Don't mess with a good thing.

I had a lot to say about this mac 'n' cheese. It's fabulous. There were some really intelligent things about this stuff vs. cafeteria macaroni, and all the reasons I like it, and a facsinating rant about how people shouldn't try to make classic lunchroom foods into 'gourmet' delicacies. There was a good joke about ladies in hairnets, too.

Then my computer alt-deleted my entire post. And now all of that is gone. I am filled with rage.

Since I'm too lazy to try and recreate all that brilliance, let me give you the bullet points instead.

• This is a 'light' recipe. One serving has 403 calories, 11 g fat, 6 g saturated fat, and 36 mg cholersterol. Pretty good, compared to the original.



• Since it's light, the sauce doesn't taste so... heavy. That pun was just as bad in the first draft.



• It's super easy to make. Only five ingredients, commonly found in most kitchens, and 20-25 minutes of prep time. Much of that is your basic pasta-cooking stuff. Boiling copious amounts of water takes a while.



• Kids will eat this. It tastes very normal. I promise.



• If you're making it as a side dish to chicken nuggets or something, I would half the recipe. It keeps well enough, but it does make LOTS.

I got this out of my mom's Healthy Cooking magazine, which is a quarterly off-shoot of Taste of Home magazine. However, they don't like you looking at the recipes from the magazine on the website, unless you're paying for them (like you would be if you bought the hard copy) so I can't link you directly to the source. I did throw the link in here, though, because it is a great resource if you're trying to cook for a family and be calorie-conscious at the same time.

Makeover Macaroni and Cheese (from Healthy Cooking magazine)

16 oz. elbow macaroni

2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour

2 cups fat-free (skim) milk

16 oz. reduced-fat (mine was called 2% milk) Velveeta cheese, cubed
1 cup (4 oz.) shredded sharp cheddar cheese, divided

1. Cook macaroni according to package directions. Meanwhile, in a large saucepan, combine flour and milk until smooth. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. Stir in processed cheese and 1/2 cup cheddar cheese until smooth. Drain macaroni; stir into cheese sauce.

2. Remove from the heat; sprinkle with remaining cheese. Cover and let stand for 5 minutes or until cheese is melted.

Somehow, my Fridays have a tendancy to turn out like this.

Not that this is a particularly tragic occurance in my life. Trust me, I have been in far, far more socially painful situations. The sort that I will not be telling my children about, not even at gunpoint.

In the grand scheme of things, being home alone on Friday night with a batch of chocolate peanut butter no-bake cookies is not so bad. Not by half. Especially when the cookies are as tasty as these happen to be.

My research (and by that I mean the myriad comments on a food blog far more trafficked than my own) tells me that one of the few challenges of no-bake cookies--because let's face it, these are the pastries of my people, Missourians, who sometimes don't know how to turn on their ovens--is getting the things to set properly. Boil too much and you end up with a chocolatey version of your morning oatmeal, boil too little and you end up scooping them off the wax paper with a spoon. I mostly have trouble with the latter, as no one has ever accused me of being too patient, if you know what I mean.



I borrowed this recipe from the wonderful browneyedbaker website, which is just littered with all sorts of easy-to-make goodies just like this. And though I had just a bit of trouble getting them to pull away from the paper, I blame my own ignorance, not the recipe.





Hop on over to her site if you'd like to try them. I sincerely recommend it. But bring a friend so you don't eat them all by yourself. =)



P.S. : I'm new to this and still discovering the ins and outs of the 'food photography' setting on my semi-cheap camera. So don't hate too much on my botched pictures.

I know, it's an unfortunate title.

But what can you do? Small amount of time + extreme pressure to be clever + name that people often confuse with a call for baked goods = this and other similarly tragic titles.


However, I consider making bad jokes part of my schtick, therefore I will post them across the top of my blog decrying my lack of cleverness like a flashing neon sign of some sort. Yes. I feel that is an effective way of describing my personality.


Another significant part of my personality (hello, bad transition) is what my father often calls the 'wandering soul'. It sounds like it has something to do with travel to foreign lands, falafel, and singing bob dylan songs on a park bench, but really it just means I have a strange and altogether inconvenient affinity for getting lost in an unfamiliar town.


As it turns out, life in Springfield is pretty rough for the wandering soul. This is because one can wander for quite some time and find absolutely nothing worth finding. Occasionally I'll get lucky and come across a group of old men playing classic rock tunes in a nondescript bar. But even this sort of cultural experience is unlikely.


Enter my two weeks in Iowa City. Now, as a non-believer, which I'm sure you are, you might ask, "But what is there to do in Iowa City?" And I don't blame you for being uncertain. I've been there myself. But now, with one week of residence here under my belt, I can confidently say, "There is a lot to do in Iowa City." Or, more accurately, "There is much more to do in Iowa City than there is in Springfield." Which is absolutely the truth.



Case in point. Today, my 'wandering senses', if you will, were tingling in a way that was not to be ignored. So as part of my project here at the camp, I set out walking through the downtown area, looking for something, although I wasn't yet sure what it was I was looking for. If you've ever looked for something without knowing what it was, you will know that it's a difficult task.




However, I did manage to stumble across my unknown destination in a relatively short amount of time, although it was a solid 5 or 6 blocks from my starting point and even farther from my rooms, which I had to get back to eventually. As a wanderer, I've learned to walk quickly. What I found was a blocked off street and a parking garage which housed a farmer's market bigger than any I've seen back home.




Suffice it to say that I was very excited.


The whole 'homegrown and locally operated' movement is big where I'm from, but somehow these sorts of operations are few and far between. This makes for very small farmer's markets. And not a lot of choices in zucchini. This little parking garage, however, had meats and vegetables and flowers and handmade, one-of-a-kind beaded jewelry. I saw fresh pies and cookies and little bibs with various cute fabric patterns and even a lady selling stained glass that had a photo of your choice in the middle. As in, a picture of my face could be mounted in my home in all of its stained-glass glory. It seemed somewhat blasphemous, what with the clear religious background of such a craft, but don't think I didn't consider it. If only for a moment.





I did manage to buy this fabulous cupcake (wedding cake white with an unreasonable amount of buttercream frosting piled on top) and a cup of iced chai, which was made all the better because the heat index today must be at least 100. At least. I commandeered a shady park bench on which to dine and listened to an adorable older couple playing classic blues nearby. They were quite good. I was entertained.



Moral of the story: I urge anyone with a farmer's market in their town to check it out, even if it's as lame as mine and fits in the small back parking lot of the local fitness center. It's probable that there's at least one person living nearby who doesn't suck at baking, or growing things, or immortalizing your face in colored glass. And even if everyone within a 50 mile radius of your home is without any talent whatsoever, the culture at these things is amazing, really. People talk to each other and bond over shared interests and hobbies in a way that would be possible almost nowhere else. It really is a community experience that some people (especially those living in more metropolitan areas) don't often get.


Plus, the cupcakes are sinfully good. Really. There should be a confession booth right next to this woman's stand.


That was also highly blasphemous. I should stop this before I do any more damage.

--Cait