White Mac & Cheese. Kind of an odd thing to write about in the middle of one of the hottest summers on record, I know.

Most of you may not know that Flamingo Musings did not start out as a food blog. Back on August 30, 2006, this blog was born out of the boredom of waiting for a hurricane that never arrived. I wrote pretty sporadically back then – yes, even less often than I do now (shut up!). But, I did write about food once in awhile, which then turned into “Recipe Monday”, which then became pretty much All Food All The Time. What can I say? I fell in with a bad crowd on Twitter.

Since August marks my 5 year blog anniversary month, I thought I’d revisit some of those early posts. Coincidentally, I first wrote about food in this space on August 5, 2008. I had overheard a conversation on my way to work the previous morning about people avoiding “white food.” I couldn’t imagine that, and set about creating a White Mac & Cheese in retaliation. I didn’t measure anything, and never wrote down a recipe (although, surprisingly, I did take a picture!), so now, 3 years later, I decided to rectify that.

And yes, there’s cauliflower in there. Way to sneak in a vegetable, right?

White Mac & Cheese

Ingredients:

8 oz. box macaroni
1 small head cauliflower, broken into florets
2 Tbs. butter
2 Tbs. finely chopped onion (optional)
2 Tbs. all purpose flour
2 cups milk
1/2 tsp. mustard powder
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/8 tsp. ground white pepper
8 oz (by weight) sharp white cheddar cheese, shredded (more, if baking)

Preparation:

Cook the macaroni according to package directions, in a large (about 6 quart) pot. During the last 5 minutes of cooking, add the cauliflower florets and allow to cook until the macaroni is tender. Or al dente. Your choice. Drain well and return to the pot.

In the meantime, melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onion, if using, and cook for a couple of minutes, until it softens. Add the flour, stir well, and allow that to cook for another minute. Pour in the milk, and whisk constantly until it thickens, then whisk in the mustard powder, garlic powder, and white pepper. Add the cheese in 3 or 4 parts, whisking after each addition until it melts and makes a smooth cheese sauce. Taste the sauce at this point to determine if you need salt. (I usually find that sharp cheddar usually makes it salty enough, but you may wish to add a bit to your taste)

Pour the sauce over the cooked macaroni and cauliflower and stir gently to combine. If you like creamy mac & cheese, it’s now done – dig in and enjoy! If you like a baked mac & cheese:

Heat your oven to 375º F. Spray a casserole dish with cooking spray or grease with a bit of butter. Pour the mac & cheese into the casserole dish, top liberally with additional shredded white cheddar, and bake for about 20 minutes or until the cheese melts and it takes on a golden brown color.

At which point, it’s no longer “white.” Just sayin’.

This post is part of Share Our Holiday Table, a seven-day, online progressive dinner series that we hope will encourage you to support and donate to Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry Campaign during this critical holiday period. I’m honored to be one of more than 50 bloggers who are participating. If you’ve been following along, the dinner has been unfolding for the last week across 7 courses and in 4 tracks (Gourmet, Family-Friendly, Gluten Free and Vegetarian).

Today’s featured course is the Side Dish and I’m offering you one of my favorite Vegetarian dishes, Kasha Varnishkes. My mom used to make this as a side to pot roast and turkey, and I’ve been cooking it through my adult life, frequently as a main course.

You see, kasha is actually roasted buckwheat kernels and is one of the healthiest grain products out there. A complete protein on its own, high in fiber, yada yada yada, kasha can be used as a main dish, side dish, stuffing, and even as a delicious hot breakfast cereal. It’s also gluten-free, so if that’s an issue for you or someone you love, you can also prepare the following recipe without the pasta as a Kasha Pilaf.

This recipe will feed a crowd on your holiday table or buffet, and makes an attractive change – or addition to – the usual potato fare. If you have less than a crowd, you can easily make half the quantity.

Kasha Pilaf Varnishkes
(serves 8-10 as a side dish, 4-6 as a main course)

Ingredients:

1 14 – 16 oz package Farfalle (Bowtie) pasta

1 medium onion, coarsely chopped (about 1 cup)
1/2 cup carrots, split & sliced thin
1/2 cup celery, sliced thin
1/2 cup mushrooms, sliced thin
1-1/2 cups medium or coarse Kasha
1 large egg or egg white (optional – see Preparation)
2 Tbs canola oil or butter
3 cups vegetable broth (divided)
1 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Preparation:

Cook the pasta according to package directions. Drain and set aside.

If not using the egg, skip to the next step. If using the egg or egg white: Beat the egg or egg white until well-blended. Add the kasha and combine with a fork until the grains are coated well.

Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the kasha and stir while toasting, till the grains are mostly separate and you smell a pleasant, toasty aroma.

Add the vegetables and 1/2 cup of the vegetable broth, stir well, and saute until the vegetables soften slightly, about 3 – 4 minutes. Add the remaining broth, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. Cover the pan tightly, reduce heat to low, and simmer for about 8 minutes, or until the kasha is soft. Uncover, and cook an additional 3 – 4 minutes, stirring occasionally, to allow the kasha to dry out a bit.

Check the seasoning, and add the farfalle (bow-tie) pasta, tossing together until thoroughly combined. Serve hot.

Notes:

You can find kasha in your regular grocery store in either the pasta/rice aisle or the ethnic foods, kosher products section. I’ve only ever seen Wolff’s brand, but feel free to use any other you may spot. It comes in Fine, Medium, or Coarse granulations. Only use the medium or coarse granulation for this recipe. The fine granulation is mostly for cereal and will turn out mushy.

A variety of liquids can be used to prepare this, including beef or chicken stock (although using these would render this no longer vegetarian), or even water.

The word “varnishkes” refers to the bow-tie pasta. No, I don’t know what it means.

As noted earlier, if you omit the pasta, this Kasha Pilaf is an excellent gluten-free choice, too.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this special holiday post on behalf of Share Our Strength, and that you’ll visit the other participating blogs to see what they’re serving up for Share Our Holiday Table.

In fact, I hope you’ve enjoyed it enough to click on one of these links and make a donation to Share Our Strength and sign the No Kid Hungry Pledge. Approximately 17 million children right here in the United States go hungry because of lack of access to programs that can change that, and lack of access to healthy foods. A hungry child can’t learn.

Even though my husband and I have no kids, we recognize that today’s children are tomorrow’s leaders. And can yank our Social Security in a heartbeat.

Will you join us in the No Kid Hungry Campaign?

Today’s side dishes in each track are brought to you by:

Gourmet

• The Urban Baker
• Heather Christo
• We Like to Cook, and Eat
• Plum Pie

Family Friendly

• What’s Cooking
• Dine and Dish
• The Evolving Cook

Vegetarian

• My Kitchen Addiction
• Taste as You Go
• Flamingo Musings (that’s me!)

Gluten Free

• The Whole Gang
• Jenn Cuisine– A mostly gluten free cooking blog.
• Creative Cooking Gluten Free

Dinner by tangent. I’ll admit it. I was desperate for something to make for dinner that I could write about.

I happened to be surfing Twitter when I noticed that Mark Bittman will be at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in a week from now, talking about and reading from his new book, The Food Matters Cookbook. I follow Mark Bittman on Twitter (no, he doesn’t follow me – I’m one in 70,000+ for pity’s sake!), so I checked his Twitter stream, followed a link to his blog, and discovered that “Dinner With Bittman” was Bean and Potato Gratin from his How to Cook Everything.

Sounded right up my alley – especially since I had (almost) everything in my pantry. Here’s my variation:

Bean & Sweet Potato Gratin
(makes 2 dinner portions; 4 side dish portions)

1 15 oz. can white beans (I used Great Northern)
1 tsp. ground thyme (divided)
salt & pepper
approx. 2 medium sweet potatoes (about 1-1/2 lbs)
1/2 cup vegetable stock
3 Tbs. butter (divided)

Preheat the oven to 325º F.

Drain the beans and spread them in the bottom of a 1 quart baking dish. Season with 1/2 tsp. of ground thyme, salt and pepper lightly, and mix thoroughly.

Peel the sweet potatoes and cut in half, lengthwise, then slice them thinly into half rounds. Arrange the slices on top of the beans, overlapping them.

Add the vegetable stock to the dish, sprinkle with the remaining thyme, salt and pepper, and dot the top with half the butter. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 45 minutes.

Uncover the dish, dot with the remaining butter, and bake uncovered for another 45 minutes.

*Notes:

The original recipe is made with “starchy white or all-purpose potatoes,” called for 1 cup of stock (chicken, vegetable or plain water), and is supposed to reduce to a rich glaze. That didn’t happen here. Either there was too much liquid, or the sweet potatoes aren’t starchy enough. In future, I will cut the liquid by half, and reflected that reduced amount here in my recipe.

All in all, we really liked this with the sweet potatoes. It was very colorful and the texture contrast of the sweet potato/bean combination was brighter and more flavorful than it would have been with the white potatoes.

Draw your own conclusions – try Mark Bittman’s Bean and Potato Gratin, then try this variation. Playing with your food is fun!