We are big fans of food writer Fiona Beckett, so when we saw on her blog that she was having The Ultimate Macaroni Cheese Challenge, we knew we had to enter. I guess it’s all of the Spanish food we’ve been making and thinking about lately, so independently we both came up with a similar concept: a dish using Manchego cheese, chorizo and piquillo peppers. Great minds, etc. etc. etc.

Manchego definitely gives a slightly different flavor than your regular fluorescent orange mac ‘n’ cheese sauce, it’s a bit more subtle and a lot deeper. The chorizo’s oil and paprika adds a nice kick, and the sweet piquillo peppers round things out quite well. Adding in some extra paprika (pimenton is the Spanish kind) gives some nice color and intensifies the flavor from the chorizo. This is a great version of mac ‘n’ cheese that delivers the cheesy, homey comfort you want from the dish, but with some slightly more adult and complex flavors. Enjoy!

Manchego and Chorizo Mac and Cheese
olive oil
4 ounces Spanish chorizo, thinly diced
8 green onions, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
6 piquillo peppers or roasted red peppers
16 ounces dried macaroni pasta
6 cups grated Manchego cheese
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
4 cups whole or skim milk
1/4 teaspoon hot paprika
1/2 teaspoon dulce paprika
salt and freshly ground pepper
1/4 baguette, thinly sliced

Heat up some olive oil in a frying pan and saute the sliced chorizo. Remove the chorizo and saute the green onions and garlic in the chorizo oil. Cook the macaroni in boiling salted water until the pasta is just tender. Once it is cooked, drain the pasta and then add the chorizo, green onions, garlic, and the piquillo peppers and mix everything together.

To make the cheese sauce, melt 4 tablespoons of butter in a large saucepan over medium-low heat. Whisk in the flour and let the roux cook for a few minutes while continuing to whisk it together. Slowly whisk in the milk until the sauce thickens. Season the sauce base with the paprika and let it gently simmer, stirring often, for 15 minutes. Remove the sauce from the heat and stir in 4 cups of Manchego cheese. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Pour the cheese sauce over the macaroni and mix everything together. Add a bit of olive oil to a frying pan. Once it has heated up, place the thinly sliced baguette slices in the pan and gently fry them until they are crisp and lightly golden. Remove the bread from the pan and let them drain on some kitchen roll.

Grab a large baking dish greased with olive oil spray and pour half of the macaroni mixture into the bottom. Sprinkle 1 cup of Manchego cheese over the top, and then add the rest of the macaroni. Top with the rest of the Manchego and arrange the crouton slices over the top.

Bake the macaroni and cheese in a 350 F degree oven until the croutons are browned and the cheesy top is bubbling. You can put the broiler on for the last few minutes to really crisp up the top.

The simple things can often be some of the best. When in Catalunya, the part of Spain that holds Barcelona, this holds true for the well-known pan con tomate (or pa amb tomaquet in Catalan). It’s simply toasted bread rubbed with a clove of raw garlic and a tomato, then salted — and it’s the perfect complement to tapas and most meals. It can often be topped with cured meats or cheese, but it’s also wonderful just on its own.

Jose Andres, a Spanish chef with outposts in DC and LA, has offered what he calls “the modern way” to make pan con tomate. Instead of rubbing the tomato directly on the bread, you pass it through a grater, then mix the resulting liquid with salt, pepper and some olive oil, and spoon it onto the toast. I think one really great aspect of this method is that it’s not totally dependent on having the most perfectly ripe tomatoes. Because you’re pushing them through the grater, they liquefy a bit and deliver quite a bit more taste than if you rubbed an out of season Roma tomato on toast. Still, it’s worth finding some decent tomatoes so you get a good flavor. This recipe makes enough tapas for 4 people at 37 cents per serving.

Pan Con Tomate, The Modern Way, from Jose Andres’ Tapas: A Taste of Spain in America
2 large ripe tomatoes
4 slices rustic sourdough bread, toasted
extra virgin olive oil to taste
salt to taste

Cut the tomatoes in half. Place a fine grater over a large mixing bowl and rub the open face of the tomatoes onto the grater until all the flesh is grated. Discard the tomato skins. Add a liberal amount of olive oil to the grated tomatoes and season with salt to taste. Mix everything together.

Spoon the tomato-olive oil mixture over the toast to serve. This tomato bread goes really well with a few slices of Manchego cheese.

You can never have enough potatoes at Thanksgiving dinner. There’s the classic mashed, and all the variations upon them, roasted, gratin, scalloped — even french fries would be good. Therefore we’re bringing you three different potato recipes today, so if you’re either picky, or just a glutton for potatoes, you should be covered.

First up, we’ve got this nice scalloped potatoes and fennel dish. I tend to prefer mashed potatoes with my turkey (well, with my gravy, really, if I’m being honest), but I do enjoy a good scalloped dish or gratin as well. This one was pretty easy to make (especially if you have a mandoline), and the addition of the fennel was a nice accent. But, in the end, it was good, tasty, creamy potatoes, with just the right amount of browning on top. This potato recipe makes enough for 12 side dishes at 70 cents per serving.

Scalloped Potatoes and Fennel, adapted from Bon Appetit, November 2008
6 garlic cloves, peeled, smashed
2-inch-long fresh rosemary sprigs
2 1/4 cups heavy whipping cream
2 1/2 teaspoons coarse sea salt
3/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
2 large fresh fennel bulbs with fronds
3 1/2 pounds medium russet potatoes
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

Preheat the oven to 350¬?F and place the rack in the center of the oven. Grab a large glass baking dish, and place the smashed garlic cloves and rosemary springs on the bottom of the dish. Combine the cream, coarse salt, and white pepper in a separate large bowl.

Prepare the fennel bulbs by cutting off the stalks and fronds, but reserve the fennel fronds for a finishing garnish. Cut the fennel bulbs in half and using a mandoline, thinly slice the fennel bulbs. If you don’t have a mandoline, you can slice them as thin as possible using a knife. Layer half of the fennel slices evenly atop the garlic and rosemary in the baking dish.

Peel the potatoes and place them immediately in a large bowl of cold water so they don’t turn brown. Thinly slice the potatoes into rounds with a mandoline, or carefully cut them with a knife. Immediately add the sliced potatoes to the bowl with the cream and make sure that all of the potatoes are fully coated with the mixture.

Arrange half of the potato slices evenly over the fennel in the baking dish, and reserve the leftover cream in the bowl. Repeat this layering process with the remaining fennel slices and then the potato slices. Pour the remaining cream mixture over the layers of fennel and potato in the baking dish.

Cut up the butter and arrange the cubes on top of the dish. Cover the baking dish with foil, making sure that the foil does not touch the potatoes.

Bake the scalloped potatoes under the foil until they are almost tender when pierced with a knife, around 1 hour and 15 minutes. Then increase the oven temperature to 425¬?F. Remove the foil and bake the dish uncovered until the potatoes are tender and the top is a deep golden brown, about 20 minutes longer.

Remove the potatoes from the oven and let them rest for 15 minutes. Sprinkle the top with the reserved fennel fronds and serve at your Thanksgiving dinner.

Thanksgiving is next week, and we have you covered: we’ve cooked up a bunch of great recipes we’ll be sharing with you over the next several days so you’re ready for your big meal. First up: turkey!

I’ve been known to spend hours making turkey. My favorite recipe is to smoke a turkey (which takes about 8-10 hours), but only after soaking it in brine for 3-5 days. This recipe, though, is the other end of the spectrum: brine it for a day, then cook it in the oven for a few hours. It’s pretty easy — usually the hardest part is finding a container big enough to brine the turkey in — and turns out a moist, delicious bird that’s almost as good as the smoked ones I used to make. This recipe makes enough to brine a turkey that feeds 12 at 49 cents per serving, plus the cost of your turkey.

Apple Cider-Brined Turkey, adapted from Cooking Light, November 2004
For the Brine:
8 cups apple cider
2/3 cup kosher salt
2/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon black peppercorns, coarsely crushed
1 tablespoon whole allspice, coarsely crushed
8 1/8-inch thick slices peeled fresh ginger
6 whole cloves
2 bay leaves

For the Turkey:
1 12-pound fresh or frozen turkey, thawed
2 oranges, quartered
6 cups ice
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and divided
salt and freshly ground black pepper

To prepare the brine, combine all of the ingredients for the brine in a large saucepan and bring it to a boil. Cook the brine for 5 minutes or until the sugar and salt fully dissolve. Let the brine cool completely.

Remove the giblets and neck from the cavity of the turkey, and rinse the turkey with cold water and then pat it dry. Trim off any excess fat and stuff the body cavity with the orange quarters. Place the turkey inside a double layer of large oven bags, or trash bags if you don’t have any, and put the bagged turkey inside a large stockpot.

Add the cooled brine with the ice to the turkey in the bag. Tie the bag with some twist ties, and let the turkey brine in the fridge for 12 to 24 hours. During the brining process, be sure to turn the turkey occasionally so all parts of the bird get to soak up the brine.

When you are ready to cook the turkey, preheat the oven to 500¬?.

Remove the turkey from the bags, and discard the brine, orange quarters, and bags. Rinse the turkey with cold water and pat it dry. Lift the wing tips up and over the back, and tuck them under the turkey. Tie the legs together with kitchen string, or leave the plastic tag on the legs so you can easily handle the turkey.

Arrange the turkey, breast side down, on the roasting rack. Brush the back of the turkey with 1 tablespoon of melted butter, and season generously with salt and pepper.

Bake the turkey at 500¬? for 30 minutes. After that initial cooking, reduce oven temperature to 350¬?.

Remove the turkey from the oven. Carefully turn the turkey over using tongs so it is breast side up. Brush the turkey breast with 1 tablespoon of butter; and season with more salt and pepper.

Bake the turkey at 350¬? for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a thermometer inserted into the meaty part of thigh registers at 170¬?. When taking the temperature of the turkey, make sure to not touch the bone as that can throw off the reading. In case the legs of the turkey start to brown too fast, place some foil over the legs to shield them from the heat.

Once the turkey is cooked, remove the bird from oven and let it stand for 20 minutes before serving as the centerpiece of your Thanksgiving dinner.

Other suggested Thanksgiving recipes:
Back to Basics: Roast Chicken

I read the book Heat: An Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany, by Bill Buford, recently. Buford is a writer who began working in the kitchen of Mario Batali’s restaurant Babbo in New York City, and ended up staying for a couple of years while going on some other culinary adventures in Italy. I really enjoyed it and definitely recommend it.

The main effect the book had on me was to create an intense craving for pasta — real pasta, with real sauce, not some oversalted red concoction out of a jar. Buford spends several pages talking about his experiences working the pasta station on the line at Babbo, and it put me over the top when he went into great detail about how they get the ingredients to come together into a glorious combination to make their awesome sauces. So I looked over Babbo’s web site, where they kindly post lots of recipes, but I ended up with this recipe, out of the Italian Two Easy: Simple Recipes from the London River Cafe book, which itself is full of great dishes that simply capture the elegance and beauty of Italian cooking.

The end result was a decadent, creamy dish with great flavor from the pancetta and tomatoes that, while forcing me to do a few extra sit-ups, definitely satisfied my craving. This pasta recipe makes enough for 4 meals at $2.06 per serving.

Pappardelle with Tomato and Pancetta, adapted from Italian Two Easy: Simple Recipes from the London River Cafe
6 plum tomatoes
5 ounces pancetta slices
2 dried hot chiles
3 1/2 ounces freshly grated Parmesan cheese
4 to 5 tablespoons unsalted butter
2/3 cup heavy cream
16 ounces egg pappardelle
salt and pepper

To easily peel the tomatoes, make a slit in the side of each tomato, and place them in a large bowl and cover with boiling water. Leave the tomatoes for 30 seconds or so, and then remove them into cold water. Once the tomatoes are cool enough to touch, peel them and remove the seeds and roughly chop the flesh. Cut the pancetta into 3/4-inch slices and crumble the chiles.

Melt the butter in a thick-bottomed pan and add the pancetta and chile. Gently cook them until the pancetta begins to colour. Add the tomatoes, and season with salt and pepper. Let the tomatoes gently cook for 10 minutes, and then add the cream and cook for a further 10 minutes.

Cook the pappardelle in boiling salted water according to the package instructions, or until al dente. Drain the pasta and add it to the sauce. Stir in half of the grated Parmesan while tossing the pasta to make sure each piece is nicely coated in sauce.

Serve the dish with a little extra Parmesan on top.

We both really like middle eastern food, and one of our favorite cookbooks is from the restaurant Moro in London, which melds together Middle Eastern, Spanish and Moroccan food wonderfully. As we’ve been trying to eat more vegetables lately, I searched through it for some good, moreish veggie recipes, and found one for Turlu Turlu, a Turkish dish the book says is similar to ratatouille. I’d agree that it’s like ratatouille, but a bit more exciting and flavorful. I like the French version well enough, but too often it becomes this mush of mostly indistinguishable flavors. This one managed to come together a lot more nicely, and the allspice and coriander make it a lot more interesting. This recipe for Turlu Turlu makes enough for 6 portions at $1.42 per serving.

Turlu Turlu, adapted from Moro: The Cookbook
2 zucchini, trimmed and cut into 1 inch disks
1 eggplant, halved lengthways and each half cut into 4 wedges lengthways
1 medium onion, roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves
2 green peppers, halved, deseeded and thickly sliced
3 medium carrots, peeled, halved lengthways and each half cut into 3 lengthways
1 medium turnip, cut into 1 inch wedges
2 medium potatoes, cut into 1 inch cubes
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
2 teaspoons coriander seeds
1 can chickpeas
2 14-ounce cans of whole tomatoes, drained and chopped
4 tablespoons olive oil
6 garlic cloves, finely sliced
1 small bunch each of fresh Italian parsley and cilantro, roughly chopped
salt and fresh ground pepper

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. While the oven is heating up, sprinkle a teaspoon of fine sea salt on the zucchini and eggplant slices, and let them stand for 20 minutes before rinsing under cold water. The salt helps get rid of the excess water in the vegetables so they can roast up nicely.

In a large bowl, toss the eggplant, onion, 2 garlic cloves, peppers, carrots, turnips, and potatoes with the olive oil, allspice, coriander seeds, and a little salt and pepper. Spread the veggie mixture on a large roasting tray in a single layer, so the veggies can roast rather than steam.

Cook the vegetables for 45 minutes in the oven, and gently turn the veggies over every 15 minutes or so to prevent them from burning. After 45 minutes of roasting, add the zucchini disks to the tray and cook for another 15 minutes.

While the veggies are in the oven, make a sweet tomato sauce that will bind the dish together. In a medium saucepan, heat up the olive oil over a medium to high heat. When the oil is hot, but not smoking, add the 6 finely sliced garlic cloves and fry until the garlic begins to color. Add the chopped tomatoes and a pinch of salt to balance their acidity. Cook the sauce over a medium heat until most of the liquid that the tomatoes give out has evaporated. Season with salt and pepper and then stir in the rinsed chickpeas to heat them up.

To serve the Turlu Turlu, add the roasted vegetables to the tomato-chickpea sauce and then stir everything together with the fresh herbs. Taste, and season with extra salt and pepper if needed.

This recipe taunted us from the cover of Food & Wine magazine for a few months before we gave in and finally made it, and it satisfied our craving for a big juicy burger. The homemade Russian dressing was a nice touch and made it extra tasty. This recipe makes enough for 6 burgers at $2.42 per serving.

Cheddar BLT Burgers with Tarragon Russian Dressing
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup ketchup
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon grated onion
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
2 tablespoons sweet relish, or more to taste
1 tablespoon chopped tarragon
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
12 ounces thickly sliced bacon
1 1/3 pounds ground beef chuck
1 1/3 pounds ground beef sirloin
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
3 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, cut into 6 slices
6 hamburger buns, split and toasted, or you can use any other type of bread like we did with brioche
6 iceberg lettuce leaves
6 slices of tomato
6 slices of red onion

In a medium bowl, whisk the mayonnaise with the ketchup, red wine vinegar, onion, parsley, tarragon, sweet relish, and Worcestershire sauce. Cover it and place it in the fridge while you prep the burgers.

In a large skillet, salt and pepper the bacon and then cook it a moderately high heat, turning the pieces over once until the bacon is crispy, around 6 minutes or so. Drain the bacon on paper towels to get rid of any excess grease.

Light the bbq grill and let it heat up. While it is heating up, place the butter on the grill in a small metal dish to let it melt.

Gently mix the ground chuck with the ground sirloin (or plain ground beef if that is all you have), and thoroughly salt and pepper the meat. Divide the meat into six equal portions and form the patties in your hand, each one around 1 1/4 inches thick.

Place the burgers on the grill and brush them with some of the melted butter. Grill them over a high heat for 9 minutes to achieve a nice medium-rare burger. Turn them once during the grilling and brush the other side with a bit more butter. Place the cheese on top of the burgers right before they are fully cooked and let the cheese melt.

You can also put the buns or bread on the grill too and brush with a little butter to add a nice crunch to your burger as well.

To serve the burgers, spread the Russian dressing on the bottom of the buns and top with lettuce and tomatoes. Set the burger over this and top with the onion and slices of bacon to enjoy a really good and juicy burger.

Living in Texas for 12 years built a certain appreciation for enchiladas in me. It’s hard not to love some cheesy, gooey, spicy ones — but this veggie twist was really excellent, too, and made great use of some nice seasonal vegetables. Plus, you can cook it on the grill so you don’t have to heat up the kitchen. The pumpkin seed salsa was pretty unique and an unexpected success as well — a nice mix of salty, spicy, herby and cumin.

This Zucchini and Red Pepper Enchilada recipe makes enough for 4 dinners at $1.88 per serving.

Zucchini and Red Pepper Enchiladas with Two Salsas
For enchiladas:
1 large onion, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick rounds
2 red bell peppers, quartered
3/4 pound medium zucchini, cut lengthwise into 1/4-inch-thick slices
12 soft corn tortillas
6 ounces crumbled feta cheese

For Pumpkin-Seed Salsa:
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh serrano chile, including seeds
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 1/3 cups raw green (hulled) pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 cups chopped cilantro
1 1/2 cups water

For Tomato Salsa:
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
1/4 cup finely chopped white onion
2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh serrano chile, including seeds
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

Preheat a gas grill at medium heat. Oil the grill rack and then put all of the veggies on the grill until they are tender with a nice bit of char on them (around 6 to 8 minutes for bell peppers and zucchini; 10 to 12 minutes for onion).

To make the pumpkin-seed salsa, cook the chile, garlic, cumin, and pumpkin seeds in oil in a heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Stir the mixture until the pumpkin seeds pop, around 4-5 minutes. Keep aside 3 tablespoons of the seeds to top the enchiladas, but pur?©e the remaining seeds and oil with cilantro, water, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt in a blender until smooth.

The tomato salsa is even easier: mix together the chopped tomatoes, onion, chile, lime juice, and 1/4 teaspoon of salt to taste.

To assemble the enchiladas, start by warming up the tortillas. You can either do this by wrapping the tortillas in stacks of 6 in foil and then heating them in a 350 F degree oven for about 15 minutes. Or you can take a couple of damp paper towels and wrap them around the tortillas and put them in the microwave for 1 minute increments until they are soft.

To assemble the enchiladas, cut the vegetables into strips. Spread 2 teaspoons of pumpkin-seed salsa on each warm tortilla and top with some of the grilled vegetables. Roll up the enchilada like a cigar and then you are done, or if you really want to you can them fry them like it calls for in the original recipe.

To serve the enchiladas, drizzle them with the remaining pumpkin-seed salsa and sprinkle a few of the reserved seeds on top with some feta cheese. Add a big dollop of tomato salsa on the side for a nice vegetarian play on enchiladas.

You might have noticed that we’ve been on this jam/pickling/preserving kick lately. I’m not exactly sure what prompted it, but we’ve been canning stuff lately, and it’s been a lot of fun. I was going to make some sauerkraut, but saw that it took several weeks, so I thought I’d try the kimchi recipe on the next page. Kimchi is sort of like Korean sauerkraut, but a lot spicier.

Traditionally, or at least in my experience, it’s typically made with cabbage, but this recipe uses bok choy. I’m been informed by a reliable source (aka my Korean friend Heekwon) that bok choy is used a lot to make kimchi in the summer in Korea. He also told me that my kimchi was really good, and that his baby daughter especially liked it

You can make your own large jar of kimchi for around 14 cents per ounce.

Homemade Kimchi, from Nick Sandler and Johnny Acton’s Preserved
2 1/4 pounds bok choy or Chinese cabbage
kosher salt
3 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
2 teaspoons chopped fresh ginger
3 hot red chiles, finely chopped
1 small bunch of green onions, chopped
2 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce

Separate the bok choy or Chinese cabbage leaves and wash them very well. Chop them up into small pieces and put them in a large bowl.

Dissolve 3 tablespoons of salt into 3 cups of water and pour it over the greens until they are covered. If you need to make more brine, just follow the ratio of 1 tablespoon of salt to 1 cup of water.

Make sure all of the greens are immersed in the brine by weighing them down with a plate and a large bottle of water on top.

Leave the greens in the brine for 8 hours. After they have sat for 8 hours, drain the greens and immerse them in fresh cold water for 10 minutes, then drain them again.

After this, the greens are ready to ferment. Place them in a tall, sterilized glass jar and make the liquor. Start with 2 3/4 cups of water and mix in 1 1/2 tablespoons of salt plus the ginger, garlic, chiles, green onions, sugar, and the fish and soy sauces.

Make sure the salt is completely dissolved in the mixture, then pour the liquor over the greens in the jar, taking care to cover them completely.

Leave the jar in a warm room (above 75 degrees F) for 24 hours. Then the kimchi is ready to eat and can be kept in the fridge for up to 1 month.