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Friday, March 22, 2013

Stove Top Macaroni & Cheese

Apparently I'm pretty much alone with this, but I HATE baked mac & cheese. Hate it.

Maybe not totally alone. My older cousin feels this way too. When my grandmother would have the family over for Thanksgiving & Christmas dinners, she would make a baked mac & cheese that the rest of the family raved over. Tonya & I got our own special recipe though: a box of Kraft.

As we got older & my grandmother's health declined, my mom started making a holiday dinner at home. She made my grandmother's recipe for everyone else, and I got a box of Kraft all to myself, which is both a good and a bad thing. Good, because I loved it & I'm not great at sharing... Bad, because I can't eat a whole box by myself and it isn't exactly good when reheated.

Eventually, I became interested in cooking and now I make the majority of our holiday meals. I've also become interested in nutrition and I try to limit the amount of processed foods I eat. Yes, Kraft may be tasty, but it's not cheese. It's an assortment of chemicals that taste kinda like cheese. And now Kraft is under attack for the harmful dyes used in some of their products.

Anyways. I'll get off my soapbox and get to the point of this post. Alton Brown has a recipe for a stove top macaroni & cheese that I stumbled on while driving back to North Carolina for Christmas. I pinned it, and planned on making it for our holiday dinner. I made it, messed it up, and it was still incredibly delicious!

Christmas dinner: I used twice the pasta the recipe called for...

I made it again about a month ago for a potluck Graham was having at work. I followed the directions more closely this time, and it was so perfect. Even the next day when reheated, he said it was gone in about three minutes. They're having another potluck today, which he told me about last night. He told me that rice or pasta salad or potato salad weren't options because plenty of people bring those, so I decided to make the mac & cheese again. Partly because it went over so well last time, and partly so I could finally take a picture of it & blog about it =)

So here you go. Make this instead of the boxed stuff. It takes about three minutes more, is so delicious, and you're not putting harmful chemicals into yours & your families bodies.

Stove Top Macaroni & Cheese
(Original recipe found here.)

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 lb. of short cut pasta (about 3 cups)
  • 4 T. of butter
  • 6 ounces of evaporated milk
  • 1/2 t. of hot sauce
  • 2 eggs
  • 10 ounces of shredded sharp cheddar
  • 3/4 t. of dry mustard
  • 1 t. of salt
  • Pepper to taste

Directions:
  1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil & cook noodles according to package directions.
  2. Grate cheese & set aside (or use already grated cheese). 
  3. In a measuring cup, mix together the milk, eggs, hot sauce, salt, pepper & mustard, and set aside. 
  4. When the noodles are done, drain them, return them to the pot and put the heat on low. Add the butter and toss to coat. 
  5. Stir the liquid into the pasta and then add the cheese. Stir for about 3 minutes until all of the cheese is melted and has a creamy consistency. 
All you need (mustard is not pictured since I was out =( )
Huge bowl of creamy goodness!

2 comments:

  1. I cannot wait to make these. I think I will try them at Easter!

    ReplyDelete

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