As Requested via Email

Hey Lucky,

I was going to give you the Mac n' cheese recipe straight out of the Better Homes and Garden Cookbook since that is the one I use all the time but in typing up the recipe, I realized that I don't use that one at all. I will give you the recipe as best as I remember, the noodle size is an estimate, I usually just use one package and fill the dish, if there is any extra - I'll eat it or put it in Tupperware.



Marz' Mac n Cheese

Ingredients:
16 oz. pkg Elbow macaroni
Approx. 1/4 Lb mild cheddar - shredded(or what ever amount looks good to you)
Approx. 1/4 Lb jack cheese - shredded

White Sauce Ingredients:
2 Tablespoons butter (or margarine)
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 350.

Follow the package instructions to boil the noodle. Drain, and rinse noodles. Place half the noodles in the casserole dish and half the cheese on top of the noodles. Or, you can put half the noodles in the dish and then mix half the cheese into the noodles. Keep the other half of the noodles and cheese within reach for after making the white sauce.

For White Sauce: Using a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Once it is completely melted, add in the flour, salt and pepper. Stir the ingredients together; you should end up with a kind of paste at the bottom of the pan (your rue). Caution, be sure to keep stirring so this paste does not burn. Add the milk in, it is best to add it a third at a time, stirring the paste into the milk so you don't end up with lumps, although you can add it in all at once if you really want to. Keep stirring constantly until the sauce starts to thicken up. It will feel like you are stirring forever and then all of the sudden, the liquid will start thickening up. You want it to a consistency of cream.

Immediately pour half the sauce into the casserole dish. Add the rest of the noodles and most of the cheese, reserve a little of the cheese for a decorative topping. Pour the rest of the sauce over the top of the noodles and cheese, covering the dish as evenly as possible. Use the last of the cheese to sprinkle in the middle of the dish.

Put the casserole in the heated oven and bake for 25-30 minutes or until the sauce is bubbling and you have a nice light browning of the top.


So, that is the basic recipe. Sometimes, for a little bit of a kick, I use cayenne pepper in place of the black pepper. Just eyeball the amount, you don't need a lot. Or if I am feeling gourmet, I use white pepper so you can't see the flecks in the white sauce. I also tend to double the white sauce recipe I gave you above so that the dish is extra creamy (2 cups of milk, etc.). You can also put half the noodles in the dish, then a layer of cheese and then a second layer of noodles and cheese and then make the white sauce and pour it over the entire dish at one shot. The sauce will drip down through the dish and it is easier to construct that way. I like to be sure that the sauce is all the way through the dish using the method I describe in the recipe above since once I let the sauce get too thick while stirring and it didn't sink in and the casserole had a weird layer of sauce that baked into it. My brother liked it but I wasn't too crazy about it. But that only happened once.

Hope you enjoy!

Love,

Marz