Mac & Cheese Green Peppers: I screw up so you don't have to

OK, so I posted the recipe here, froze it and am making it today in the crockpot.  If you plan to use a crockpot and cook them from a frozen state, make sure the container you put them in in the first place approximates the size and shape of your crockpot so that you can fit the frozen peppers in later.  I screw up so you don't have to.  Four large peppers will fit crammed into a 5-quart round crockpot.

Quick fixes: put the ones that will fit on HIGH in the crockpot for awhile until they're a bit soft and them cram the remaining pepper in OR let them thaw during the day and bake them 30 minutes or so at 400F (instead of 350F for 45 minutes to an hour) OR order pizza.  Pin It

Mac and Cheese Stuffed Peppers

This is a fabuluoso do-over for leftover mac and cheese, although I think if you have significant amounts of leftover mac and cheese, you're doing something wrong.  Just sayin'.  It's also great to make up a bunch when peppers go on sale at your market and freeze a couple of batches ahead. 

As always, I offer choices in this recipe.  You can cook it in the crockpot (!!) or in the oven, and you can use whatever veggies you want...frozen or canned corn kernels, peas, cut green beans or diced carrots are easiest, but you can certainly use 2-3 cups of something fresh like diced onions, carrots, celery, beets, or chopped greens and saute them for 5-10 minutes until softened.  Quartered cherry tomatoes would be excellent as well.  Or skip the veggies if you have a princess in your household who can detect a hidden pea under 20 mattresses and will have a fit if one should come in contact with the rest of dinner.  If you skip the veggies, you'll need 2 cups of something else...more mac and cheese, or some form of chopped up protein.

You can make mac and cheese from scratch (here is one way to do it...leave out the beef and breadcrumbs, use whatever cheese you like and use sour cream instead of dressing), but I used 1 regular sized box of good ol' Kraft for this.   

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St. Patty's Day Redux

Who didn't make corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick's Day?  Anyone?  OK, well, you over there on I Don't Do Silly Holidays Island and your friend in Corned Beef Is Gross City, you two can stop reading now.

Unless you made it for a party, I bet there were some leftovers.  I'm putting my corned beef leftovers into a cheese ball (!!) and into a Reuben flavored macaroni and cheese casserole.  The hubbie loves reubens, the kids love mac and cheese, I have leftover corned beef and thousand island dressing...winners all round! 

I especially like this type of M&C recipe because you don't have to make a roux-based cheese sauce to bathe the pasta in.  It winds up being less work on the front end and slightly more work on the back end as you have to cook the finished casserole longer on account of the eggs, but I think having less prepwork is an advantage here.
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Waste Not: Bacon

  

Gratuitious bacon shot

More specifically, bacon grease.  My mom kept a coffee can by the stove to collect bacon grease so that it didn't clog up the disposal.  She threw it out when it got full.  I don't know for sure that my grandmothers or great-grandmothers kept a can by the stove the collect bacon grease, but if they many housewives of their generation did and it was to use for cooking.  Most cookbooks written before the 1960's don't specify what kind of fat to use in a recipe...because the cook might have been using rendered bacon fat just as often as oil or butter.

But it's so high in fat!!  So are butter and olive oil, actually.  It's all fat, and you shouldn't go bonkers with any of it really.  Bacon grease is immensely flavorful (like butter) with a high smoke point (like canola oil).  You don't have to drown all your cookery in bacon fat, but a tablespoon added to other fats will help correct their deficiencies.  Just don't add any extra salt to the recipe.

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