Well funnily enough as I note on my homepage I maintain my garden tractor, today I am doing the rototilling of my garden for fall and the tiller falls off the hitch as I am at the back end of the garden in the soft dirt. I’ve manage to put it back on again myself when it has fallen off close to the grass but since it weighs hmmm probably close to 500 pounds, I could not use my jack to lift it up in the dirt…no matter how many boards I would put down for a base.
In addition a hose had bust and I had the engine oil leaking out (which I hd recently changed a few weeks ago) I got a container to trap the leaking oil then I had to go to town and get a length of hose and a couple clips so I could replace it.
All done, got the hose, replaced the broken section and then asked for help. So unlike me to ask for help.
I called my buddy Hans at Minerva http://www.minervatreefarms.com
and luckily they were close and Hans and Kurt stopped by to help me. They managed to lift the tiller so I could move the tractor and get it back on the hitch then tighten up the lock and I was on my way to finish working the garden.
Pasta – Fresh (cooks in 4-5 mins) or dried (average about 9-12 minutes al dente) Make sure water is salted when boiling pasta.
Salted Water for Pasta
For this recipe I used about 2 cups of dry pasta.
Sauce
Make a simple white sauce (Béchamel) if you do not have onion, bay leaves and cloves to add to the milk do not worry. If you have a little nutmeg add that but again if not, don’t worry.
Heat on LOW heat about 1 ½ cups milk – can use 1% or 2% or mixture of lower fat and higher fat milk; obviously the higher fat makes it taste richer and creamier. The milk will not take long to heat. When milk is hot (you will see steam coming off the top), remove the pot and remove the onion, bay leaves and cloves if added.
Heating the milk for the sauce
Grate your cheese (or cut into small chunks as long as it is in smaller pieces to melt easily). I like it cheesy and usually add about a cup to the sauce.
Grated or small chunks of cheese
This is a preference of taste you can use a variety of cheeses whatever you like. In this particular recipe I used marble, old cheddar and some chive Boursin cheese as that is what was readily available at the time.
For the cheese sauce (Mornay) in another pot melt on LOW heat about 2 tbsp. of butter (or if you are short space / pots simply pour the hot milk into a bowl or pitcher and use the same pot to make the sauce).
Stirring the flour into the melted butter
Add about 2 tbsp. of flour and mix constantly to blend the melted butter and flour to a paste then add the hot milk and the grated cheese and stir continuously on LOW heat to thicken (a few minutes).
Stirring the cheese into the milk to thicken
Season with some pepper.
The sauce will likely not require much salt if you have used salted butter as well as the salt in the cheese; taste the sauce before seasoning with salt.
Drain the pasta, pour into the casserole dish and pour the cheese sauce on and mix to cover all the pasta.
Pasta and cheese sauce before baking
In a small frying pan melt about 1 tbsp. butter and add about ½ cup of breadcrumbs to coat the crumbs.
Sprinkle the buttered crumbs onto the pasta and bake uncovered in oven about 20 minutes. The breadcrumbs will be brown and the pasta will be bubbling.
Let it cool about 5-10 minutes before serving.
Baked Pasta and Cheese with Bread Crumb ToppingBon Appetit!!
This recipe is very versatile and easy to add other ingredients:
Cooked meat (ground beef, chicken, turkey, pieces of ham or bacon etc.)– About 1/2 cup to 1 cup of cooked meat can be added at the stage of mixing the pasta and sauce before baking.
Chopped tomatoes may be added prior to baking as well.
I am having a lot of trouble trying to figure out what to do here….i.e. adding pages / posts and categories and how I get them where I want them. I want to be able to have pages and items within each category of Food, Travel and Life but I have no idea how to get there…..I’ll keep searching help I guess…
I am not a tech savvy individual. I can manage various computer skills fine and produce basic presentations but when I decided to finally start a blog and website it was way out of my comfort zone; which is probably why I pushed myself to just do it. All you expert bloggers and websiters will (if you take a look at my site) likely have a chuckle at the primitive aspect of it but hey….I endeavour to persevere; I learn as I go.
I have a considerable library of food pics (some of my friends have dubbed food porn), travel pics, and various writings some bizarre more than others; I will get to them eventually.
Autumn is here, we have been fortunate to have some beautiful fall weather so I must tend to some final yard work on my acreage whilst possible. A couple acres of grass to cut, onions to pull and dry and roto-till the garden. The beets will likely stay in the ground as they are much better after a good frost which releases the sugars. As I am travelling to Spain next week for almost a month, I will be harvesting beets in November possibly in the snow, then finish up some pickling, maybe relish and probably make some borsht.
