Sunday, March 4, 2012

Mac n' Cheesy Goodness!

I am living up to my claim of starting a weekly post of recipes.  A few ground rules on this and then we are ready to rock:
1. I cannot be held responsible for how shockingly good these recipes are, thus causing anyone to gain weight due to over-consumption.
2. I cannot be held responsible for getting lazy and forgetting to post a recipe on those "off-weeks" when I  have about as much motivation to clean my Pepto-Bismol pink bathroom as I do to post something.
3. I basically cannot be held responsible for anything...let's here it for personal accountability!!! : )

Okay, so Mac N' Cheese lovers rejoice.  Here. We. Go.
Ingredients
4+ blocks of cheese, preferably two extra, extra-sharp cheddar.  One of the other two should be havarti for the creaminess
5 1/2 cups of whole milk
6 tablespoons of unsalted butter
Dijon mustard
Hot sauce
1/2 cup of flour
2 teaspoons of salt
1/4 teaspoon each of nutmeg and pepper
2 pounds of macaroni or similar pasta

Put the pot on to boil for the pasta with a couple of shakes of salt.  Put in the pasta once the pot is at a roiling boil.  Put the milk in a double boiler and heat it up.  Melt the butter into a high-sided saucepan.  It should be a big one as you will be making the cheese sauce in this same pan and you don't want it to overflow.  Once the butter is melted, add the flour and stir over medium heat until it forms a paste.  This shouldn't take too long, maybe a minute or less.  Add the milk to the paste and whisk constantly until it starts to thicken up.  This will take much longer than you think it will!  I always get tired of whisking, walk away to do something else, and come back to find it thicker, but also with a few tiny lumps in it.  So I think this could be avoided if I just stayed and whisked until it was ready.  Once it is thickening up, add the 2 teaspoons of salt, nutmeg, pepper, and add hot sauce to taste if you like. Then add in the cheese...slowly.  If you dump it in all at once, it is kinda hard to stir, so I add about one cup worth of cheese at a time and wait for that to melt down before adding more.  While this is happening, the pasta should be done so drain it and return it to the pot you were cooking it in.  Dump all the cheese sauce over the pasta, add a couple of spoonfuls of dijon mustard (I usually start with 2 and then add to taste) and stir...stir....stir.  Once everything is mixed together and a gooey mess, you're done!

Cheers!
Elle





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