Mac and Cheese Cups.

You can easily Google recipes for Mac and Cheese. There are regular, old fashioned, and crockpot recipes galore.  When I found the Mac and Cheese Cups, I knew that I had hit on something that I wanted to try.  These really were simple to put together. 

Of course, they are more time consuming than making the boxed variety, but the taste is so much better. 

I haven't convinced Jackson to love them, but he has a hard time changing to anything new.  Caroline and Scarlett love them.  

They pack really well from the freezer to the lunch box and the paper peels off of the cups better once they have cooled in the freezer or fridge.

 Mac and Cheese Cups

16 ozs. elbow macaroni

4 cups shredded cheese

salt & pepper to taste

1 cup milk

2 - 3 large eggs

Cook pasta according to package directions. 

Beat 2-3 eggs together with milk. 

Grate cheese.

Preheat oven to 400*. Line a muffin pan with cupcake liners (I needed 18), spray with cooking spray, and sprinkle the bottom of the cupcake liner with a layer of panko bread crumbs.

When the pasta is done, drain and return to pan. Mix in the cheese and the milk & egg mixture. Don't forget the salt & pepper. 

Spoon mixture into the prepared muffin pan. I filled the cupcake liners all the way up. Bake 20 minutes for full size muffin pan and 15 minutes for mini muffin pan. About 5 minutes before it is done sprinkle the top with some extra cheese.

You can always mix and match cheeses. I really wanted to add some pepper jack cheese, but my kids are wimps when it comes to spices. Clearly they were mixed up somewhere along the way.

Apple Butter

Apple Butter

Granny Smith Apples

Red Delicious Apples

wash, cut up, and fill your crockpot about half full with the combination of apples that you love. 

Mix

4 cups of sugar

2 tsps of ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp of cloves

1/4 tsp of salt

Pour over your apples and mix

Cook on high for one hour. Stir as often as you wish. 

Cut temperature to low and continue cooking for 9 to 11 hours.

Again, stir! It makes your house smell so good!

Uncover and cook for about an hour if your apple butter needs to thicken. 

Now, our apple butter was more chunky than I wanted so I poured it into my blender and blended for about 1 minute. This made it super smooth and easy to pour.

A food blog is born

We love to cook and create with our family.

 Ok, so it really stresses Ryan out to have someone else in the kitchen with him, but we all ignore that. What Ryan really loves is creating gourmet meals for us to enjoy.  Except for Chick*Fil*A and fried shrimp, why try to copy perfection, we only go out to eat to get more ideas (that's partially true).

We  need a place to put all those recipes that are in our heads. Really, how reliable is that?  I'm hoping to get it all on here and some older recipes from childhood.

 

I do all the baking and I mess up plenty of times. Ryan is more willing to take chances. Together we keep us all fed, except for Jackson. My Jack is picky and we occasionally cook just so he will eat (mac and cheese, pizza, spaghetti).

In full disclosure, we have a normal blog as well. That can be found here. Please consider following us on our regular blog and/or here. And please be patient as we get all of this up and running like we wish.