French fries galore

My lunch break ended up being a little shorter than I would have liked, so Jim and I ended up eating In-N-Out. Yes, that meant that we had fries three days in a row. But they were all so different that I didn't mind. Of course, JIm ate a whole lot more than me, so he probably had a bigger problem with it than I did. What can I say about In-N-Out that I haven't yet? It's really good fast food and I love it.

After work, I ran into Trader Joe's to pick up the two things that I needed to make dinner: Fontina cheese and ham. The ham happened to be low sodium and 99% fat free, so I was okay with it. Plus ham is already cooked. Anyway, the checkout guy asked me what my plans were for tonight and I gestured to my purchases, saying it was dinner. He joked with me about eating like a mouse. Funny guy. He cracked a couple of other jokes too. At any rate, he was all into St. Paddy's day, with green sprayed on paint on his legs on top of the usual green necklaces, hat, and shirt. I've never seen him before, but I liked him. Cool guy.

Anyway, I had in mind to make a Giada pasta dish, Venetian Mac n' Cheese. I made it once before, but without ham, and with all of the cream and half and half in the fridge, this would use up a lot of it. I actually finished off all of the heavy cream, which was awesome. There was only a third of a cup left and I supplemented the rest of it with nonfat half and half. The dish was super easy to make, and for the sake of not having insane amounts of leftovers, I halved the recipe. The hardest part was figuring out how many cups equaled ounces (hopefully I did it right, since I calculated it to be 3 cups for 6 ounces based on the back of a pasta box serving size nutrition information label). All I did was boil the egg noodles for 5 minutes. While that happened, I shredded some fontina and leftover fresh mozzarella. The mozzarella wasn't looking all that great, but I read that as long as you cut off the iggy parts, the rest is fine. I tasted it after I cut it up and it seemed fine. My stomach didn't bother me, but then again, I didn't eat much of it. Jim's stomach is the taste test. It was supposed to be a cup of fontina, 3/8 cup of mozzarella, and 3/8 cup of parmesan, but the proportions ended up a little different for me, just because I wanted to use up the rest of the mozzarella (it wasn't going to last in the fridge for much longer). It was close enough, though, and it's not like Jim doesn't love mozzarella. I put Jim on whisking duty and he whisked together the cream, half and half, nonfat milk, salt, and pepper. That was a serious revision of the recipe, since Giada called for cream and whole milk. I cut out a whole lot of fat that way, and while I'm sure that affected the taste, Jim still liked it. Then I added the pasta, cheese, parsley, and two ounces of diced ham. Man that stuff stank. I swear it smelled like caca. I asked Jim if it was supposed to smell like that because I wasn't sure if it was any good. The mixture went into a Pam-ed baking dish and then into the 450 degree oven for 25 minutes or so.



While it baked, I got to work on Ina's blueberry crumb cake. I seem to be on a baking kick. I just opened up a new bag of flour less than a month ago and I think I may be halfway through it already. And my sugar is over halfway gone, too. Oh well. It's my hobby. And I had bought blueberries for that express purpose. Well, that and blueberry muffins. But that's another day. Back to the cake, I creamed together butter and sugar for 5 minutes in my Kitchen Aid stand mixer. While the Kitchen Aid worked for me, I sifted together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. I went back to the butter and sugar mixture, adding lemon zest, vanilla, and 2 room temperature eggs. I was a little concerned because it wasn't coming together. The butter was coating the sides and the eggs were being beaten in the center. This happened even after I scraped down the sides of the bowl with a spatula. Hoping things would work out, I added the sour cream and then it pulled together and turned into a gorgeously creamy batter. Then I started dumping flour in and mixed it until barely incorporated. I pulled it off the stand and folded in a cup of fresh blueberries. I had Jim pour it into a 9 inch springform pan while I made the streusel topping, which was a stick of melted butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and flour. It made a thick, sticky crumble that went all over the top of the blueberry batter. I baked it for just over 50 minutes at 350 and out it came, beautifully puffed and golden. I was quite surprised at how much it rose. I unclasped the springform pan way too early, so it fell a bit apart, but that just meant that I got a bit of a sample. I burned my tongue on it, but it seemed to be quite tasty. Definitely a breakfast coffee cake-type deal. Not too sweet, but a nice flavor overall, especially with the lemon zest. I can't wait to try it again tomorrow morning. I have a feeling Jim will love it, since the topping is super thick and almost at an even ration with the rest of the cake (he loves streusel).



The pasta seemed to turn out nicely once the topped browned and crisped up. It never quite gelled, but I expected that due to the non-fat ingredients. Jim ate the pasta with frozen peas (which he was very proud of for making) and a leftover biscuit.