Comments on Re: Mac and Me
I grew two pants-sizes just reading that.
What, no photo?
C'mon, JTC, say something about cheese, I dare ya!
That sounds so cracker.
This is more along the lines of what my mom always made (which was, of course, delicious -- I didn't even know you could buy mac 'n cheese in a box until I was in high school).
Now don't shoot me, but one of the shortcuts my mom discovered was to make the cheese sauce in the microwave rather than on the stove top. It virtually eliminates the chance to screw it up. Do everything at one minute increments on high and stir well after each minute:
1. Melt the butter in an oven safe dish.
2. Add the flour to the butter.
3. Add the milk (it sometimes takes a few minutes but suddenly you have slightly thickened, silky smooth milk -- just remember to stir after each minute)
4. Add cheese and keep cooking/stirring every minute. It starts out gross, lumpy, and greasy looking and suddenly turns into beautiful cheese sauce (I dare you to keep from spooning it out and eating it!).
5. Dump over your pre-cooked pasta, bake, and slip into a mac 'n cheese coma.
Foodie alert...the Roux is the result of the melted butter and flour mixture cooking together; this is a basic thickner for many sauces, soups, stews.
Adding the milk and heating through until the cream consistency results in Bechamel (although a quick couple of grates fresh nutmeg need to be added in here(not some crap floor sweepings in a little plastic shaker dammit!!) ; this is a classic and compulsory white sauce for every lactose tolerant human on the planet; and if you are not lactose tolerant, then get the damn pill - this is how I would make Mac and cheese and I am fat n happy
Now THAT is a recipe!
YUM!
@1 Oh so tempted to make a hard-on joke here.
Bethany Jean should be Bethany Genius. This is a perfect recipe and if I hadn't already insisted to my son that mac & cheese is not an appropriate birthday dinner for me, I'd be tempted to whip it up for myself. But, a 6 year old saying "I told you so" is never pleasant.
Nah you can't make a roux by cooking flour in butter and adding 2.5 cups of milk, y'all.
You gotta cook flour and butter, but way longer than one minute.
Y'all want to add milk and make sum kind a Bechamel thang go ahead but roux she is just butter and flour, cooked to get light brown, medium brown, dark brown or almos' black.
oh fack, you had to say the Grit didn't you???
this macaroni is the best i have ever eaten in my lifetime.
you should really make some.
now if you'll excuse me, i'm off to pick up some comeback sauce.
"I am not going to put this after a jump because macaroni is important." Damn straight it is, and my only gripe is the absence of an extensive pre-jump photo-spread. My daughter says it's ABLTs (advocado BLTs) which have a related, double-the-fat appeal. On my way home, I'll think about mac-n-cheese, but won't be disappointed to eat ABLTs instead.
I'm sorry I can't unearth any photos—I was sure I had some beauts. The letters brown up so nicely.
@8: Happy birthday, PopTart!
@3, that's the cheesiest thing I've ever read!
@14, Thanks RainMan!
Happy Birthday, PopTart!
Any recipe that tells you when to have a drink is all right by me.
@16, hey, happy birthday to my Slog girlfriend!!!
Oh Bethany, I looove the silver palate cookbook. It is still my favorite after all these years, and I still love to read the menus and imagine I'm a socialite with lots o' time on my hands in mid 80's NYC.
Thanks for the recipe!
Paul was attracted to the first recipe because it was easy, so here's an easy non-roux bake:
8 oz. cheddar
8 oz. mozzerella
8 oz. pepper jack
8 oz. muenster
32 oz./two boxes rotelle (or penne or elbow or whatever)
1/2 green pepper
1/2 red pepper
1/2 onion (white or yellow)
Shred all the cheese into a bowl while boiling the pasta. When the pasta's done, rinse with cool water. Mix in the veggies, then pour about 1/4 of the noodles into baking tins. Add some shredded cheese and mix it up, then add the rest of the noodles and cheese and mix some more, in the pan. Sprinkle Chalula hot sauce liberally on top, because Chalula is like Tabasco sauce but fucking awesome. Bake at 350 degrees for about half an hour until the top is bubbling.
@15,
Back at ya!
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