♪ Snackity Chat ♪

♪ Do, ba, do, do, do, do ♪

♪ The show where you snack more than you chat ♪

♪ It's Snack Chat ♪

- Hiya, me Cookie Monster.

- Oh, and Elmo is Elmo.

- And I'm Chef Joel and today we are celebrating.

- [Elmo And Cookie Monster] Happy New Year!

(noise maker blaring)

- Oh, you both look awesome!

- Yeah. (Elmo giggles)

- I love the outfit.

- We dressed up festive for your special treat.

- We're gonna make the most amazing special treat.

We are gonna rock out cauliflower mac and cheese bites.

- [Elmo] Whoa!

- But I have to say one thing.

- What?

- I think we're a little overdressed for the kitchen.

- Oh. - [Joel] Just a little.

- You think?

- Can we change and come back.

- But, me just put this on.

You know how hard it is to tie this bow tie?

(Elmo giggles)

- I know, Cookie, we'll come back

and after we make our special treat, we'll get dressed up.

All right, so first step to this recipe

is we have to cook our whole wheat pasta

according to the box instructions.

We actually saved a little bit of the pasta cooking water.

- Oh. - Yeah.

- And we're gonna use that a little bit later on

in the recipe.

Okay, so next step is we're gonna prepare our muffin tin.

Elmo, can you pass me the muffin liners?

- Oh, is that was this is called?

- [Joel] Yeah.

- Elmo will give you the muffin liners.

- [Joel] Thank you, Elmo.

You just take them out one by one and you place them

right inside the little muffin shapes.

- Do you wanna try, Cookie? - Oh, look at that.

Oh sure, me can try that.

- Let's see you do it.

- Okay.

Put it maybe this way.

- [Joel] Yes.

Awesome! - Yeah, Cookie.

- That's a good one. - You did great.

So next step, we gotta make up our mac and cheese sauce.

- Cool.

- [Joel] We're gonna start with a little bit of oil

in the pan.

Okay and then we're gonna add some whole wheat flour.

and we're gonna stir that up.

In cooking, this is called a roux.

A roux makes things thicker.

So, I'm gonna add in some fat free milk,

just a little bit at a time, all right?

- [Elmo] Just a little bit.

- [Joel] Do you wanna be my lump watcher?

- Me see one.

- You see one, where?

- Right there. - Okay, got it.

- Next, Elmo, do you see any lumps?

- No, it's looking pretty good, Joel.

- Wait, this is getting lumpy on the bottom here.

You gotta really whisk it up.

- Me wasn't gonna say anything, but,

there, yeah. (Joel laughs)

- Thank you, Cookie.

The roux just needs to get up to temperature

and then this whole thing is gonna get thick,

like pancake batter.

- Pancakes. - [Elmo] Pancakes?

- We're making pancakes though.

We're not making pancakes.

- Yay, we're gonna make pancakes too!

- No pancakes.

- I love pancakes,

but you know what makes the sauce super special

is some spices.

So Cookie, do you wanna spice it up for us?

- Yeah, sure, what do we need?

- I need a big pinch of garlic powder.

- Garlic powder, wah.

- Oh, that was good.

- I loved that pinch. - Nice technique.

All right, now, big pinch of turmeric.

- [Cookie Monster] Turmeric, wah.

(Elmo giggles)

Let me trademark sound.

- I like- (Joel laughing)

- Wah!

- Okay, one more big pinch of kosher salt.

- [Cookie Monster] Kosher salt, wah.

(Elmo giggles)

- That's some serious seasoning, Cookie.

I like it. - Thank you.

- Hey, Joel? - [Joel] Yeah?

- How do you know when you're done stirring?

- That's a great question, Elmo.

So, there's a cool trick,

you can grab your spoon and just dip it into the sauce

and if it coats the spoon like that, you're done.

- Hey look, it's coating the spoon which means we're done.

- We're done, so at this point,

we're gonna add some rice or chopped cauliflower.

- Oh, cauliflower.

- [Joel] You've got the cauliflower?

Perfect.

- Just toss it in?

- No. - No. (Joel laughing)

- Here we go from way back.

- Cookie, no, no, no, no, no!

- Here it come, what?

- Cookie, it has to be chopped.

You can't put in a whole cauliflower.

- Elmo's right, Elmo's right.

- Oh, okay, well me can do that.

That easy. - Okay.

(Cookie talking gibberish)

- What? - Wow.

That was impressive.

- That was very cool.

And now I'm going to add half my cheddar cheese,

right in and that's gonna really melt down slow

so it doesn't get lumpy and then it kind of thickens

the sauce, so what did we save from the very beginning?

Do you remember?

- The water.

- The paste water!

- Oh, that's what it for.

- That's what it's for, exactly.

So, we're gonna add a splash and now we're gonna go in

with Cookie Monsters beautifully chopped cauliflower

and then we're gonna go in with our whole wheat macaroni

that we've cooked beforehand, one beaten egg

and now we're gonna stir it on up.

Give me a stirring dance. (upbeat music)

♪ Stir it up Chef Joel ♪

♪ Stir it up Chef Joel ♪

♪ Stir it up, stir, stir, stir, stir, stir, stir ♪

You both have been so patient.

The next step is we're gonna put this in the muffin tins.

- Oh, how we do that?

- With a scoop.

We use an ice cream scoop.

- Ice cream.

- Oh, ice cream, we're having ice cream?

- We having ice cream and mac and cheese?

Oh boy, oh boy, me love ice cream.

- You guys, we're not having ice cream,

we're jut using the scoop.

- [Cookie Monster] Oh.

- [Elmo] Oh, you're just using the scoop.

- Yeah, just kind of helps it deploy

or let go of the spoon into the little cups.

- Wow, look at all the pretty colors.

- Speaking of colors,

I thought it'd be kind of fun to set up like a little

toppings bar and we can add our own colors to these.

- Good idea.

- I love peas, I'm gonna take a sprinkling of peas

and I'm gonna go right over the top

and now we can all build our own.

So Elmo, what do you wanna do?

- Elmo likes sweet peppers.

- I love sweet peppers and they match you,

which is so great. - Oh yeah, they're red.

- All right, here are peppers for you.

- Can Elmo try it?

- Yes, Elmo, great job.

Cookie, how about you?

- Me going to go with carrots and corn.

- I love that combination Cookie.

All right, so I'll do your carrots.

You wanna do the corn?

- [Cookie Monster] Sure, yeah, me try.

- Exactly, as much corn as you want.

- [Cookie Monster] And me do that.

- I love it Cookie, great job.

Now, there's just two more ingredients we're gonna add,

which is one of my favorites, a little bit of cheese,

right over the top, it's gonna get really ooey and gooey.

Yeah, and then some chives,

they make things look so pretty.

We're gonna pop this in the oven and then-

- We're gonna eat. - Eat!

- Elmo and Cookie, these smell delicious.

- [Elmo] Okay, let's eat them Joel.

- Not yet, we need to let them cool for five more minutes.

- Five minutes? (clock ticking)

- What we gonna do for five minutes?

(chime ringing)

- Elmo has an idea.

- [Joel] What?

- Wow Joel, you look terrific.

- Thank you. - You look great.

I feel terrific.

- Yeah.

- And let's eat.

- [Elmo] Let's eat.

(Cookie Monster chewing)

- These are great, thank you Joel.

- These are awesome.

- Hey, Chef Joel?

- Yeah.

- Elmo's New Year's wish is to make more food

with more friends.

- Mine is to eat more food with me friends.

(Elmo laughing)

- I love that Cookie and something tells me

we're gonna be doing a lot more of this.

So, with that happy new years to everyone

and thanks so much for cooking along.

♪ It's Snack Chat ♪

♪ Snackity Chat ♪

♪ Do, ba, do, do, do, do ♪

♪ The show where we snack more than we chat ♪

♪ It's Snack Chat ♪

Happy New Year everyone!

- Happy New Year!

(Elmo laughing)

- Buh-bye.