Pot Luck: Crockpot Mac and Cheese

In my last post I discussed the potluck we had. I was going to post the recipe I used for the mac and cheese there, but I felt that post was getting a bit long- so here it is! 

For the pot luck I made a crock-pot mac and cheese (inspired by Pinterest, shockingly). Below is the image that inspired me via A Whisk and A Prayer Blog: 

 As usual, her picture of the end product looked significantly better than mine did, but alas, it still tasted good! I did modify the recipe a bit using: 

·      3 cups skim milk

·      12 oz fat free condensed milk

·      ¼ cup unsalted butter, softened  

·      3 large eggs or ¾ cup egg substitute (I used Egg substitute since I had it opened)

·      ½ teaspoon salt substitute (I used Nu Salt because I keep getting complaints that my food is “bland” since I generally do not use salt. Feel free to omit or use regular salt. If you are cooking for anyone with a Kidney problem- do not use a salt substitute!)

·      Cayenne pepper

·      Smoked paprika

·      Ground black pepper

·      1 box (1 pound) cavatappi pasta  (any shape you like works – such as elbows, or shells. You can also do whole wheat if you wish- but I didn’t want to turn people off too much.)

o   I used un-cooked pasta – the original recipe said par-cooked (about 5 minutes) but it depends on how long you are going to cook it in the crockpot.

·      4 cups shredded cheese (2 cups Cheddar Jack, and 2 cups low fat Pizza blend cheese)

·      2 pounds (1 large bag) mixed frozen vegetables (I used peas, carrots, corn and green beans).

·      ½ cup fresh shaved parmesan cheese

·      ½ cup Italian style bread crumbs

1.     Turn on crock pot (Mine only has 4 settings, so I turned it onto the quickest setting- high for 4 hours of cooking). You may wish to spray with pam/ olive oil.

2.     Add milk, condensed milk, butter, eggs, spices, pasta, mixed cheese (not parmesan cheese) and vegetables.

3.     Let cook in crock pot, stirring occasionally.

4.     Once pasta is tender (about 2 hours), you can add in the bread crumbs and parm cheese if you want. I saved the parm cheese for on the side and added it to the individual dishes.

Note: this dish can be ready in about 2 hours. I wound up cooking it on low for about 6-8 hours due to when people actually wanted to eat after arriving. 

For best results: Serve with Franks. 

Even Ghreylin had some! And he usually will not try anything.

I would also like to say- writing this post made me think of my friend Amy's blog Mac & Cheese  & Peas Since, that is in fact, what I made :)

Pot Luck and Giant Jenga

This Saturday my sister and her dog, Snuggles the Pomapoo,  came to visit.

Jordan decided that we should ‘show her a good time’ and decided to throw a pot luck.  So we also invited his friend Bruce and John, their dog, James (a lab dachshund), and Jon and Meaghan, and a puppy she adopted for her mom for Christmas, Mondo (A Chihuahua dachshund). Pair that with our dog, and Jordan’s parents dog – and we essentially had a pot luck/ puppy play date.  

During the pot luck, we decided to break out the Giant Jenga I made the other day!

It was quite the hit. People stated “It is much more fun than a regular sized Jenga!” and asked if I was taking Christmas orders.

We played on teams of 2, taking turns to remove the blocks. Since we had so many dogs around we added in the rule that if a team members dog knocked over the tower, that team lost. 

Snuggles mostly just barked at the process.

But Leo got precariously close at times. We all held onto our dogs once the tower started getting really high! 

Ghreylin was pretty happy once all of the other dogs finally left. He is too used to having free reign of the house and not having to worry about dogs trying to eat him, since he and Leo get along quite well on their own.