Mama's Mac + Cheese // Recipes

    Moving away from my mom has been hard for so many reasons, but one of the biggest is that I miss her home cooked meals more than I can even put into words. My mom is a genius when it comes to food. Living with her cooking for almost 20 years was the greatest, but then having to cook for myself every night is the biggest pain in my butt. Thankfully my mom is wonderful and taught me how to cook from a very early age and she also shares all her recipes with me, and I thought I would share some of my favourites with you over the next little while. This week I made mac and cheese, which honestly tastes like actual heaven and it's also pretty cheap to make which I definitely appreciate now that I live on my own.



What you need:
5 strips of bacon
1 small onion
1 can of Campbell's condensed cheese soup
2 cans of mushroom soup
1/2 of whole tomatoes
1-2 tbsps of black pepper
2-3 drops of liquid smoke
1 bag of macaroni
2 cups of shredded cheese
750 ml of milk


   First of all, preheat your oven to 400F (does anyone else forget to preheat every. single. time?!) In a large pot, boil water for the macaroni. Then in a pan, fry your bacon, and while it's cooking, chop up your onions - the size depends on how you like them, I like onions so I chop them up pretty small, but my mom usually leaves them a bit bigger so that my sisters can pick them out. When the bacon is cooked, take it out and lay it on some paper towel and put your onion in the pan and fry it with the bacon grease.

     In a large bowl, mix together the cheese and mushroom soups, the tomatoes (you can cut them in half if the you think the whole tomatoes are too big!), and the liquid smoke - this can get super overpowering so make sure you use 3 drops max! When the water has boiled, add the macaroni and cook it, probably around 8 minutes. While that's cooking, you can cut up the bacon and add it and the onions into the bowl. After the mac has cooked, strain it and pour it into the bowl. Mix it all together while adding in the milk slowly. You want it to be a bit milky when it's done because it will soak up in the oven. Add in the pepper slowly and taste as you go so you don't add too much.

     After everything is mixed, transfer it all into a casserole dish and sprinkle cheese on top. Bake covered for 22-25 minutes. The cheese should be melted and golden brown. Let it sit covered for about 15 minutes and then it's ready to eat!

     If you try this out please send me photos and tell me how it went! This is probably in my top 5 favourite recipes so I really hope y'all enjoy it.

Reflecting + Resolutions

    Does anyone else still think 2008 was like 2 years ago? I don't know when time started to go by so fast but it freaks me out every time I think about it. Regardless, happy new year guys!! I spent my night at a raging party, aka with my lovely boyfriend eating Chinese food and watching Gilmore Girls. Very, very exciting stuff. 

      Anyways, since it is January, it's time to say all the things we liked about 2017, and all the things we want to do it 2018. I don't know about y'all, but for me last year was one of the most jam packed years I've ever had and I'm so so happy that it's over. 

The highlights include:

- dropping out of college

- Moving home

- Moving out on my own for the first time 

- Getting a new job, getting fired, and then getting two more jobs that I absolutely love 

- Trying to learn how to actually be an adult (it's actually really tough, who knew?)

     2017 was full of some of the darkest months of my life, I struggled a lot with anxiety and it is still something that I have to deal with on a regular basis, but I thankfully feel like I can manage it in a healthy way most of the time and as awful as it was to go through, it taught me a lot about who my friends are and how strong I can be. 

     This year I'm trying to stay as positive about things as I can, because I've realized how negative my mindset was for most of last year (and the years before that). I don't think it's healthy to always be looking for the bad things in life, especially when it's so easy to get overwhelmed by all of the bad in the world. I started to write down a couple things a day that made me happy in the notes on my phone, just so I can reflect at the end of the day. Even if I had a bad day, laying down before bed and thinking about all the positive things that happened definitely makes me feel a little less stressed. Even if I'm just writing "made a really good cup of tea", it's a silly little thing that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things but it just reminds me that there's always something good out there. 

      The other thing I'm trying to do this year is make a schedule and stick to it - I'm literally the worst for this. I swear every year I say the same thing and I last a couple weeks but then I stop following it. This year I am determined to do it for at least a month - progress, right? 

     Do you have resolutions? Let me know if you do because I'm so interested in other peoples!