I Should Get Royalties from the Dairy Lobby

One time, someone asked me for my mac & cheese recipe. Tonight worked out particularly well, so here’s tonight’s recipe:

Start With Sauce:

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
2 cups milk

1. melt butter in saucepan, then add flour. Stir. Let cook for as long as it takes to have the following conversation, (approx. 5 minutes) which you can perform with another adult if you don’t have a toddler handy:

You: How’s the food you’re eating?
Toddler/stand-in: Milk!
You: You have milk
T: Water!
You: You have water
T: (crying) MILK!
You: You. Have. Milk.
T: (hysterical crying) Milkmilkmilk!!
You: Do you want a cracker?
T: Cracker!

2. Add some of the milk & keep stirring as the sauce thickens. If it gets too thick, add more milk. This thickening will take 10 minutes or so. Keep stirring & keep heat on medium low.

3. As it starts to thicken, add:

4 crushed garlic cloves
salt to taste
black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons whipped chive cream cheese
generous sprinkle of garlic powder
2 cups grated cheddar cheese
splash of balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons dijon mustard
splash of Worchestershire sauce
splash of Tabasco (or other hot sauce if you enjoy hot sauce. At the moment, I am consumed by love for Tabasco)

I added each of these ingredients separately, then stirred some more, tasted it and thought about what the sauce was missing. So just one at a time, in your order of preference, might be advisable. Meanwhile, if you are bored with the stirring and creative process, you could have the following conversation:

Toddler/Stand-in: MAMA!
You: Yes?
T: Noni!
You: No, we’re all out of granola.
T: Wa na na!
You: Yes, we are listening to Sharon, Lois and Bram.
T: WA NA NA!
You: Correct.
T: Co-wek
You: Very good.
T: MAMA!
You: Yes…
T: MILK!

4. Meanwhile, you were cooking noodles, right? Cook some noodles. I think tonight I cooked 3/4 of a 500g package of rotini.

5. When the sauce is to your liking, add it to the noodles. I use a casserole dish with a lid. Stir it up.

6. Then I added:

1 cup of sundried tomatoes
1 cup frozen spinach

(but the other day, my co-worker used green peas and canned salmon. Whatever you like.)

7. When it was all mixed together in a casserole dish, I chopped up

1 handful of red onion

and tore some slices of roast turkey (cold cut deli style) into pieces. (have, in the past, used cooked bacon at this point)

8. Lay the pieces of turkey across the top of the mac and cheese, like a blanket. Sprinkle the red onion atop.

9. Grate some parmesan cheese on top of that. Then some more black pepper.

10. Put lid on casserole dish. Bake at 400C for 30 minutes or so. Then take the lid off the dish and hit “broil” for another 5 minutes or till crispy and crackling with yum.

Serves: 1 regular guy & 1 pregnant woman who might be carrying a baby hippo. Includes seconds. Leaves leftovers for tomorrow to blow the toddler’s mind.