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Four Cheese Beer Mac ‘n Cheese

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Four Cheese Beer Mac ‘n Cheese takes beer cheese to a new level. It’s rich and delicious and full of amazing flavor that is sure to please any crowd.

How’s the diet going?

Four Cheese Beer Mac 'n Cheese takes beer cheese to a new level. It's rich and delicious and full of amazing flavor that is sure to please any crowd.

Actually, I don’t really want to talk about boring diets and resolutions that will last 4.8173 minutes. Let’s fall off that wagon before we ever get on.  After all, isn’t beer cheese and macaroni a little more interesting?

Four Cheese Beer Mac 'n Cheese takes beer cheese to a new level. It's rich and delicious and full of amazing flavor that is sure to please any crowd.

I’m down with fresh starts and living right, but isn’t it all about balance?  Try to remember to have a little fun and treat yourself to something gooey and cheesy in between kale salads and trips to the gym.  You deserve it.

Four Cheese Beer Mac 'n Cheese
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Four Cheese Beer Mac ‘n Cheese

Ingredients

  • 6 ounces brie rind removed and cut into 1 inch pieces
  • 4 ounces smoked gouda shredded
  • 4 ounces cream cheese
  • 4 ounces parmesan shredded, plus another 2 - 4 ounces shredded for topping
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 2 tablespoons flour
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1 cup beer
  • 1/2 pound corkscrew pasta

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350
  2. Cook pasta according to package directions until al dente
  3. In a large Dutch oven melt the butter over medium-high heat
  4. Add flour and whisk until smooth and starts to turn light brown in color, 1 - 2 minutes
  5. Slowly whisk in milk
  6. Slowly whisk in beer
  7. Cook over medium high heat another couple of minutes until mixture is smooth and thickens
  8. Stir in all the cheese except the reserved parmesan and continue stirring and cooking until all the cheese melts
  9. Add pasta to the cheese mixture and stir until all the pasta is coated completely
  10. Transfer pasta and cheese sauce to a casserole dish coated with cooking spray
  11. Top with reserved parmesan and bake for 25 - 35 minutes until top is golden

NOTES:

  1. I used brie cheese in this recipe because I had a bit of luck and happened upon a sale of 2.2 pounds of brie for $14.99 and needed to use the leftovers from this baked brie appetizer.  Even I can only eat so much baked brie in one sitting.
  2. I think brie helps with a smooth texture, but feel free to leave it out and substitute cream cheese because brie can be pricey .
  3. If you don’t like smoked gouda just use the regular stuff.
  4. I used a Belgian style wit beer from Mother Earth Brewing

 

Four Cheese Beer Mac 'n Cheese

Four Cheese Beer Mac ‘n Cheese

Easy Weeknight Meals Recipe Roundup

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Happy Friday, friends!  I thought we would end the week with a special Easy Weeknight Meals Recipe Roundup.

 

What are we waiting for?  Let’s go!

 

Skirt Steak Skewers with Sofrito from No Spoon Necessary

Farfalle with Peas and Prosciutto from Ciao Chow Bambina

Shrimp Diane from Tasty Ever After

Garam Masala Chicken Wraps from Spiced

One Pot Chicken Enchilada Skillet from Life Made Sweeter

 

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White Wine and Garlic Shrimp from yours truly

 

Pasta e Fagioli from Hungry Healthy Happy

Mini Stuffed Turkey Meatloaves from The Beach House Kitchen

Chicken Cutlets with Mushroom Cream Sauce from Fashionable Foods

Cheesy Rice and Beans from Show Me The Yummy

 

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Mushroom Stroganoff from yours truly

 

Vegan Whole Wheat Pasta with Pesto Cream Sauce from Whisk and Shout

Easy and Fast Spaghetti with Vegan Bacon and Peas from Veganosity

BBQ Chicken Quesadilla from Pumpkin ‘n Spice

Roasted Butternut Squash & Beet Salad from My California Roots

Bacon and Spinach Bow Tie Pasta from Food Fashion and Fun

Almond Herb Crusted Salmon from Lou Lou Biscuit

Orange Chicken from Beyond The Chicken Coop

 

 

Easy Weeknight Meal Recipe Roundup

White Wine and Garlic Shrimp Angel Hair Pasta

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This post contains affiliate links.

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Hi friends!  Thank goodness we’re on the homestretch to the weekend!  Woo-hoo!   I don’t know about y’all, but I’m so ready.  Even though this was a short week it was still too long. 🙂

 

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So we’re keeping things short and easy and continuing our theme of easy weeknight meals.  It doesn’t get much easier than shrimp and pasta!

 

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We usually have this dish a few times a month because it’s so easy.  Throw in a salad or a vegetable and you’re good to go!  Actually, sometimes I just toss some fresh broccoli into a colander and pour the hot water – pasta and all – over it.  It steams up just perfect and you have a complete meal!

 

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Who doesn’t love an easy weeknight meal that can be put together with little effort?  Sometimes we plan and sometimes I just send Chris a text asking what he wants to have for dinner.  I have to admit that it’s much easier when we have planned ahead!  Sooooo……

I want to remind you about my friend Raquel’s Guide to Meal Planning.  Raquel is a blogger from My California Roots and she wrote an ebook Guide to Meal Planning.  She gave me a copy to review (and I’m totally going to put it to good use) and I’m super excited about it.

The guide includes:

  • Templates for meal planning
  • Recipe Keeper Spreadsheet (which is awesome and helpful!)
  • Meal Planning Toolkit
  • A mini book on tips for creating the best meal plans ever
  • Extra goodies!

The guide is just released this week and is only available until Friday.  I honestly love this Guide to Meal Planning and would totally recommend it even if it wasn’t published by my friend!  I am 100% confident that it will be a life-saver for anyone with a family to feed and for people who want to keep to a healthy diet – which is always easier when you have your meal plans in place so that you’re not hitting the drive-through on your way home from work because you didn’t plan.

I highly recommend you go check out Raquel’s Guide to Meal Planning.  To do that, click here: Guide to Meal Planning

 

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This post contains affiliate links.  I received a free copy of the Guide to Meal Planning to review and all opinions are my own.   The only additional compensation I will receive is if you click on the affiliate link and purchase the Guide to Meal Planning, I will receive a commission.  I only recommend products that I’ve tried, reviewed, and would totally (and do!) use myself.

White Wine and Garlic Shrimp Angel Hair Pasta

Mushroom Stroganoff

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This post contains affiliate links.  

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Happy Monday and Happy President’s Day, y’all!  Thank goodness for federal holidays and three day weekends!  How was your weekend?  Did you have a fantastic and romance-filled Valentine’s Day? We did!  We originally planned to go to our favorite one man show hole in the wall Ethiopian restaurant, but when it got so dang cold and we realized we had to go to Costco for dog food, we just decided to grab some scallops and a filet and stay home in front of the fireplace.

 

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Nothing says romance like yoga pants and a ratty old university sweatshirt.  It’s cold and I had to leave my house, otherwise it would have been flannel jammies.  Don’t judge me.

 

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Moving on.  Let’s talk about easy weeknight meals.  This is one that we originally made because we had a vegetarian guest for dinner and not only did it turn out to be amazingly delicious, but it’s super simple!  It takes about 40 minutes or so to make, but it doesn’t require a lot of attention, so you can get dinner started and do other things like change out of your work clothes and into some comfy flannel jammies or yoga pants, let the dogs out, get the kids stated on their homework or fix yourself a dang martini.  No judgments here and you deserve it!  I would totally start with the martini .

 

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Anyhoo, the point is that this is an easy option for a weeknight hassle-free dinner.  You can get your water going for your noodles while the mushroom sauce is doing it’s thing, toss together a salad, and Wham-BAM-Thank You, M’am!  Dinner is served.

 

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Keeping in the spirit of easy weeknight meals, do you plan out your meals for the week or just wing it? We do a bit of both here, but when we had little people in the house that wanted to know what’s for dinner the minute you walk in the door, it sure was a lot less stressful when we had planned out our meals for the week and had everything on hand and ready to go.

I want to tell you about my friend Raquel (not to be confused with Rachelle since that is me).  Raquel is a blogger from My California Roots and she wrote an ebook Guide to Meal Planning.  She gave me a copy to review (and I’m totally going to put it to good use) and I’m super excited about it.

The guide includes:

  • Templates for meal planning
  • Recipe Keeper Spreadsheet (which is awesome and helpful!)
  • Meal Planning Toolkit
  • A mini book on tips for creating the best meal plans ever
  • Extra goodies!

The guide is just released today and is only available for 5 days.  I honestly love this Guide to Meal Planning and would totally recommend it even if it wasn’t published by my friend!  I am 100% confident that it will be a life-saver for anyone with a family to feed and for people who want to keep to a healthy diet – which is always easier when you have your meal plans in place so that you’re not hitting the drive-through on your way home from work because you didn’t plan.

I highly recommend you go check out Raquel’s Guide to Meal Planning.  To do that, click here: Guide to Meal Planning

 

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Note:  If you want to make a vegan version, simply substitute vegan butter and vegan sour cream.

This post contains affiliate links.  I received a free copy of the product to review and all opinions are my own.   The only additional compensation I will receive is if you click on the affiliate link and purchase the Guide to Meal Planning, I will receive a commission.

Mushroom Stroganoff

Roasted Butternut Squash and Carrot Pasta

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What’s up, butternut?  Y’all, we are just a few weeks away from Halloween, so it seems like the time is right to have this little talk.

 

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Full Disclosure:  I’m totally terrified of spiders.  It’s real.  And I’m sure I’m not alone.  But they are EVERYWHERE with their creepy little giant sticky webs.  Totally grody.  I absolutely despise the nasty sticky webs.

 

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Chris built me some raised garden beds for my birthday on the sunny side of our house. Unfortunately, a spider moved in and started building webs that connect the neighbor’s tree to my tomato plants.  Not cool, creepy spider.  Not cool at all.

 

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Seriously, that dang spider built that web every single day.  And every single day I walked through it. Every. Single. Day.  No fail.  You would think I’d learn?  Remember? Nope.  And let me tell you that when I walk through a spider web it ain’t pretty.  There’s lots of screaming and cursing going on and it starts with OMG SPIDER! SPIDER!  And I get more exercise in 12.73 seconds than I do in a week.

 

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After that I’m less amused.  It goes more along the lines of Mother %$*# and lots of crying about the spider webs in my hair.  It also includes jumping around and begging Chris to make sure that there are no spiders in my hair or climbing up my back.  It’s a hot mess.  At least I’m a hot mess.

 

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So the other day I was minding my own business, listening to the 80’s station on satellite radio, and driving to work.  There it was.  That nasty spider appeared out of nowhere IN MY CAR!  It’s creepy little self was dangling on its web from the ceiling/roof in front of my horrified eyes.  It was getting lower and lower – closer and closer.  Obviously I was a danger to myself and others, so I had to pull over.  It wasn’t pretty.

 

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If you happened to be driving in Charlotte last week and saw a lunatic in a black suit and heels jump out of her car and run like the devil himself was chasing her….

 

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I don’t know anything about that.

 

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What I do know is that my spider fear has absolutely nothing to do with Roasted Butternut Squash and Carrot Pasta.  That should come as no surprise to you if you have been visiting this site for more than 5 minutes.

 

Happy Monday, y’all!

 

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Roasted Butternut Squash and Carrot Pasta

Ingredients

For the Butternut

  • 2 small butternut squash
  • 1-2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 4 tablespoons butter

For the Pasta and Sauce

  • 1 onion diced
  • 4-6 garlic cloves minced
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1 cup white wine
  • 1 tablespoon sage
  • 1/2 teaspoon thyme
  • 1/4 teaspoon allspice
  • 2 1/2 cups chicken stock - or vegetable stock
  • 2 cups butternut
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream
  • 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
  • salt and white pepper to taste
  • 4 carrots peeled and biased sliced into 1/4 inch pieces
  • Parsley and parmesan to garnish
  • 5 carrots peeled and sliced on the bias in 1 inch pieces
  • 1 pound Rotini or favorite pasta
  • parmesan and parsley to garnish optional

Instructions

For the Butternut

  1. Preheat oven to 425
  2. Cut butternut crosswise where skinny part meets fat part
  3. Slice off ends
  4. Halve lengthwise, remove seeds
  5. Coat with olive oil and place cut side down on parchment paper lined baking sheet
  6. Bake 45 minutes to 1 hour, depending on size
  7. Let cool to be able to touch, remove peel
  8. Heat butter in a non-stick skillet over medium high heat, cook until brown bits appear and it smells nutty and fragrant, about 3 minutes
  9. Transfer to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment
  10. Beat until combined, pour in browned butter and mix until smooth and combined

For the Pasta and Sauce

  1. Melt butter and olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat
  2. Add onions and cook 1-2 minutes, then add garlic and cook until fragrant and translucent
  3. Add wine, sage, thyme, allspice and cook until wine is reduced by half, about 2-3 minutes
  4. Add butternut mixture and chicken or vegetable stock, stir until well combined
  5. Add heavy cream, nutmeg, cinnamon, salt and white pepper and let cook and reduce until it's a thick sauce, 10-12 minutes
  6. Meanwhile, bring a pasta pot of water to boil
  7. Toss in a hand full of salt
  8. Add Pasta, stir
  9. Using the extra steaming basket, add carrots and cook until almost the texture you like, I did about 8 minutes
  10. Drain the carrots into a colandar, pull pasta basket out of the pot and drain, pour pasta water over the carrots
  11. Combine pasta, carrots, and sauce, garnish with parsley and parmesan
  12. Serve immediately

 

Brisket and Pulled Pork Stroganoff

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FULL DISCLOSURE: I wrote this post last night (Sunday) under extreme exhaustion (read below) and thought I had set it to publish this am.  Apparently, I had the marshmallow and brownie sweats and scheduled this post to publish on Tuesday instead of Monday.  I hope that this disclosure puts this everything into context and that I can get myself a pass on this transgression – additionally I hope I can learn how to read a calendar and get some sleep.  I’m glad we had this little talk.

 

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Happy Monday!  How was your weekend?  Mine was a very welcome reprieve because last week for me was a total buzzkill!

But last weekend was a blast because we had Lisa’s annual Birthday Meat Fest.  We smoked a brisket and and a pork butt and had a ton of leftovers, so when I found out at the last minute that we were having a couple of guests for dinner I decided to use it in a stroganoff.  It was delicious.

 

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That’s Zoe. One of our dinner guests. She is one of the coolest people I have ever met and quite the old soul.

 

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That’s Harmony.  Zoe’s sister.  She did her own makeup.  She also loves marshmallows, brownies, strawberries and cherries.  She’s 4.  And one hot mess.

 

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They loved stroganoff for dinner and made me bake all night long.  I’m exhausted.  I forget how much work a 4 year old is.  Jeesh.

 

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We did this.  I admit it. Candy canes, marshmallows, and strawberries.  Chocolate.  Can’t forget about that.  We were a hot mess.  We also made brownies.  I would like to sleep for the next 246 days, but oh yeah, I have to work.  Womp womp!

 

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It was a blast and I totally welcomed the fun.  It was almost like being a kid again.

 

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This is the face I’ll be making in the morning.

 

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And I’ll totally be having some marshmallow violence drama.

 

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Brisket and Pulled Pork Stroganoff

Ingredients

  • 3 cups prepared brisket and/or pulled pork
  • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 10 ounces sliced mushrooms
  • Salt and pepper
  • 1 onion diced
  • 2 tablespoons flour
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1/4 cup red wine
  • 1/3 cup beef stock
  • 1 clove garlic minced
  • 3 cups beef stock
  • 3/4 cup sour cream
  • 1 tablespoon Worhestershire sauce
  • 1 tablespoon thyme
  • 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
  • Prepared egg noodles

Instructions

  1. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat, add mushrooms, cook until just soft, salt and pepper, cook another minute and remove from pan, reserving in a bowl
  2. Coat onions in 2 tablespoons of flour
  3. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in same skillet, add flour coated onions and cook until soft
  4. Deglaze pan with wine and stock
  5. Add garlic
  6. Cook until reduced and thick
  7. Add thyme, salt and pepper to taste
  8. Add sour cream, remove from heat
  9. Toss with noodles and garnish with parsley

Adapted from Food & Wine