I made some salsa verde last weekend.

I got about two pounds of tomatillos from the store - they weren't the best looking, but they aren't in season yet at least in my clime. But sometimes you just gotta have home made salsa verde.

I depapered and roasted the tomatillos with about six jalapenos and five cloves of garlic.

When everything was nice and soft and guishy, I popped it in the food processor with a heap of coriander leaf/cilantro, and a good dash of salt and pepper. Gave it a good whizz and there I was.

I slow cooked some chicken in it with some onions for dinner that night - excellent.

The remainder went into a mason jar (filled it quite nicely) and into the fridge.

Well, apparently, these particular tomatillos had quite a bit of natural pectin in them. As when I opened the jar today and went to pour some out into a dish...

Nothing.

So I showed my wife that I'd made jelly. By pretending to dump the jar on top of her head.

She flinched.

But y'all knew I was evil.

The moral of the story is... mmmm pectin.

But what about the pony?

In Response to Dynedain (#27196):

But what about the pony?

Salsa verde is excellent on pony.

Gave it a good whizz and there I was.

Maybe next time you shouldn't pee in it.

In Response to doriette (#27208):

Maybe next time you shouldn't pee in it.

What can I say?

We don't have cable, and PBS was doing a Jamie Oliver marathon.

Everything he makes ends up tasting like pee anyway, so off I went.

In Response to zamphir (#27209):

I once got a good idea for a salad while watching Jamie Oliver, although I don't think the two events were related.

In Response to tynic (#27211):

Poor Jamie Oliver. 'e troys reel 'ord, roight?

Jamie Oliver, good or bad, recently did a series on the teevee here about school dinners. The basics were that the crap kids are being fed at school can be replaced by decent food at the same price. He succeeded in the borough were the experiment took place and the idea has gained momentum across the country.

So mockney or not, he has done one good thing.

[aside]
My wife recently bought me Larousse Gastronomique [amazon.co.uk] and on the back there are two 'famous' recommendations. Jamie Oliver and Gary Rhodes.
[/aside]

In Response to Nagy_Vilmos (#27213):

Pectin, of course, is a government plot, bent on replacing the world's salsa with jelly. In a war, the pentagon would instruct civilians to throw the pectin up into the air to clog the engines of enemy aircraft. It wouldn't be the same with salsa.

In Response to Llamarama (#27219):

Pectin makes for awesome fruit jellies.

In other news, is that an extremely obscure Robert C. O'Brien reference in todays comic? Sources say 'highly doubtful'.

I'm a big fan of macaroni and cheese. It's very much two great tastes that taste great together.

My parents always made it from scratch, not "from the box". But over the years, I've come to like the blue stuff as well, at least for what it is.

So I made some mac&cheese tonight. I've been trying for a while to get a good recipe (by which I mean, figure out a good recipe). My parents always made it with a starch-bound white sauce - flour, butter, milk... and it was always stove top, not baked.

This is good, it's what I'm used to. But other people seem to make mac&cheese differently. I don't really like the baked varieties...

So I was in the mood tonight to try something a little bit different.

I started with butter and salt in a pan, and whisked in an egg yolk. I whisked this very rapidly until it started to turn lighter yellow. Then I added a bit of milk, and whisked until it thickened again, and repeated until I had a nice salty custard sauce.

In the mean time, the other burner was boiling water and noodles.

So then I have a mostly nice custard sauce, and I whisk in a bit of shredded cheese. I then pour this over the macaroni, and fold in more shredded cheese (yellow, sharp cheddar, by the way...).

Now, the sauce is a little bit too salty. The last time I made it, it wasn't salty enough - so this time I guess I overshot the other way.

But it's really good mac&cheese. Creamy, and rich, and smooth and cheesy. mmmmmmm

And here's the part that looks bad.

While I was whisking the sauce and getting ready to add the first bit of cheese, I got a little too vigorous with the beating. So I splashed a bit.

So now I'm sitting in front of my computer with salty, creamy, white stains on the front of my pants.

In Response to zamphir (#27400):

Pervert.

The only good macaroni and cheese is of the baked variety.

Take 5 cups of large elbow macaroni (uncooked), dump into a large caserole dish; corningware or a crockpot insert will do nicely. Add 6 tbsp of melted butter (you can melt the butter first in the dish if you want), and about a half a teaspoon each of salt and pepper. Mix this all togethor untill the butter thoroughly coats the macaroni. Mix in 4 cups (about 1 lb) of grated sharp cheddar (the thick course edges on your cheese grater works better than the fine ones). Mix untill evenly distributed. Now, pour in 2 qts of whole milk. It should just barely cover the contents of the dish. Don't stir or mix. Place it in the oven, for 1 hour at about 350 F untill the top is a nice golden brown. Remove from oven, let cool for about 15 min, and enjoy!

This is the only way to eat mac & cheese - the bluebox is an abomination.

This sounds sooooo good right now...I think I'll make it tonight.

In Response to Dynedain (#27403):

Oh, and layering some strips of bacon or pony on top before baking is a nice variation.

In Response to zamphir (#27400):

So now I'm sitting in front of my computer with salty, creamy, white stains on the front of my pants.

So, just another Thursday night?
 

In Response to gtyrrell (#27418):

So, just another Thursday night?

Did it really take more than 12 hours for someone to post a comment like this?

For shame!

But "Kraft Bukakke" is pretty awesome as a phrase. Good job!