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Monday, August 11, 2014

DIY: Recipe for Ham and chicken buffalo Mac and cheese

A while ago, I found and pinned this recipe from Sparkpeople. J loves pasta and I wanted to make something different from the usual meals I make. For the most part, I followed the instructions but not to the T. I made some variations to better suit our needs and it still tasted great. I did have some observations (below).

J and JOE both enjoyed the meal!

Ingredients:
4-cups of macaroni (NOTE: the ingredients listed below is what I used for 4-cups of macaroni. Feel free to adjust as needed)
2-cups of chopped broccoli
1-tablespoon unsalted butter
1-medium chopped onion
1-teaspoon minced garlic
1-6oz can of fire roasted diced tomatoes
1-tablespoon whole wheat flour
2-cups skim milk
3-pieces of cooked chicken breasts
1-cup of diced ham
3/4-cup buffalo hot sauce (adjust to desired heat level)
1/2-cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions:
  • Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
  • Coat your baking dish with cooking spray.
  • Cook pasta according to directions on box, drain and set aside.
  • Place the broccoli in a microwave safe dish and cook on high for 2-minutes.
  • Melt the butter in a large saucepan set over medium heat.
  • Add the onions and then the broccoli and garlic. Cook until the onions is translucent.
  • Add the fire roasted tomatoes and let cook until it starts to bubble a little.
  • In a cup, add the flour and a cup of milk. Stir until fully mixed. Add the mixture to the saucepan and then add the remaining cup of milk while stirring.
  • Add the buffalo hot sauce to the saucepan and cook for 2-minutes
  • Add the cooked chicken and the diced ham to the saucepan and cook for another 5-6 minutes to allow the meat to fully marinate in the sauce
  • Add the pasta and mix everything up
  • Pour into your sprayed baking dish
  • Top with cheese
  • Bake in the oven for 15-minutes




Buon Appetito!




Feedback/Comments:
The dish was DELICIOUS! However, my biggest issue with it is that the original recipe required a lot of ingredients and had a lot of steps. I tried to shorten things a bit with my recipe but it was still a lot.

This is not a traditional mac and cheese recipe. As on commenter put it on the Sparkpeople site, "when I saw the title of this recipe, I envisioned a bubbly and cheese dish. This is not the case. This is not a cheesy dish at all as you would expect a man and cheese to be. That being said, I did likt it and will probably make again, and try to make it a bit thicker, the sauce was runny."
I didn't have any "runny" issues with the dish but I certainly noticed quickly that it was not entirely a cheesy dish.

If you do make it, let me know how it turned out. These two certainly enjoyed it! :-)



Have a fabulously blessed week!

6 comments:

  1. This looks yummy...last night I tried pasta and broccoli it was a disaster! So this looks like a good try

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  2. It looks delicious and I do love pasta. I'll definitely have to give it a try... :)

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    Replies
    1. Thank you. It was but not sure if I'll be doing it again soon since it was more time consuming that anticipated. It was definitely delicious though.
      Do let me know if you try it.

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  3. This looks really good! I like that it isn't too cheesy!

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