Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Get Cooking

Get Cooking: 150 Simple Recipes to Get You Started in the KitchenRecently, I have been cooking out of Mollie Katzen's new book Get Cooking: 150 Simple Recipes to Get You Started in the Kitchen.  My mother gave me the book so I could continue to learn to cook as part of homeschooling this year.

 Last night I made a peach and nectarine crisp. It was very good!  The original recipe called for apples but Ms Katzen suggests using other fruit as well.

The fruit we used was from the farmer's market.  We bought a huge basket of nectarines.  Because they were seconds (meaning a little rotten, but still great for pies) they were only a dollar for the whole basket!

On top of the cut-up fruit, I put a sort of crust-like topping made out of oats and other things mixed with butter.

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About a week ago I made macaroni and cheese, also from this book.  I used two cheeses for the sauce, a Parmesan and a Cheddar.  I grated them both on a box grater until I had enough for the dish.



The sauce was a roux, made by combining flour, butter, mustard, pepper, milk, and later, cheese over slow heat.



At the end, I added steamed broccoli to the noodles...



then topped it with breadcrumbs...



and baked it for 20 minutes.

I had a lot of fun making--and eating--both the macaroni and cheese and the peach/nectarine crisp.  They were delicious!

3 comments:

  1. Good for you!! I love Mollie Katzen's cookbooks. Simple directions that deliver a wonderful meal! And the drawings are fun, too! I hope you will continue to explore cooking.

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  2. That is great! What an inspiration! :) My boys are still on the Pretend Soup and Salad People Mollie Katzen cookbooks but I hope to have them follow in your footsteps when they are older. Thank you for sharing!

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