🤠Find Your Little Friday🤠
In honor of a huge change in my life, I give you my first recipe inspired by my new home, Austin, Texas.
Cooking seasonally and utilizing the local harvest offerings is not only the most flavorful way to cook, it’s also more affordable. Nothing is more abundant this time of year in the Southwest than hatch peppers. Everywhere I look their unique flavor profile(the ideal pepper ratio of heat & sweetness) is being honored by being inserted into many dishes. This effort completely utilizes their brief but wonderful season. When in Rome, do like the Romans-When in Austin, do like the Texans and allow me to fall into the fold. Combining many of my favorite things here-mac and cheese with pimento cheese flavors and a level-up achieved with adding the hatch peppers. Heck yes. This dish is a new reinvented classic that has officially been added to the arsenal.
If you don’t have access to hatch peppers, it will still be delicious without the added bonus, but you can gauge adding some heat with jalapeno-just be careful, they are known to bring the heat. Also, don’t touch your eyes in between dicing peppers, for some reason fingers become magnets to eyes when you start cutting peppers. You should keep with the continued practice of not touching your face in general these days, so please. It should be noted, you can absolutely eat it cold and it is equally perfect. Maybe even better at times aiding in subsiding in the heat.
2 garlic cloves, split
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature, divided
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, divided
1 small red pepper, seeded and cut into a 1 inch dice
2 hatch peppers, seeded and cut into a 1 inch dice
¾ cup red peppadews in brine, cut into 1 inch dice and reserving 2 tbsp of brine
1/4 teaspoon ground ancho chiles or cayenne pepper
1 1/4 cups (packed) coarsely grated extra-sharp cheddar cheese
1 cup (packed) coarsely grated whole-milk mozzarella
8 ounces medium elbow macaroni noodle
½ cup of pank (Japanese breadcrumbs)
Bring 1 1/2 cup water, bell pepper, peppadews with their brine, hatch peppers and garlic cloves to a boil in a small saucepan. Cover then reduce heat to medium-low simmer, ensuring the peppers are softened, about 10 minutes. In the bowl of a food processor, add in the cheddar cheese and the parmesan cheese. Add the peppers and garlic, with all of their liquid. Add the ground pepper and blend/pulse until smooth, adding salt & pepper, adjusting to desired flavored.
Preheat the oven to 400°F. Butter a 9x13 baking dish. Cook pasta in a pot of boiling salted water until tender but still firm to bite, about 2 minutes less than the listed time on the box. Drain noodles and return them to the pot. Stir pimento sauce and mozzarella into pasta, taste and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper. Spoon pasta into prepared baking dish. Sprinkle with panko breadcrumbs. Sprinkle with crumb topping. Bake for about 25 minutes, then let stand for 10 minutes before serving. Enjoy!