“Get a Babysitter” Macaroni and Cheese
Sunday, July 4th, 2010
I posted the other day on Twitter that I was making homemade macaroni and cheese, and a couple people asked for the recipe. So better late than never I suppose.
I call it “Get a Babysitter” macaroni and cheese, because a) you’ll need one to watch your kids while you make it, and then b) you’ll want to be alone with this macaroni and cheese when it’s done.
Listen, this recipe is not easy, healthy or fancy. It’s fat laden and labor intensive but it is comforting to me. I’ve tried other recipes that promise to be better, and used fancier cheeses, but this one is just what comes to my mind when I think of comfort food.
7 oz of pasta, cooked and drained. (Now, no one sells a 7 oz box of pasta so you are either going to have to weigh it or eyeball it. The pasta I like to use the best is a Ronzoni pasta with added fiber. That one comes in a 14 oz box so you can easily gauge about half the box. Also this recipe does cover up the ick factor of whole wheat pasta pretty well if you are so inclined. Elbow macaroni is traditional but I actually like it better with rotini because the sauce gets caught in all the twirls and it’s so yummy!)
2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese. (You absolutely MUST shred your own. No ifs ands or buts about it. The packaged shredded cheese has flour or cornstarch in it to keep the cheese from sticking together. This will ruin your sauce, I promise you. Plus it’s cheaper to buy a block of cheese and just shred it yourself. I use an 8 oz block of sharp cheddar. If you wanted to get crazy you might experiment with different cheeses. I, however, am a lover of the routine.)
2 tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dry mustard
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
2 tbsp BUTTER (if you use margarine in this, I can no longer speak to you)
1 cup water
1 12 oz can of evaporated milk
Combine the dry ingredients in a heavy-bottomed sauce pan. If you have Calphalon, this is the time to use it. Add butter, water and evaporated milk.
Using a whisk, stir CONSTANTLY over medium or medium-low heat. Do not try to rush this sauce. If you do, you’ll regret it. This is the most time consuming step and I’m not going to lie, it’s not fun. It takes a long ass time. But really work that whisk around and make sure you get no scorched film on the bottom or in the corners of the saucepan. I’m not even kidding. Don’t stop for anything unless one of your kids is bleeding or on fire. Eventually you will start to see the mixture thicken; it will start to cling to the sides of the pan. Now, you might pause for a nanosecond to see if it’s boiling. If you pause and immediately see bubbles in the middle of the pan, you are boiling, Now get back to stirring, but set your timer for ONE MINUTE and keep stirring. This is a marathon, people, not a sprint. You just want to make sure you get to optimum thickness, without getting too thick, because the cheese is going to add thickness, as will the starch from the pasta.
OK, after one minute of boiling and stirring, remove the pan from the heat, and start tossing in your shredded cheese, a handful at a time. After every addition, whisk it together to incorporate. I usually leave about a half cup of cheese out of the sauce to use on top, but you can taste the sauce to see if it’s cheesy enough for you.
Now dump in your cooked macaroni and toss it all together. You want to have more sauce than pasta because the pasta is going to soak some up when you bake it. It’s just creamier this way. Pour it into a casserole dish (I use the medium oval Corning Ware myself but a square pan would work too, you just want about a 2 quart capacity.) that you’ve sprayed with cooking spray.
Now you can either sprinkle the leftover cheese on top, or you can get fresh cheese to put on top if you’ve used all yours in the sauce. I also like to sometimes mix my cheese with breadcrumbs and paprika to make a pretty crust on top.
Bake at 375 for about 20-25 minutes until the top looks how you want it too and it’s bubbly.
Next, go walk on the treadmill for about six hours and go to confession.
Oh, quick side note. I have made this recipe using 2% cheese, and I’ve made it using 2% evaporated milk. I would not recommend you go low fat on BOTH though. One or the other if you feel guilty . And today is the first time I’ve ever made it in advance, then transported it to bake elsewhere. I’ll let you know how that turns out.
