Mac & Cheese

There I was, hungry on a calm Saturday morning, thinking of a quick snack to fix. I rummaged my stuff and thought of doing a cheesy breakfast. MAC & CHEESE! Who doesn't love it?

Here's how I did it.




200 gm of elbow mac (Royal)
oil
1/3 cup of water
1/3 cup of evap milk
butter (depends on how much you'd like)
200 gm Magic cheese sauce (Del Monte)
Parmesan cheese
cheddar cheese (grated)

- I just did the typical stuff. I boiled water enough to cook the mac. I put in half a bottle cap of oil, just so they don't stick together.
- It took me roughly 8 minutes to cook the mac. After draining the water, under very low fire, I used the same pan and put the mac back in.
- I added the butter, milk, water. magic cheese, Parmesan cheese and cheddar cheese (to taste).
- Mix and cook for about 5 minutes.

This is my recipe. I just added a few stuff.

This makes 5-6 servings. (using a small bowl)

Secrets to share:

> The original recipe required 1/3 cup of fresh milk. Since I didn't have one handy, I researched. I had a can of evap milk stashed. I found that it's ok to substitute evap milk with fresh milk. You just have to use the ratio of 1 fresh milk:1/2 evap milk + 1/2 water. Originally, it's 1/3 cup of fresh milk. I honestly realized that I didn't know how to measure half of 1/3 and didn't want the recipe to be dry so I just used what I had. It turned out just fine.

> The original recipe required 140 gm of elbow mac. I had 200 gm in a pack. Instead of worrying about measuring, and since I used evap and milk instead of just fresh milk (which might make the recipe too "soupy"), I just used the mac all up.

> I actually used some of the cheese sauce yesterday on some sour and cream chips and boy! It was delish! The thing was, I guess I may have left just 3/4 of the sauce. That's why I improvised by adding cheddar cheese and Parmesan Cheese.

Now you know! :)

I'm not a pro but I'm trying my best to learn. ;)

All in all, it's a quick dish and really easy to make!!! It was so delish that I'm having a hard time believing it was easy.

You should try it out!

Tuna Cabonara

I love cream-based pasta dishes. I haven't really cooked one 'til now. Yup! This is the first, ever!

BEWARE! This dish is suitable for cream and cheese lovers.

By the way, yes... this is also my recipe- meaning I just thought of it. Haha!

Moving forward...

200 g of Spaghetti pasta
oil
salt
butter
1/2 cup of water
200 g instant Carbonara sauce (I used Del Monte)
195 g of button mushrooms (sliced-I used Jolly)
2 tsp of pepper (powdered)
2 tsp of dried basil
1 medium onion (minced)
garlic (crushed)
a can of plain tuna (unless you'd want it to be spicy)
Parmesan cheese (you can also use cheddar, whichever works for you)

Pasta:

- Boil a pot of water (enough for the pasta)
- Once it's boiling, put the pasta in and add a pinch of salt and oil (use the oil's bottle cap to measure)
- Mix the pasta every once in a while to make sure they don't stick together.

TIP: For you to know if the pasta is really cooked, carefully get a string of pasta and cut it in half, if there's a white dot in the middle, it means it's still raw.

Sauce:

- Melt the butter in the pan (depends on how much butter you'd want to use, I didn't use much for this recipe)
- Saute the garlic (I'm not a garlic lover so I crushed it for easier removal later)
- Mix the onions, mushrooms, tuna and pepper in.
- Let it simmer for 3 minutes.
- Before I added the Carbonara sauce, I removed the garlic. You may choose to mince it, instead of just crushing it, and to not remove it. I don't really like garlic. But again, it depends on how you want to do it.
- Add the cheese and water and be very patient in mixing the sauce. The cheese will melt and stick to the pan so you have to be very careful or it'll easily burn. Do this for about 3-4 minutes.

Just put it on a plate, take a shot of it and post a shoutout on your facebook page (haha, just kidding!).

This makes 4-5 servings.

It's really easy! I guess it's because I used instant sauce but what the heck! It tastes the same (even better!- I think) and it took me less than 10 minutes to make the sauce.

I didn't add cheese before eating since I used about 2 cups of Parmesan to the sauce. This dish is so creamy! The tuna and mushrooms added great texture. I originally thought of only using mushrooms but remembering what my boyfriend said about my Spicy Spaghetti dish, I added the tuna in for the "meat aspect"- whatchamacallit.

This dish costs less than 150 pesos and is great for small gatherings.

Spicy Italian Spaghetti

To start on the right food, I meant, foot, my boyfriend requested to have Spaghetti (his fave pasta dish) for breakfast. You see, I don't really know how to cook that's why I do my own recipe research and try the dishes on my own. This is actually the second time that I am cooking Spaghetti. The first one was a bit different than this one but according to the people who tried it out, it was also delish! (or maybe they were just being too kind to me ;D) I will most probably post my other Spaghetti dish in the future but for the meantime...

here it is!

200 g of Spaghetti pasta
oil
salt
butter
a cup of water
200 g instant Italian sauce (I used Del Monte)
3 tsp of pepper (powdered)
2 tsp of dried basil
chili flakes
1 medium onion (minced)
half a clove of garlic (crushed then minced)
a can of vienna sausages (I used Libby's, sliced into rings)
cheese

Pasta:

- Boil a pot of water (enough for the pasta)
- Once it's boiling, put the pasta in and add a pinch of salt and oil (use the oil's bottle cap to measure)
- Mix the pasta every once in a while to make sure they don't stick together.

TIP: For you to know if the pasta is really cooked, carefully get a string of pasta and cut it in half, if there's a white dot in the middle, it means it's still raw.

Sauce:

- Melt the butter in a pan (depends on how much butter you'd like)
- Fry the sausages in the butter.
- Then, put the garlic in.
- Once the garlic has a bit of brown on the edges (don't burn or toast them too much!), put the onions in.
- Once the onions are a bit transparent, add the chili flakes, pepper and dried basil in and let it simmer for about 3 minutes.
- Add the instant spaghetti sauce and add a cup of water into the mixture. Let it simmer.

Plate the pasta and put some sauce. Just put some cheese on top and VIOLA! You just made spicy Italian Spaghetti!

This recipe makes 4-5 servings.

This would perfectly match with garlic bread. It's great with either cheddar or Parmesan cheese. My boyfriend (my greatest critic) says it tastes classy and it's really delicious! He thought it just missed the ground beef but he actually ate 3 of the 4 servings. So I guess that's enough proof that it's worth the try. The amount of chili flakes and pepper depend on your taste. I'm not a Spaghetti lover so I thought of making this dish spicy to get rid of the boredom in the usual.

Try it out and let me know what you think about it.