A Week without Kids: Day Four

Swiss cheese scarf (and pattern!) found here

Do you know that feeling, when you're on vacation, and you not only lose track of time but you forget what day it is? Yep, I'm there. I sat down to write this post, and I couldn't remember what day it was, three or four. Hopefully I got it right...

We spent the day helping my sister reorganize her kitchen (someday we'll help her on a remodel, but not this trip), which was perfect, because I really needed to know where everything was to cook today's grown-up recipe.

Here's a link to the recipe (which I found on Pinterest):

Greek Macaroni and Cheese




Now, keeping in mind that I am in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, Nevada, so I did have to make some substitutions and omissions.

The recipe calls for a Greek cheese, Graviera, which I don't know if I could even find in the fabulous cheese bins at Central Market or Trader Joe's. So, I did a google search, and found a website that had cheese substitution recommendations. They suggested either Gruyere or Jarlsberg. The local grocery store only had smoked Gruyere (yech!), so, Jarlsberg it is!

Also, I couldn't find shallots or scallions (seriously, what the heck is a shallot??), so we used green onions instead.

The only other change I made was to reduce the amount of spinach. The recipe calls for two pounds of baby spinach! I only used about 9oz (one and a half packages of bagged stuff), and that was more than enough.

Seriously, that's a lot of spinach!

The result? YUM!!!

And, I can't tell you how nice it is to be appreciated, not only for the end result, but for the effort put into a complicated recipe. Thank YOU, Mom and sister, for all of the compliments. *sniff*

Edited to add PICTURES!