Macaroni and Cheese

[ARUBI]

The great favorite in my house. How do you make yours?

Here's mine.

1 lb. of cooked macaroni
1 jar of Alfredo sauce/ mix well with the cooked macaroni. Then start layering in large casserole dish.

Macaroni, layer of sharp cheddar (I use Cabot Hunter's Sharp or Cabot 3 yr. aged), layer of Italian bread crumbs until dish is full.

If available I mix leftover ham cubes with the mac & sauce.

 

[peachfuzz]

I love homemade mac 'n cheese. Unfortunately my kids were served the fake/boxed stuff somewhere and now won't eat the real thing. Their loss

Your recipe sounds wonderful and I will try a small batch for myself.

pf

 

[mzkitty]

Yum, Mac & Cheese! An old roommate of mine sometimes made this one that she got from her grandma. I'm guessing on the amounts, but it's really really good. My roommate used to pour ketchup all over it when she ate it, which I had a problem with though!


First you make a white sauce:
a stick of butter
about 3 tablespoons flour (maybe 2, I'm not sure now)
milk

In a skillet, melt the butter on low, then gradually start sprinkling in the flour. Cook it gently a couple of minutes, then start trickling in the milk, stirring, until it makes enough for a medium thickness sauce (maybe 2 cups milk?). You can add a few drops of hot sauce at this point if you like it.

Then:

In a bowl or pot, put 3-4 cups almost cooked elbow macaroni
8 ounces grated extra sharp cheddar cheese
the sauce

Mix well and put in buttered loaf pan. And here's the good part: sprinkle the top with several handfulls of crushed potato chips.

Bake around 1/2 hour at 350 until the chips are a little brown.

Edited to add: I think she also put a little dry mustard in, not much.

 

[booger]

This is macaroni and cheese!

http://www.outlawcook.com/Page0210.html

Real Macaroni and Cheese

A good dish of macaroni and cheese is hard to find these days. The recipes in most cookbooks are not to be trusted. In some instances this is because they refuse to leave well enough alone, vulgarizing the dish with canned cream of celery soup or a dollop of port wine cheese spread. But most usually it is their vexatious infatuation with white sauce, a noxious paste of flour-thickened milk, for this dish flavored with a tiny grating of cheese. It is the basis for the familiar crumb-topped casserole baked in a Pyrex lasagna pan, a casserole universally bland, dry, and rubbery. Contrary to popular belief, this is not macaroni and cheese. It is macaroni with cheese sauce. It is awful stuff and every cookbook in which it appears should be thrown out the window.

Of course, instead, despite any effort on my part, that recipe will remain the popular one. It is cheap to make and pretty to look at. Real macaroni and cheese is unkempt. It is also generous with cheese, using at least four times more than what is put in cheese sauce The recipe below, the real recipe, lives a life of exile in its own country . . . biding its time in the few homes willing to grant it sanctuary, awaiting the counterrevolution.

This version originally appeared in The Home Comfort Cook Book, publishcd in 1937 by the Wrought Iron Range Company, makers of the Home Comfort wood burning kitchen stove. I give it, however, as adapted first by my mother and then by me.

Macaroni and Cheese

(Serves 4 to 6)

1/2 pound elbow macaroni

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter, cut into bits

Dash Tabasco sauce

1 12-ounce can evaporated milk (or use whole milk mixed with a little cream)

2 eggs, beaten

1 teaspoon dry mustard, dissolved in a little water

1 pound sharp Cheddar cheese, grated

Salt and freshly ground pepper

Preheat oven to 350oF. Boil the macaroni until just barely done in salted water. Drain and toss with the butter in a large, ovenproof mixing bowl. Mix the Tabasco into the evaporated milk. Reserving about 1/3 cup, stir the milk into the macaroni, then add the eggs, the mustard, and three quarters of the cheese. When well combined season to taste with salt and pepper, and set the bowl directly in the oven. Every five minutes, remove it briefly to stir in some of the reserved cheese, adding more evaporated milk as necessary to keep the mixture moist and smooth. When all the cheese has been incorporated and the mixture is nicely hot and creamy (which should take 20 minutes, all told), serve it at once, with a plate of toasted common crackers to crumble over.

No matter how closely you follow my instructions, your macaroni and cheese will never taste exactly like mine, but we'll hope. I never made the dish exactly the same way twice, but each time it gets more divine. -- Pearl Bailey

 

[morning-glory]

my sister used to make a good mac and cheese but i don't have the recipe. she put cauliflour in it and red pepper flakes, and of course cheese and macaroni. it was soo good. you couldn't really taste the cauliflour, but it wasn't cooked to death so it had a nice texture. it wasn't pepper hot, but you knew it had a little heat in it. anybody familiar with this recipe?

 

[cvk]

If you don't add the bread crumbs you don't need to bake it. We generally do ours right on top of the stove in just a few minutes. You need a real heavy saucepan so it doesn't scorch easily but we just cooked the macaroni and drained the water off. Add tons of cheese plus butter and milk salt and pepper. Stir every so often. When cheese is melted it is done. I like a bit of onion added.

 

[Yammy]

peachfuzz,

I hear ya, I keep a jar of cheeze whiz in the house to doctor up the boxed mac and cheese.
If you make if to the package directions and mix it in instead of the butter, it's almost ........ok, still not relaly homemade but......it's not too bad.

I love the homemade recipes....I'm glad my SD has taken a new interest in healthy foods so I can actually try those

 

[Hoosier Daddy]

Here's my version which is more like Alfredo than Mac and Cheddar.

Boil the equivalent of 4-6 cups of pasta till moderately soft.
Add 1 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese (Not that junk in the green can!)
Stir till mixed.
Add 2-3 Tbsp. Real Butter. (No margarine in this house!)
Stir till blended.
Add 1/2 to 1 Cup of half and half. (This depends on how creamy you like your sauce.)
Salt and pepper to taste.

If the pasta cools before the ingreds. can be thoroughly blended in, pop it in the Microwave for a few seconds.

In the words of Emeril...
Oh yeah babe!