of beef broth but after about 4 minutes my noodles had absorbed all the liquid and it’s pretty hard to boil noodles if you ain’t got not liquid. I only had chicken stock so I added about one additional cup of that and it worked out fine but next time I’ll just start with 2 cans and make it easier on myself.

STEPS:

Preheat large sauté pan (or electric skillet) on medium-high 2–3 minutes.

Place ground beef in pan & cook 5–7 minutes, stirring to crumble meat until beef is brown and no pink remains.

Stir in broth, water, and macaroni

Bring to a boil

Cook 10–12 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until liquid is mostly absorbed and macaroni is soft and tender.

Stir evaporated milk into pasta and add salt & pepper to taste

Remove from heat (or turn heat off). Add grated cheese

Add Cheeze-Whiz

Stir until creamy

Note – it will look “soupy”. Let it set while you’re setting the dinner table – about 5 to 10 minutes and it will thicken up nicely until it looks like this:

Very easy, pretty simple dinner for a busy week night.  Hubby and I had left-overs for lunch the next day and it was even better than the night I cooked it.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, no – not all my recipes include Cheeze-Whiz. Actually only two things I cook have it in them, I just happened to post both of those recipes.

Jennifer