Roasted Tomato Paella

Recipe origin: http://jenniferscooking.blogspot.com/2009/01/tomato-paella.html

This one-pan short grain rice dish (not really paella, but in the spirit of paella) is smoky (paprika), tangy/sweet (tomatoes), chewy (edges), and soft (arborio rice).

.....sweet smoked paprika from Aphrodisia on Bleecker St., for a whopping one dollar. the smell of this stuff makes this all worth it.

.... we added some sliced roasted garlic chicken sausages to beef things up a bit

-R

Classic Macaroni and Cheese with BACON

It was one of those times when a recipe seems silly, and writing down what you do even sillier. So, this is what I remember happened:

First, I cooked bacon in butter in a good size cast iron skillet.. Yes, I did. Then I dropped in a huge onion and two cloves of garlic, chopped. Meanwhile, cook some tube-y pasta al dente. Make a roux with the fat/bacon/onion/garlic in the pan by adding a couple tablespoons of flour. Cook the roux for about five minutes, then add a good amount of whole milk, forming a bacon-y bechemel. Stir in the pasta, filling the skillet to the top. Then add as much shredded cheese as you can possibly fit, and fresh flat leaf parsley. The cheese should begin to melt, and everything should reek of bacon. This means it is right.

Top the skillet with more cheese, parsley, and lots and lots of good, coarse bread crumbs and bake in the oven at 375 for about a half an hour until it is brown and bubbly. Then please make sure it sits a bit before you eat it! And please ignore the fact that I switch tenses about 14 times in this post. Thanks.

-R