Cook on Sunday, eat on till Thursday. I'm Allie and you’re watching Economy Bites
So today we’re going to the store, we’re going to buy butternut squash and mac and cheese fix ins. We’re going to make a nice autumn macaroni and cheese that you could cook on Sunday and eat till Thursday or you can serve at Thanksgiving next week. Big treat.
Got this nice hearty kind of string looking beans here that we’re going to diced up and put in our macaroni and cheese. And you can eat it all week long. But first what we’re going to do is kind of deal with this guy. It has this long thing and there's bulb in the bottom. Cut through the bulb here, because the seeds in it and so we’re not really going to use this. And these guys are a little tough to slice through, just take some work.
It’s very fall, the fall orange core. You could save the seeds and use the seed, make something out of them. If you try and go at this thing with the peeler, it’s going to take you like hours. So I'm going to just going to like cut off the skin here, try and make it into a rectangle, Ally’s signature rectangle. And now we’re just going to try and get off as much of the skin as we can. It’s kind of slimy on the inside, but then it got away.
So I want to prepare you, in case you’ve never use a butternut squash before for like what you're into, that’s what I'm trying to explain to you that is rough and tough and slimy. We’re using lots of good adjectives today.
So now we got this weird shape that we created here, cut it into slices. They don’t need to like look great right now, because it’s going to end up being mash anyway. Now we’re going to take each slice. Cut it into, you guessed it, sticks then cubes. It’s a disassembling process.
Why is this wobbling so much?
Then we’re just going to follow suit with the rest of these. So I like butternut squash better than any other squash.
What are the other kinds of squash that you know, you’re more of a vegetable person. You don’t know any squash at all? Well, you should keep that to yourself today. It does look like cheese cubes, but trust me, it’s not. Just because it’s orange, it doesn’t mean its cheese. Wicked.
So now all of our little squash is diced up. Now we’re going to move it back the stove. You can use any pot or whatever you like. But I like to use one that can go from stove to oven.
First I'm going to turn the oven to 375. Then I'm going to put this on high heat. This is about 2 cups of chicken broth. Squash pieces, set them in there as well. What we’re doing now is boiling these guys so that they get nice and soft so we could mash them. Don’t take more than you can carry or you’ll going to lose them all.
Now we’re going to take just like a tablespoon or two of cream. That looks so pretty. It looks like jewelry to me.
And now what we’re going to do, just let that come to a boil. Then we’re going to turn down the heat to low. Simmer it for about 20 minutes and then mash it up.
I'm going to take my mozzarella cheese, this is about a pound of cheese. We’re only going to use probably like 3/4 of it. We need 2 cups of it grated. Mozzarella cheese are not easy to shred, because it’s like it’s wobbly. Doesn’t that look good? I kind of like to do it myself. Save the money. Yeah, I mean, I can use anything like the arm that you use to do things like orange juice to do things. There’s a little more to go. The smaller it is, the easier it would be to melt.
Okay, so now our milk is coming to a boil. I'm going to turn this down to low – low and we’re just going to let it simmer for like 10-15 minutes until the squash gets nice and soft. While we’re waiting, I'm going to take my pot here to get my pasta going. You can use any kind of pot that you like in your macaroni and cheese. I personally like the shells. I'm going to really salt up this water.
Okay, so it’s been about 10 minutes or so. Now you can see the squash has gotten pretty soft. So I'm just going to mash it all up here, and perfect timing, my water is boiling here. So I'm going to take my box of shells. It’s going to finish baking in the oven. The pasta doesn’t drift like that.
Now I'm going to add about 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper. And, you know, I like things spicy. So you might want to add 2 full teaspoons if you don’t. Actually I'm just going to delete a little out of the teaspoon. And then we’re going to do a tablespoon and a half of curry powder which goes really, really nicely with the butternut squash. Believe it or not.
Look at these pretty fall colors.
And now, what I'm going to do is a little bit at a time, add my mozzarella cheese. You might want to, at this point, take out a whisk if you want your sauce to be really creamy. Great, okay, as well. Whatever. You probably want to take a taste. Add a little salt and pepper, correct the seasoning. So I'm going to add a tiny bit more salt.
While we’re waiting for the pasta, I'm going to take some parmesan cheese. I need about 1/4 cup. So I'm just going to finish off our sauce. Plus I'm going to take half a cup, these are Italian bread crumbs, but you can use white bread or a pinto bread crumbs or whatever you like. This is just going to add a little crunch since everything else in there is pretty soft.
I probably turn the heat off now.
So our pasta is nice and al dente. You don’t want to rinse it, because we want it to keep cooking, but we do want to make sure we get all the water out. Now we’re just going to pour it in there. Fold it so that all the noodles get in with the cheese. I'm just last up, going to take some parmesan cheese, about half a cup, put it on top so we have a nice crunch crust on here. And walah, we’re going to bake it in the oven for 30 minutes and then I'm going to give you a look and I'm going to take a taste.
So it’s been about half an hour. Oh my, this looks good with that bubbly parmesan crunch. About spoon or fork, I think that like the macaroni and cheese dilemma. Spoon or fork.
I think this is the best, one of the best macaroni and cheese that I've ever had. To be honest with you. It’s really spicy because of the curry powder and the cayenne pepper. Also really creamy and we got that little bread crumb and parmesan crunch. Amazing.
You make this for yourself, you’ll eat happily. You make this for Thanksgiving, your relatives will never ever give you problems ever again and that is the Economy Bites guarantee. So thank you to Daniel and Me and cook on Sunday till Thursday. I’m Allie, see you next time.
I was walking down the street just having a thing. When a sneak over guy give me an evo wing. He shook me up, he took me by surprise. So we’re going to put in the oven. He got a pickup truck and damn devil inside. Stared at me and I fell to chain.