Random Cilantro Led to My Best Ever Mac and Cheese
The Random Garden at Vivenda Vista de Paz strikes again, with a surprise spring-into-summer bounty.
The cold, rainy spring this year in Maryland may finally be making its exit, and we’re on the home stretch into summer. How do we know this? Well, we planted the tomato seedlings with great confidence we’d have no more frost.
And the Random Garden has graced us again with a welcome surprise: cilantro. A lot of it.
When I say “a lot” of cilantro, there’s a lot to unpack behind that. You see, we notoriously had trouble getting any cilantro (coentros) to grow in the Random Garden in Praia das Maçãs. So much so that it became a running joke. We’d put out seeds every year, get a couple of spindly plants, and watch as they died. And watched the avocado seeds next to them sprout and grow prodigiously.
We’ve had much better luck with cilantro in Maryland, but not when the first year we planted seeds. We had to wait until year 2 and 3 before they popped up out of the blue, the result of their own self-seeding.
But they alway appeared in the big patch at the top of the rise in the back yard. This year, we’re clearly benefitting from the trio of cilantro plants we put out in the stone raised bed last year. That summer, they were quickly swamped by the random tomatoes that took over before they could go to seed and give us coriander to dry.
We are not going to have that problem this year. In fact, we’ll be eating cilantro every day and making salsa verde on the weekends to freeze, just to keep up.
I know the tomatoes will be right behind them… but for now, we need clever ways to use this herbaceous emerald bounty. So I came up with a version of my mac & cheese (using Annie’s Organic Shells and White Cheddar in the box) that would sing along well with the feathery leaves.
S has declared it the best he’s had… and I am going to agree it’s the best I’ve made.
Best Ever Mac & Cheese with Kimchi, Tomatoes & Cilantro
One box Annie’s Organic Shells & White Cheddar*
1 sweet onion (Vidalia is a good choice)
1 14 ounce can diced tomatoes
6 Tbsp butter, divided
1/2 cup napa cabbage spicy kimchi
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2 slices of bacon
1/4 cup half & half
1 handful of cilantro leaves
Salt & pepper to taste
*you may wish to avoid boxed mac&cheese because the powdered cheese may contain stabilizers you don’t want… in which case, buy Barilla tiny shells and fold in white cheddar (grated) into the half&half / butter mix when you get to that step.
1. Start with a box of Annie’s Shells & White Cheddar… but before you boil the water for the noodles, slice one sweet onion thinly and start it carmelizing in a saucepan with 3 Tbsp butter, salt, and pepper over medium heat.
2. Then start the water boiling for the mac.
3. Take one can of diced tomatoes and drain them in a large colander.
4. Take a half cup of kimchi and chop it up and add it to the toms in the colander.
5. Fry up two slices of bacon til crispy and chop into small pieces.
6. Chop up a handful of cilantro leaves, to make about 2 Tbsp total, or to your taste.
7. Once the water boils, put in the mac and continue stirring the onions to keep them carmelizing — you won’t use them til the last minute, as a topping.
8. After 8–10 minutes, take the mac off and drain it into the same colander as the toms/kimchi. Let it sit for a bit.
9. Take the saucepan you boiled the mac in and melt 3 Tbsp butter in it plus a 1/4 cup half and half then sprinkle the cheese pack from the mac box over to soften it, then stir in to combine.
10. Let this come together over a warm burner. (Not on, just residual electric heat, or set to the lowest simmer on a gas burner)
11. Once the cheese mixture is creamy, stir in the contents of the colander (mac noodles, toms, and kimchi), then stir in the bacon, then the cilantro.
12. Top with a swirl of the carmelized onions.
It’s surprisingly light and fresh and creamy and savory at the same time.
Best mac I’ve made… and I’ve made a lot.
