Recipe: Sweet Pea Mac ‘n Cheese Cups

Sweet Pea Mac ‘n Cheese Cups

Happy & Healthy Cooking,

Fun-Da-Mentals Kitchen Skills

• fold :

  to gently and slowly mix a light ingredient into a heavier ingredient so as not to lose air and to keep the mixture tender, such as incorporating whipped egg whites into a cake batter or folding blueberries into pancake batter; folding is a gentler action than mixing or whisking.

• grate :

  to reduce food, like a carrot, to very small shreds or pieces of the same size by rubbing it on a tool with an outside surface that has holes with cutting edges (a grater).

• measure :

  to calculate the specific amount of an ingredient required using a measuring tool (like measuring cups or spoons).

• whisk :

  to beat or stir ingredients vigorously with a fork or whisk to mix, blend, or incorporate air.

History of Mac 'n Cheese!

• Pasta and cheese recipes were first in 14th century Italian and medieval English cookbooks. A more modern recipe was found in a 1769 English housekeeping book. So how did macaroni and cheese become such a popular American dish? The prevailing story involves Thomas Jefferson, the third US president. Is it way too gouda to be true?! 
• The story says that Thomas encountered macaroni and cheese when he traveled to Paris and northern Italy in the 1700s. He sketched the pasta and took detailed notes on how to make it. Then, in 1793, he sent an American ambassador all the way to Paris just to purchase a pasta machine so he could make his own macaroni. After a year of waiting, the device was finally brought back to Jefferson, and guess what?  It didn't work!
• But Jefferson did not give up. He started importing dried macaroni pasta and Parmesan cheese from Italy to serve at his dinner parties at his home in Virginia. In 1802, Jefferson served the very first macaroni and cheese dish at a state dinner, which he named "a pie called macaroni." It was considered an exotic and fancy meal. As far as we know, this was the first time anyone in North America ate mac 'n cheese.
• At that time, mac 'n cheese was considered a cuisine of the upper-class. However, Thomas Jefferson had slaves who cooked for him and his family. These slaves made this "fancy" dish their own, and mac 'n cheese became and remains a staple southern "soul food" dish. 
• About two decades (20 years) after Jefferson served the first cheese pasta dish at his dinner party, a recipe called "macaroni and cheese" was published in the 1824 cookbook called The Virginia Housewife. A distant cousin of Jefferson's, Mary Randolph, wrote it. 
• During the Great Depression in the USA in the 1930s, Kraft Foods created a boxed version: Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. As a result, mac' n cheese became affordable and accessible to all Americans, and it has been one of America's most popular comfort foods ever since.
• July 14 is "National Mac and Cheese Day!"

Let's Learn About Colonial America!

• European settlers came to America from England, France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic in the late 1500s and created colonies for their respective countries. The Jamestown settlement in the Virginia colony was established in 1607 and was the first English community in the Americas. The Dutch founded the New Netherland colony in the area that is now the states of Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York. 
• There are two reasons these countries colonized America. One was the access to natural resources in the new land and the ability to make money for investors back in their home countries. The second was for freedom to practice their religion without persecution. The Puritans were the first such pilgrims to leave England, and they settled at the Plymouth Plantation. The Province of Maryland was founded to protect English Roman Catholics. 
• Unfortunately, foreign colonization brought hardship to the indigenous people already living there. One reason is that these people lived in an interconnected relationship with the land. In contrast, many colonists and their governments set out to conquer the land (and the Native Americans) to increase their property and wealth.
• The thirteen British colonies eventually joined in revolting and fighting against the British in 1775 and declaring independence from the British government in July 1776. 

What Was It Like to Be a Kid in Colonial America?

• The lives of colonists and their children were difficult. They had to live off the land and often suffered and died from diseases. Kids had to follow strict rules, and their parents expected them to do a lot of work at home.
• There was a common belief that "children are to be seen and not heard." Therefore, kids were to eat quickly, without talking, and then leave the table as soon as they finished. Sometimes kids did not even sit at the table but stood behind their parents, waiting to have their food handed back to them!
• Kids had household chores such as shelling corn, spinning cotton and wool, cutting sugar, gathering wood, making soap and candles, helping in the garden, and feeding the animals. 
• Even babies had a job to do! Crawling was considered an animal behavior, so little ones wore stiff stays under their clothes to help them stay upright, keep good posture, and learn to stand and walk as soon as possible.
• At the age of eight, boys started grammar school for writing and arithmetic, but for girls, education came second to their training in domestic duties. By age 14, young people were already considered adults. 
• Children played with toys made of wood; however, they spent so much of their time doing chores they had to squeeze in playtime.