Home: Kraft Dinner - an outsiders view

After weeks and weeks of work colleagues in my currently adopted home (Canada) telling me of the amazing foodstuff Kraft Dinner we finally caved and Wissy bought two packets of the instant food, we even went as far as inviting Alex around for supper as he had never tasted it either.

Note: - I fundamentally have an issue with the naming of the product - Kraft Dinner does not describe in anyway what you are getting - in the UK it is called Cheesy Pasta, in the US it is called Mac and Cheese - both at least indicative of the contents of the box. It is like Mr Kellogg  launching Kellogg Breakfast, what could it be? Waffles, All Bran, Full English?


After work we headed home and the preparation began.

Boiling water - we can do this, 7 minutes later and the pasta is done, right, now the complicated part, add some of what was the most brightly colored powdered "cheese" I have ever seen, some butter and some milk, then stir.

Once the correct creamy consistency had been achieved add to bowl and consume.

The dominant flavor is from the butter, considering the color of the cheese powder I didn't get the punchy cheese flavor I expected at all, mostly just butter. At this point several members of the tasting party wanted to stop but I insisted we at least give the meal a fair chance, maybe it grows on you?

Luckily we have 100% meat, Bacon Bits in the cupboard, with the addition of some dried meat and lashings of Tabasco sauce we finally managed to add some taste and finish the dish.

The final consensus on KD? wrong, bad. I can see how it would appeal to students but as a grown man who can cook this food stuff will never pass my lips again - unless I am paid a large some of money to recant this tale.

As an aside in the same time you could cook a simple cheese sauce and pasta from scratch - yes we realise this would be more expensive, but also you could cook pasta and toss it in butter with some black pepper and this would taste better and be cheaper, finish off with an apple and it is still cheaper and healthier...

Home: The Humble Potato

We eat a lot of potato, or at least we eat potato lots of ways, there is a good reason it is a dietary staple.

Our current favorites are:

• Mashed
• Rosti
• Farl
• Gnocchi
• Baked

Although looking at this list I suddenly see that they are favorites because all of the cooking methods use butter (anther of our favorite foods) in varying degrees.

Mash

Although mash is simple it is also probably the most versatile here.

Wissy peels the potatoes, I don't - this is a personal preference / laziness thing, but chop them into manageble chunks and keep them at a rolling boil until a knife slides in smoothly - if you left the skin on it should be lifting away from the potato.

A sturdy masher is essential, a flimsy mashing tool means you will soon be buying another, and the design is important, it needs to be easy to clean, or get a dish washer, pretty mashers with nooks and crannies are soon regretted.

Add butter - a knob - and milk and start mashing, you don't want to much at first as you can't take it back and you don't want to make potato soup!

Once it is the correct consistence, some where between crushed and light and fluffy - your call, you can start the fun part. We often add chilly powder or mustard, but you can go wild - cheese, ketchup, horseradish, whatever compliments the food on your plate!

Rosti

I prefer this for breakfast but it works for a evening meal just as well.

Grate the uncooked potato roughly, then squeeze out as much moisture as you can with your hands. I then fashion this into patties, about 3 inches across and 1/2 an inch thick and (although they can be baked) mine go into a lightly oiled pan.

Once in the pan add butter around the edges of the rosti, this will keep the pan cooler and add rich colour and flavour. As it cooks and colours up flip them over and repeat on the other side. Keep the butter coming it is important.

Like burgers the colour of the outside is important but you also want them in the pan long enough to be cooked, the potato in the centre needs to be warm and translucent in that sort of cooked potato way.

Once done put on the plate, add ketchup and enjoy.

Farl

This is a fairly new edition to my potato repertoire, Farl, or Irish Potato Cake, and a god choice to use up left over mash.

Start like the mash but at the point of adding the extras add plain flour instead, keep mixing and adding flour until it all sticks together with a constancy like dough (bread dough or play dough are both good references depending on your cooking experience/age), at this point I have added chopped spring onions, diced left over bacon would be good too.

Once you have the potato dough, roll it out on a flat cool surface dusted with flour, into a circle and chop into quarters - this is apparently traditional but it also makes cooking easier if they are a manageable size. The Farl shouldn't be much more than 1/2 an inch thick.

Into the oiled frying pan, of course using butter to help the cooking process and once one side is brown flip and repeat.

Serve straight away, job done.

Gnocchi


These are good for impressing people but are simple to make, Gnocchi are italian potato dumplings.

Starting with a basic mash, cooked and ready to go, like the Farl add flour until you get the dough consistency. A this point instead of rolling them out flat shape them in your hands into little dumplings, about 3/4 of an inch long and 1/2 an inch across.

Once you have all the gnocchi prepared they are dropped into boiling water, cooking time is easy, once they are cooked they helpfully float scoop them off the surface and serve. They don't take long, normally about 2 minutes so don't walk away...

Any sauce you cook for pasta will work for gnocchi too

Baked

I have left the humble baked potato for last, there are too many ways to cook these, on a BBQ, wrapped in foil, par boiling first, the most important thing to know is that once you have decided on a method - and ours is often an hour in the oven wrapped in foil - the important part is poke it with a skewer to make sure it is cooked through, it should slide in easily.

To serve cut it in a cross at the top push open and add butter (of course)

I know this isn't an exhaustive list of potato recipes but they are our favorites...

Home: Guest Post on Kraft Dinner

The following is a Guest Post written by Jaclyn Yurek, I have not tried Kraft Dinner but the love shown for this food by Canadian students is amazing, the Wikipedia entry discusses Canadian Culture and the processed cheesy pasta snack - anyway - read on:

You crave it after a long hard day at work, you buy 10 boxes when it’s on sale at the grocery store because now it costs over a dollar, after a long night out at a bar it’s all you want to cure the hangover, not to mention you went to bed the night before just thinking of how great it will taste in the morning, you always eat a whole box when really, the serving size is 1/3.  It doesn’t matter because it’s Kraft Dinner. It’s easy to make, and no one ever follows the instructions just use a little bit of milk, a spoonful of butter, all of the cheesey magic that comes in the box and you’ve got yourself a mean pot of KD. 

Some may disagree, but Kraft Dinner is always best to eat just after it’s made.  None of this “left overs” business.  You either eat it all, or only make half a box. You can’t let Kraft Dinner go to waste, and saving it for another day by putting it in the fridge is just not the same.  The next day it’s always stringy and it loses its creamy goodness.

Some people new to North America who haven’t yet tried Kraft Dinner please take note.  You must buy the Kraft Dinner Original.  Don’t be confused by these other variations of Kraft Dinner that are in the grocery stores like “extra creamy”, “spirals”, “sharp cheddar” not to mention all of the fake Kraft Dinner brands out there that might look like Kraft Dinner but are in a different box with a different name.  None of these compare to Kraft Dinner Original (and there’s actually less in the box for most of them).  More recently since everyone’s on some kind of health kick, you can now get cauliflower noodles and whole-wheat noodles for Kraft Dinner.  Come on, go big or go home.  We’ve all dealt with the fact that it’s not good for us, but Kraft Dinner is a classic meal and not for those who can’t handle a good high calorie cheesey dish.

All in all, Kraft Dinner is really tasty. Enough said.  If you haven’t tried it, trust me it doesn’t disappoint.  And for those of you who might be resistant, just make half a box and I’m sure if you go out on any street in North America at 2am when all the bars are closing you could make a killing off of the leftovers.

TIP: could be served with cut up hot dogs, and ketchup (but really is best on its own).