Saturday, February 16, 2013

Buffalo RIver Home

Remember when I mentioned in my Valentine's post that I might make 710 a dinner?   Well, I did it.

It was a win-win.  Cooking relaxes me and I like to see the outcome. ...and g-d willing, I like to eat the outcome.

The meal was total comfort food:  Buffalo Chicken Mac & Cheese.

I had it at a neighbor's birthday party (minus the chicken) about a year ago.  Never before had I tried it and it was good.  It sure beats regular mac & cheese.

It is a little more labor-intensive than I would have wanted it to be, but whatta gonna do?   Again, the effort wasn't horrid or anything, but the clean-up was the worse part, but isn't it always?  And there aren't really that many ingredients (in no particular order).

1lb Chicken
8oz Cream cheese
3/4 cup Franks Red Hot Sauce
1 cup Blue cheese dressing
16 oz Macaroni elbows
1.5 cups Sharp Cheddar
1.5 cups Mozzarella
2 cloves of minced garlic
1 Red pepper
1 Yellow pepper
1 "bunch" of green onions
3/4 cup Panko

The sauce is easy: cream cheese, garlic, Frank's Red Hot Sauce and blue cheese dressing.  One recipe said use the food processer to mix, but that seemed like it would be a fucking mess to try to clean, so I just mixed by hand.  Make sure the cream cheese is room temperature. 

If you like it more or less spicy, add or cut back on the hot sauce (it's really not that hot - I added extra).

I cooked and diced the chicken, diced the peppers and green onions.  Save half the green onions for the topping. 

Boil the macaroni, put into a 9x13 dish, add chicken, peppers, half the green onions and half the cheese, mix together.  Then add all the sauce, mix some more.  

Then put the rest of the cheese and Panko on top.  Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes (uncovered).

Voila.  ...or Viola, if you're into classical music.  Sprinkle rest of green onions on top.  

Then serve and eat. 

Yeah, it's not not low calorie (well, I'm guessing!), though I suppose I could have used low fat cheese and cream cheese, but I didn't.  It was comfort food meant to comfort, and for g-d's sake, I used peppers - it's practically a salad!

But it's not like we're eating this every day.  I mean, we will be for the next 2-3, since it supposed to serve 8.  



Song by:  John Hiatt

2 comments:

anne marie in philly said...

looks dee-lish! you are a sweet husband.

"frank's red hot - I put that shit on everything!"

Birdie said...

You make a really good cooking post. If I cooked, this would be easy to follow. Great pics! 710 is lucky to have such an attentive husband.