I fancified my comfort food!

Some of you may be surprised to hear it, but I haven't always loved cooking. Oh, I've always loved food, and always loved eating, but cooking wasn't something I was particularly good at, or particularly interested in learning about.

But as I learned more and became more daring in my cooking, I found I really enjoyed it. Now I find it fairly relaxing, and kind of fun.

The first things I learned to cook were comfort foods. My mom is a big-time comfort food master: soups, stews, casseroles are her signature dishes (what do you think mom, is that a fair assessment?) Beef stew and turkey chili were two of the first dishes I learned to make.

Now I cook all kinds of things and like to try new ingredients. But this week, I think I finally reached a new level of cooking...I succumbed to the urge to fancy-up my comfort food.

I made a batch of homemade mac & cheese, and on half of the casserole, I topped it with caramelized shallots and goat cheese* instead of crumbled ritz crackers.

It was yummy, though it felt a little frou-frou, like if I'm going to add goat cheese and caramelized shallots, I should use some unusually-shaped pasta and more adventurous cheeses than cheddar and colby for the cheese sauce.

I'll definitely be making this again, though, despite the incongruity of the pairing.

*This wasn't my creation. I'd read a recipe in some cooking magazine. I'm guessing Bon Appetit. I used my own mac & cheese recipe, though, just borrowed their topping idea.

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Current NaNo Word Count: 26,707

Current NaNo Attitude: It was nice to cross the half-way mark, and to still be on track to finish before 11/25. Looking forward to the write-in I'll be attending tonight! It's not all sunshine and roses, though, in that I'm a little mixed up about what's going to happen next. Ah, psycho-plotting is on the agenda. When in doubt, have something very bad happen to your characters. I don't think it's going to be a good day for the folks in my novel! Mwahahahaha!