It is essentially the base of a mac and cheese,
but, instead of noodles, I'm putting a ton of veggies in.
It's an incredible way to use up anything
that might be kind of like, you know,
going past its prime in your fridge,
or use a bits and pieces.
If you had like half a box of spaghetti leftover,
you want to add that in.
It's a really versatile, easy thing.
I love that.
Per usual, there's gonna be like one or two little touches
that make it feel celebratory and special
because it's for you.
(both laugh)
So, you know, I think, as all good recipes do,
this one's gonna start
with a combination of butter and olive oil.
So I've got a whole big onion that I minced up
in with that hot sizzling oil and butter
and the olive oil that I told you about.
And of course, when that goes in,
grab yourself a big pinch of salt.
And, as that goes, I'll just show you
what else is gonna happen in here.
Minced up garlic, fresh thyme,
a ton of Gruyère and cheddar cheese.
Can you see all that situation happening?
And then you have to do your penance,
but it's gonna taste delicious.
Here's your kale, here's your cauliflower,
here's your butternut squash.
Oh, I love it!
Every color, every color of vegetable.
I added in a little garlic- A little flour?
That's coming next right.
Rach, the scent in here is your and my perfume,
cooking garlic.
Plenty of thyme going in now as well.
And, oh, here that pop? Yup.
Those little sound effects of cooking
that are just so clutch.
So let that fresh thyme start to bloom in the hot oil.
And then, yes, I'm gonna grab two tablespoons
of just AP flour, and make sure you toss that
into the hot oil so that it starts to cook out,
and you don't have a raw flour taste.
That's gonna give us a nice, thick, creamy cheesy sauce
to bathe all those veggies in.
You have like half a box of pasta leftover.
You have some beans you opened, quinoa,
whatever you have in the fridge, you can toss it in here
and kind of like bury it in the delicious cheesy sauce.
I'm gonna top it with a cauliflower tater tot
that I roast up in the oven, these are store bought.
Let me just tell you something,
the things they're doing with cauliflower these days
is mind blowing. It's incredible,
pizza crust, tots, chips.
I had cauliflower chips, they were delightful.
Oh yeah.
So you can see the flour in here is bloomed up.
I've got 2 1/2 cups of warmed milk here, whole milk.
And I'm just gonna start to stir that in.
I'm working with like, you know, half capacity right now,
'cause I broke my knuckle.
So apologies for the- I saw,
I saw you had a little cast situation going on on your hand.
So that, you know, guys,
one little trick here when you're making a cheesy sauce,
Rachael, obviously you know this, but just for the peeps,
starting with a warm liquid, so important
so it doesn't sort of set your hot oil
and then you get bad thickness that you don't want,
little pieces.
This is gonna give you
a lusciously creamy- And it separates.
Exactly. You need to add warm liquid
to keep it from separating
and to let the cheese melt evenly.
And already you can see this sauce
is starting to thicken up.
The more you cook it, the more thickened it will get
from that flour addition in there.
But I'm gonna get us right to the cheese, aren't I?
I feel like it's cheese time.
♪ I feel like it's cheese time ♪
♪ Feel like it's cheese time ♪
Gruyere, cheddar, mozzarella, like whatever.
Literally, this is mom food.
This is not just food you're gonna want to eat,
not just what your kids are gonna want to eat,
it's also gonna help you get rid of (laughs) anything.
This is a clean out the fridge, man.
Use all your veggies. Use all the bits of-
Exactly. Right?
Put all the things you didn't want to eat in there,
you know? (laughs)
I've got a big head of lacinato kale,
that's that sort of flat, dinosaur kale.
You can definitely curly kale. Yeah, I love it.
You can try spinach, chard.
Guess what else?
I didn't even pull it off the stem.
I literally just gave it a quick ribbon chop,
because it's gonna braise in this cheese sauce.
So don't stress yourself out about taking the stem out
if you don't need to, I like a little texture.
I love flat kale because it stands up to cooking.
It doesn't mush out, like, and just completely go away
like spinach might.
Like, that's just a great green for cooking.
Exactly. Right.
Well, you think about, you know, collards and everything.
You want a green that has a little toughness to it
that's not gonna release all of its liquid right away.
I added in about a cup and a half of cubed butternut squash,
may be my favorite ingredient of this season.
And you can chop these up
and use it like breadcrumbs if you want.
If you had tater tots, just scattered those over top,
they look so pretty.
This is gonna go into a 350 degree oven.
Just so the butternut squash cooks,
you want like 30 minutes until the butternut squash
is tender, the cauliflower is tender and cooked.
I like to leave it covered for the first 20 minutes
and then uncover it, so it gets really nice and crispy.
And, of course- Awesome!
I have one that I made earlier,
so I can show you what it looks like.
Ta-da!
La-da. Yay!
Brava.
(whimsical chiming)