Macaroni Cheese (& Christmas lunch) !

Long time, no bloggy.. Happy New Year to you.. aaand I hope you had a lovely Christmas! Did you have some lovely food along the way? Please share with me via a comment at the end of this post, I'd love to hear all about it.

I cooked my boot-ay off... but prior to the kitchen marathon I had some exciting foodie experiences which I hope to share with you in the coming days and weeks. Recently my laptop died (on that really hot day we had which reached over 40 degree's celcius (ie. 104+ fahrenheit).. and it happened right before I was about to upload all of my holiday photo's. Had I uploaded them and subsequently deleted the pic's from my camera and phone..then I would have lost everything. Needless to say, I'm thankful that I didn't upload all of my pic's straight away. The photo's I'm posting today are from my phone (which has a pretty good camera) -but my daughter's laptop is slow and touchy *whinge*!

On the day we left for Sydney I did my foodie radio spot via telephone and I gave a verbal account of the impending Christmas menu... minus the other long weekend meals, but I'll share it all with you now. Here is what I prepared (And please excuse the lack of 'layout', I wrestled with Blogger for an hour or so trying to simply align and centre things & it kept ruining everything instead, over and over..and it was time consuming to fix it all up):

Friday - Dinner
Turkey-Beef Chow Mein
Mint Yoghurt
Jasmine Rice
Salted Lime Slaw
Dessert: Individual Eton Mess
Saturday - Lunch
Sandwich Platter
Potato Salad (meant for Christmas lunch, this was the surplus & 'sampler')
Fresh Guacamole & Crackers
Saturday - Dinner
Sumac Chicken Panzanella (Italian Bread Salad)
Spiced Pearl Couscous
Sweet Potato Smash
Dessert: Lemon Creme & Blueberry Tartlets
Sunday-Christmas Breakfast for the babies (& some for the adults)
Blueberry Pikelets
Christmas Lunch
Pork, Apple & Prune Filo Parcels
Country Mart Roast Chicken
Elegant Macaroni Cheese
Individual Apricot Stuffing pots
Favourite Potato Salad
Rocket, Pear, Parmesan & Pinenuts with Balsamic Dressing
American Marshmallow Salad
Pomegranate Christmas Drink in a jug (Plenty of ice cubes, fresh mint leaves, fresh pomegranate, peach iced tea + lemonade)
Dessert
Mini-Florentine's (with cherries, almonds & dark chocolate)
Brownie's & vanilla icecream
Monday - Lunch
Sausage rolls two ways: Pork, fennel & parmesan + Chorizo

Today I'll share with you the Mac & Cheese dish we had on Christmas day. It's from Gwyneth Paltrow's wonderful book 'Notes From My Kitchen Table'.. with my own little twists added. It wasn't as heavy as I thought a marscapone-laden dish might be and it was very popular as a leftover dish. Definitely gobbled up before we left Sydney. One of the babies enjoyed it mashed up and reheated too. I'm definitely keeping this one in my repertoire.

P.S. Christmas ended bitter-sweetly. Though we had a wonderful three days in the CBD of Sydney followed by three days with family, we learned my youngest sister, her American hubby and little bub are moving to America in a couple of months time (this is the sister we stayed with). It was a big shock (they just finished building a beautiful home).. and I'm so sad they're moving so far away. I hope that we still get to see them and that God would bless them & us.. by way of providing the means for us to travel overseas so we can visit them too. In the meantime, my prayer is that God would keep them safe and be with them as they embark on another big journey with so many 'unknowns' and new beginning's ahead of them.


Macaroni Cheese

*Macaroni (or Italian style maccheroni), 500grams
*Marscapone, 250g tub (Italian-style cream cheese)
*Parmesan cheese, 150grams
*Milk, 125ml's
*Panko breadcrumbs, 1 cup
*High quality pasta sauce, 500-600ml (eg. 'Select' brand Bolognese or 'Sacla' Cherry Tomato)
*Unsalted butter, good tablespoon
*Nutmeg, 1 pinch
*Salt & fresh ground black pepper + white pepper
*Oil spray (to lightly grease baking dish)
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-Preheat oven to 200 degree's celcius
-Boil the macaroni in salted water until barely aldente.. ie. a few minutes before you'd normally take it off the stove (it will cook a little more in the oven later)
-In a small saucepan, mix together the marscapone, two third of the parmesan cheese and nutmeg over a low heat, until all the mixture is combined and just melted
-Stir in milk, salt and pepper's (I always like to add white pepper even if there is black because I think it goes so well with cheese)
-Stir this cheese sauce through the cooked & drained macaroni
-Prepare an oven dish that will fit all of your macaroni, by spraying it lightly with oil, then pour in the pasta sauce and spread it evenly over the base
-Pour the cheesy macaroni over the top of the tomato sauce base, don't stir
-In a small bowl, combine the leftover parmesan cheese and panko crumbs
-Sprinkle crumbs over the macaroni cheese and dot the top with little pieces of unsalted butter
-Bake for 15 minutes or until the top looks golden in appearance
-Optional: Instead of making one large mac & cheese bowl, you can try doing individual portions in souffle ramekins
-Serve with a green salad and chicken (if you aren't vegetarian)


Christmas chickens resting for the same amount of time that it required to cook them (note the wings and knuckle-bits are missing as I've chopped them off to use in the Gordon Ramsay-style Christmas gravy. The chickens were rotisserie-style and another Gwyneth Paltrow recipe).
Yay! We all received two Christmas crackers each! They had nice 'proper' gifts in them too eg. a lipstick case, egg cup, ball point pen etc. We ate outdoors.. The big kitchen and dining room glass door's opened like shutters.. bringing the inside of the house outdoors onto the decking area. Each plate had a pork, apple and prune parcel with a separate dish for the generous portions of apricot stuffing. In the foreground you can see the Christmas drink (which was kind-of Jamie's 30 minute meal inspired... wooden-spoon stirrer and all).. there is also the marshmallow salad with the mac & cheese behind it + the Gordon Ramsay gravy.
You can see the carved chicken platter better from this angle (green tongs on top) + the rocket, pear, parmesan and pinenut salad. Our family's favourite potato salad is smack-bang in the middle in the blue Le Creuset bowl.
I'm so glad we had a Christmas drink in a pretty jug instead of plastic bottles of Coke on the table. Thanks Jamie O. for the inspiration.
My daughter takes the first scoop of Mac & cheese.


Christmas evening.. and it's Christmas lunch leftovers.
The prezzies we took along were in the candy-cane wrapping. I stayed up late the night before wrapping gifts in our hotel room while I watched a Gordon Ramsay Christmas special on Foxtel.
This fella was powered by electricity.. He had a light & air pump or something (like a jumping castle set-up)..and was more of a front-lawn ornament.. but cute in the family room.
One of the babies.. giving my girl (his cousin) a big, wet smoochy kiss.
And here's the other baby, again with his cousin.. watching Jungle Junction.
Don't mind if I do.