What’s Cooking Wednesday with Abigail Baker

Here at Entangled, we like to read.

(Bet you would never have guessed that.)

So we also love quick-n-easy recipes that free up more time for us to indulge in our favorite past time.

Each week we’re sharing some of our favorite recipes to help you find a few extra minutes in your day to enjoy your next favorite book!

This week a special guest:

Alton Brown’s Baked Macaroni and Cheese from Abigail Baker!

Who tried it: Abigail Baker, author of The Reaper’s Kiss and family (particularly her nephew who LOVES any and all mac-n-cheese)

Why she likes it: Recipe is easy and consistent. Plus, it’s a recipe by Alton Brown. He is a kitchen master!

Ingredients:

1/2 pound elbow macaroni
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon powdered mustard
3 cups milk
1/2 cup yellow onion, finely diced
1 bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 large egg
12 ounces sharp cheddar, shredded
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Fresh black pepper

Topping:

3 tablespoons butter
1 cup panko bread crumbs

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large pot of boiling, salted water cook the pasta to al dente.

While the pasta is cooking, in a separate pot, melt the butter. Whisk in the flour and mustard and keep it moving for about five minutes. Make sure it’s free of lumps. Stir in the milk, onion, bay leaf, and paprika. Simmer for ten minutes and remove the bay leaf.

Temper in the egg. Stir in 3/4 of the cheese. Season with salt and pepper. Fold the macaroni into the mix and pour into a 2-quart casserole dish. Top with remaining cheese.

Melt the butter in a saute pan and toss the bread crumbs to coat. Top the macaroni with the bread crumbs. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and rest for five minutes before serving.

With all that extra time not spent in the kitchen, what’s Abigail currently editing and reading?

While she eats one of her favorite comfort foods, Abigail is currently re-reading one of her favorite books—What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty. She decided to pick the book up again once she started taking spinning classes. If you don’t know why spinning and What Alice Forgot are connected, then you must add it to your TBR pile.

Alice Love is twenty-nine, crazy about her husband, and pregnant with her first child.

So imagine Alice’s surprise when she comes to on the floor of a gym and is whisked off to the hospital where she discovers the honeymoon is truly over — she’s getting divorced, she has three kids and she’s actually 39 years old. Alice must reconstruct the events of a lost decade, and find out whether it’s possible to reconstruct her life at the same time. She has to figure out why her sister hardly talks to her, and how is it that she’s become one of those super skinny moms with really expensive clothes.

Ultimately, Alice must discover whether forgetting is a blessing or a curse, and whether it’s possible to start over.

Get The Reaper’s Kiss by Abigail Baker for FREE!

Drop-dead gorgeous…and fatal.

Ollie Dormier’s tattoos are deadly. She is a Scrivener—an employee for Death—and her skull tattoos mark her clients for their demise. She does her job, and she stays out of trouble. But when her hands start to burn hot and fierce, and her control goes leaping out the window, all hell breaks loose. Ollie is showing the early signs of being a Master…demonstrating power that is forbidden.

That power is exactly what Reaper Brent Hume is counting on. A hot, scruffy rebel, who does marvelous and terrifying things to Ollie’s insides. Now he needs Ollie’s help—and her skills—to overthrow the evil and corrupt Head Reaper. That is, if he can figure out a way to keep this hot-handed girl cool…and keep his hands off.

Abigail Baker shares her home with a Siamese cat endearingly named “The Other Cat” and two rescued mutts with mundane human names that people think are cute. In addition to writing about rebellious heroines, she enjoys hiking, discovering craft beers, baking the perfect vanilla bean cupcake, and rock climbing (going as far as scaling 800 vertical feet to the summit of Devil’s Tower National Monument in 2013.).