Tag - Alton Brown

Tried It Tuesday: Homemade Stove Top Macaroni and Cheese

May 10, 2016

Life in Lape Haven: Tried It Tuesday: Homemade Stove Top Macaroni & Cheese. This quick, easy, delicious homemade mac and cheese on your stove top is a crowd pleaser and a family favorite. Even the pickiest of picky eaters will love it! It takes about the same amount of time to make as the boxed kind, but it tastes so much better!

Every mom needs a go-to on those days when her child is, or children are, being extra picky about eating.

Personally, I never really had to worry much with Elijah. He’s always been a good eater. He loves his veggies and fruits, and he’ll try pretty much anything. He may not like it, but he’ll try it.

Josiah…not so much. While he’s not horrible, he has his moments. He’ll like something one time and eat it up, then decide when I make it again, that no, he doesn’t like that at all.

However, I have a recipe for something that no one in our house ever turns down, not even Josiah.

But then again, who doesn’t love homemade stove top macaroni and cheese?

: It only takes a few ingredients to make from scratch.

: Smooth & creamy mac and cheese!

: This is one of my boys’ favorites.

Around here, I’ve been making this super easy recipe for about 3 years, ever since I first saw Alton Brown make this mac and cheese on his stove on a rerun of Good Eats (We love that show!). Up to that point, macaroni and cheese was a rare dish in our meals because I just didn’t want to buy it (the orange powder just kind of …uhhh). However, seeing how quickly I could make REAL mac and cheese from scratch – just about the same amount of time it takes to make it from the box – I was sold.

Made with a handful of ingredients that I generally have on hand all the time, this recipe also makes enough that I usually have some left over for another meal, such as lunch for Josiah and me.

So, I’m saving time, money, and feeding my family a little bit healthier (it’s still pasta with butter & lots of cheese, so…).

Here is Alton’s original macaroni and cheese recipe (he also has a recipe for an oven-baked mac and cheese, too, if you follow the “episode” link.)

Here is how I make homemade macaroni and cheese on the stove top.

This is one of my boys' favorites.

5 of My Favorite Christmas Goodies Recipes

December 8, 2015

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5 of My Favorite Christmas Goodies Recipes, Life in Lape Haven. From our family Christmas cookie exchange, some of my favorite Christmas cookie and treats recipes, including homemade Marshmallows and Gingerbread.

Straight on the heels of telling you that you don’t have to do everything to have a great Christmas, I’m breaking out a list of five of my favorite Christmas goodies recipes to tempt you into making time to try them out. 🙂

Baking Christmas cookies and treats is on our family’s list of must-do traditions. Every year I get together with the ladies in my family (both sides, moms and sisters, whoever can make it), and our children to bake and decorate cookies and goodies. We spend the afternoon in cutesy aprons, taking over one of our kitchens, covering the table and counters with sugar cookies, gingerbread men, and whatever other yummies we’ve brought to make and share.

It’s much easier to keep my sanity during cookie decorating with my excited boys when I have the back-up of a Grandma or two and a couple aunts. 🙂 I love my boys, but Elijah’s stubborn independence and creativity and Josiah’s two-year-old curiosity (and climbing) can really test my reflexes and patience, especially in the kitchen when they are “helping.”

: Cousins decorating cookies together.

: Letting Grandma help him decorate.

: Not wanting Grandma to help him.

By the end of the day, we’ve all laughed, shared good conversation, and sung along with some Christmas music, as we’ve made memories and enough Christmas treats to fill a platter for us each to take home.

So, from our great times of baking and bonding, here are five of my favorite recipes for Christmas cookie and goodies exchanges.

(This post contains an Amazon affiliate link, which means that at no additional cost to you, I may receive a small commission if you use the link.)

ROLO TURTLES

For such an easy, EASY treat, these little guys are deliciously addicting.

All you need are 3 ingredients: pretzels, Rolos, and pecans. Stick some pretzels on a cookie sheet, top them each with a Rolo, pop them in the oven to soften, finish them with a pecan, and you’re done.

(Salty + Sweet + Creamy) + (Crunchy + Gooey) = Awesomeness.

Rolo Turtles Recipe

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE DOUGH TRUFFLES

These started out as something special to make for my husband. If you scroll through my collection of recipes on Pinterest, you’ll see that I’ve pinned quite a few chocolate chip cookie dough recipes because my hubby loves cookie dough.

However, these quickly became a family favorite (as soon as we made the first batch!).

They are pretty easy, but it does take some time to roll them into the balls and dip/cover them in chocolate. I’ve yet to get the hang of making them really pretty when I dip them in the chocolate, but they taste good no matter what they look like. Haha.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles Recipe

Life in Lape Haven: Tried It Tuesday: 5 of My Favorite Christmas Goodies Recipes. From our family Christmas cookie exchange, some of my favorite Christmas cookie and treats recipes, including homemade Marshmallows and Gingerbread.

At the top of the picture, you can see the wrapped caramels.

CARAMELS

These are so yummy, but what else do you expect from something made of basically just butter and sugar. Yeah, these don’t even pretend to be healthy at all.

The first year we made these, we were unprepared for how tasty they were and how long it would take to roll every little piece of caramel up in wax paper. This batch goes on forever because you don’t need big pieces (remember – just butter and sugar)! We split it up between everyone and still had some to freeze.

Caramels Recipe

GINGERBREAD COOKIES

We never really did gingerbread cookies much when I was growing up, and from what I had of other gingerbread cookies, I didn’t mind not having them. However, when I found this recipe, it changed everything.

I love this gingerbread recipe, and both of my boys have loved it, too. In fact, it was Josiah’s favorite of all the cookies during his first Christmas.

I leave the cloves out of the recipe, mostly because I don’t usually have cloves on hand, but other than that I follow the recipe. The dough is a sticky one, so you definitely want to chill or freeze it before you cut out your shapes.

Gingerbread Cookie Recipe

My sticky-faced helper after we made marshmallows for the first time.

MARSHMALLOWS

Yes, homemade marshmallows. These have made me famous…well, in my family and with a few people at my church. When you taste them, you may join my fan club.

Now, don’t be afraid. They are actually a lot easier than you think and so much more delicious than what you might think based on store-bought ones.

My love for homemade marshmallows can be traced directly to Alton Brown and his episode of Good Eats, “Puff the Magic Mallow,” which was all about marshmallows.

I watched him make marshmallows, then promptly added gelatin to my shopping list. Having loved marshmallows since I was very little, I had to try this.

Now this recipe does call for using a stand mixer (I love my KitchenAid). I guess you could use a hand mixer, but since you have to whip the sugar syrup for at least 13 minutes, it’s rather convenient to be able to let the mixer work without you. (Plus, it’s always dangerous to have little ones running around free while you are occupied and stuck in one spot for that long.)

Homemade Marshmallow Recipe and Tutorial Video

: Last year Elijah did most of the Rolo Turtle assembling.

: Waiting for the cookies to bake.

There you go, five of my favorite Christmas cookies and treats recipes. By the way, if you find you have leftovers, or if you just want to pace yourself with all the sugar intake, you’ll find that the cookie dough truffles, the Rolo turtles, and the caramels all freeze nicely. The gingerbread has never lasted long enough for us to test it out in the freezer, and I would say that the marshmallows need to be used within a couple of weeks. If you’ve not devoured the marshmallows by then or amped up your hot chocolate with a few, you should definitely use them to make Rice Krispies Treats. Oh, talk about deliciousness (That might be a sixth favorite recipe there).

As always, let me know if you try any of these, and tell me what you think about them.

What is your favorite Christmas goodies recipe? Share it in the comments so I can add something new to my list!

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My Boys and the Letter B

October 17, 2015

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Life in Lape Haven: Write 31 Days - My Boys and the Letter B. Three amusing quotes from my boys that came from misunderstandings or miscommunication.

It’s Saturday, and time for another round of simply amusing quotes from my boys, Elijah and Josiah.

Today’s quotes are brought to you by the letter “B” and by the number “3.”

“B” starts such words as “bark,” “Band-Aid,” “bleed,” “bite,” “Brown,” “bid,” and “buy.”

They are average, every day words, right? Nothing bewildering or befuddling about them. However, in these next three quotes, you can see that those words are all mixed up in a few funny misunderstandings or miscommunications for our boys.

1. Josiah and “Bark”

Until Josiah was over a year old, he stayed in the main sanctuary at church on Sundays with Hubby, my parents, and me. It wasn’t that he couldn’t have gone to the nursery, but since he was still nursing, it just made it easier to keep him nearby.

One Sunday when he was about 10-months-old he was sitting happily with his head on my shoulder as we listened to the message. Suddenly Josiah got very excited, lifting his head, looking over my shoulder at something behind us, and saying, “Ba! Ba! Ba!”

“Ba” was a recent addition to his growing baby vocabulary, and I knew that it was his word/sound for “dog.” (He was basically trying to say, “Bark.”)

Since I doubted there were any dogs at the church, I glanced back to see what he saw. Sitting behind us, smiling and cooing at my son as he “barked” at her, was a lady wearing a brown fur-trimmed coat.

I quickly turned back around, trying to contain my laughter, thankful that the lady behind us had no idea my child was trying to say she was wearing a dog around her neck.

2. Elijah and the Band-Aid

One morning, around about the same time Josiah had confused fur coats with living animals, my boys were playing in our living room, doing what they did pretty much every day for me: emptying all the toys out of the toy box and scattering them around the room.

Since Josiah was still perfecting the art of standing and was flirting with the idea of walking, it was no surprise when he tripped over a toy. When he fell, somehow he cut his finger enough to make it bleed just a little.

Elijah suggested that we put a Band-Aid on Josiah’s finger (they always love a reason to break out the Band-Aids).

Considering that Josiah still liked to put everything in his mouth, I answered, “I don’t think he’d leave it alone. He’d probably bite it off.”

Elijah looked at me in horror and replied, “His FINGER!?!”

In case you’re wondering, I meant the bandage.

3. Elijah and Alton Brown

From the time Elijah was little, Food Network has been a channel staple in our home because it’s generally a bit more family friendly than other main stations, including some of the kids’ cartoon channels. It teaches us all how to cook (mostly with ingredients we’d never buy), so it’s educational. Plus a mom can only take so much Caillou before she wants to reach into the TV and slap some sense into both that whiny little kid and his parents (one episode will do that easily).

This means that Elijah and Josiah have grown up watching Good Eats, Diners, Drive-Ins, & Dives, and one of our favorites, Cutthroat Kitchen.

For those unfamiliar with that show, Cutthroat Kitchen is a cooking competition hosted by our favorite Food Network guy, Alton Brown. During the three-round competition, chefs attempt to cook a specified dish within a given timeframe. To make things interesting, before and during their cooking time, Alton offers various cruel and unusual sabotages in an auction for the contestants to bid on to give out to their opponents, such as taking away the chef’s ability to taste the food he is cooking or having to use a child-sized kitchen as their kitchen.

Last summer, my grandparents’ church held a fundraising auction, and Elijah was surprisingly excited to attend his first auction. He was determined to take some of his own money with him to buy something.

Can you guess what he was planning to bid on?

When I asked him what he was going to do at the church auction, he told me, “I’m going to buy sabotages.”

So, too much Cutthroat Kitchen, maybe… sorry, Alton.

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