Chorizo Mac & Cheese

We visited the Ithaca Farmer’s Market a few weeks ago and were lucky to hit a week when a local business was offering one of my all time favorite products – Chorizo. The Piggery is located in Trumansburg NY and Heather and Brad do things the way you would do them yourself, if you had the room for some 300 pound pigs plus all the paraphernalia required to raise them and then turn them into delectable pork chops, ribs, roasts and charcuterie. We raised pigs for awhile and I kind of miss it. They are actually quite charming a lot of the time, despite their determination to escape whatever enclosure you have decided they ought to stay within. On the plus side, unlike cows, they remember where they got out and if you can ever convince them to return to said enclosure, they don’t blunder in any old place, creating yet another opening were the fence needs to be fixed, instead conveniently showing you what spot needs attention as they scoot back through it.

Heather and Brad can be found any Saturday, until December 19th, at the Ithaca Farmer’s Market and their products are also available through a CSA in Ithaca and one in Brooklyn. Their site is definitely worth checking out, and make sure you don’t miss their About Us page.  I love seeing the trajectory of lives that end up in the least expected places, doing things you would never have guessed even just a few years prior.  You will find contact info for them on the front page as well as under the contact link on their site.  Their passion for what they do is downright inspiring, and we need more businesses like theirs in this country.  

So anyway – chorizo. Chorizo is sausage, Spanish, Portuguese and Mexican in origin. There are different characteristics for each, but here in the states, the Mexican influenced variety is probably most common. It is spicy, but not searingly so, and if you don’t live around here, you can find it in most grocery stores these days. This is 8 ounces of chorizo. Remove from the casings and saute in a hot pan just until it is barely cooked through – it will cook a bit more in the oven. Remove the sausage from the pan with a slotted spoon and set aside. Drain fat from pan, reserving a couple tablespoons to sweat the vegetables in the next step.

Cook 6 ounces of ziti, penne, or pasta of your choice, in boiling salted water. Drain about 2 minutes sooner than the package directions state, because this too will cook further in the oven and you don’t mushy pasta do you? No way. After draining, put the pasta in a 3 quart casserole dish. You can throw the chorizo in there at this point too.

This is
1 large stalk celery, diced
1/2 large sweet red pepper, seeded and diced
4 ounce can whole green chilies, drained and diced
1 or 2 good sized garlic cloves, minced
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Put the veg in the saute pan, with the reserved drippings from the chorizo and cook over lowish heat for about 5 minutes.Add the sweated vegetables to the pasta and chorizo along with
3 good sized scallions, sliced
Mix all of this upThere is more than one way to make Mac & Cheese. My Tex-Mex Macaroni and Cheese is made by layering the ingredients, and letting the milk, butter and flour combine as they cook to create the sauce. That recipe is based on my Grandmother’s method, while this one is based on the way my Mom taught me to make it, when she first began teaching me to cook when I was 10. In fact, Macaroni and Cheese is the first meal I ever made all by myself – Mom showed me how, and the next time, she had me do it without her help.  My whole family is still alive and kicking, so apparently they suffered no ill effects from my early effort.  A few of them are a little on the strange side, but I doubt that can be traced to my cooking.  I talked about making bechamel in the recipe for New Potatoes and Green Beans, if you want a bit more info about it.

Melt 2 tablespoons butter in the same pan you used for the sausage and veggies – the bits you see in there are because I don’t even bother to wipe out the pan. To the melted butter, add 2 tablespoons all purpose flour.Stir the butter and flour over low heat for about 2 minutes and gradually add 2 cups of milk, stirring all the while, until it gets bubbly and thickened. Season with about 1/2 teaspoon saltAdd your cheeses. I used
4 ounces extra sharp cheddar
4 ounces smoked Gouda
The smoked Gouda is lovely in here, but if you don’t have any, Colby or Monterrey jack would be nice too. Stir over low heat, until the cheese is melted.Whisk in 1/2 teaspoon cumin 1 teaspoon smoked paprika.Carefully pour the cheese sauce into the casseroleAnd stir to combine. Now Martha Stewart, who I am sure has minions to do her dishes, would have mixed this all up in another bowl and then poured it neatly into the casserole dish. I have no minions, so I mix it right in the casserole, and then use a damp towel to wipe off the sauce that ends up all over the edge, so that it doesn’t burn and become part of the molecular composition of the dish, entailing a bunch of scrubbing. Again with the no minions thing.Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes, until it looks all browned a bubbly. Let cool about 5 minutes and serve along with some crusty bread, green salad and maybe steamed broccoli or roasted winter squash.You can fit more on your plate if it is by itself though.

There is a lot of Mac & Cheese on food blogs lately – must be the fall weather. Here a few that caught my eye lately:
Roasted Butternut Squash and Bacon Pasta
Saffron Scented Macaroni and Cheese