Homemade Mac N Cheese

Comfort Food At Its Best

 Warm up with homemade macaroni and cheese,

with just a hint of smoky flavor

and a little bite of chipotle peppers.

 

Well, now I've done it - I can never go back to the foil pouch of orange goo again!

As another kitchen challenge, I tried my hand at making homemade macaroni and cheese. Be warned; you won't want to eat it any other way. It's really fairly easy and doesn't require fancy ingredients (depending on just how fancy your mac and cheese will be) but it does take a little time, as do most things that are worth the extra effort.

 

Two things to remember to make great homemade macaroni and cheese: start with the best cheese you can get (obviously!) and slightly undercook the macaroni.

 

For the best cheese, grab a block and start shredding it by hand. No pre-packaged shredded cheese in a bag. It is coated in anti-caking agents and doesn't make the most optimal cheese sauce. Plus, shredding your own cheese is more cost-effective in the long run. For this recipe, I chose an apple and hardwood smoked Gouda cheese, and a sharp chipotle Cheddar cheese. I prefer strong, sharp flavors in macaroni and cheese but the choice of cheese is up to you.

 

Ingredients:

2 cups dry macaroni noodles

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons flour

1-1/2 cups milk (whole milk, or a very good 2% milk like Oberweis)

1 teaspoon dry mustard (Colman's)

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon salt

freshly ground black pepper to taste

3/4 pound cheese, shredded

 

Directions:

First, cook the dry macaroni noodles. Most package cooking directions will suggest cooking for 8 to 10 minutes. To get the best results for macaroni and cheese, however, you'll want to cook the macaroni for a little less time, about 7 minutes. Otherwise, you will have mushy macaroni in the finished dish; it has to stand up to combining with the cheese sauce and baking in the oven for about half an hour. So, undercook slightly, drain and rinse with hot water. Set aside.

 

Beat the egg in a small bowl and set aside.

 

Next, make a simple roux to begin the cheese sauce. Melt butter in a large saucepan and quickly whisk in the flour until it is completely incorporated. Slowly whisk in the milk and cook, whisking constantly over medium-low heat, until the mixture has thickened. Stir in the dry mustard.

 

Add the egg by first adding 3 tablespoons of sauce to the beaten egg in the small bowl. Whisk very quickly - this is called tempering the mixture. If you were to add the egg directly to the large pan of sauce, the egg would cook almost immediately and you would have little bits of scrambled egg in your sauce. Not quite the way it's supposed to work!

And why the egg, anyway? The egg mainly serves as a binding ingredient, allowing you to more neatly cut your mac and cheese into squares. If you don't mind your mac and cheese spilling out everywhere in freeform cheesy glory on your plate, you can omit the egg.

Above: tempering the egg.

 

When the tempered egg mixture is nice and smooth, add it to the sauce. Stir in salt and freshly ground pepper. And then... stir in all that glorious shredded cheese and keep stirring until smooth and totally incorporated in the sauce. Reserve about a half of a cup for sprinkling on top of the mac and cheese before it goes in the oven.

Butter a 2 to 2.2 quart baking dish. Pour the macaroni and cheese into the dish and top with the reserved shredded cheese. You can also use dried bread crumbs or cracker crumbs, but I really just like lots of extra cheese on top. It will become nicely browned after baking in the oven!

 

Bake the macaroni and cheese uncovered in a 350 degree oven for about 25 minutes, then turn up the oven temperature to 375 degrees for 5 to 10 minutes to lightly brown the shredded cheese topping. It's finished when everything is bubbling hot!

Approximately 6 servings. 

 

Cheesy detail of "Better With Age" by Lonesome Road Gallery.



'shroom power!

Pasta with Shiitake

Mushroom Sauce

Rich-tasting yet healthy, this pasta dish is perfect for a light lunch, or as a special first course. The intense flavors of the shiitake mushrooms is perfectly complemented by the aromatic garlic and the tanginess of the yogurt. I enjoy this sauce on a broad noodle like pappardelle (as shown in the photograph) or on festive tri-color or spinach fettuccine.

Shiitake mushrooms are among my favorites. Their meaty chewiness is so satisfying and they are incredibly good for you as well. Shiitake mushrooms contain twice the protein of other mushrooms, making them a great choice for vegans and vegetarians, and researchers have found that a raw shiitake eaten daily for a week lowered serum cholesterol by 12%. Other health claims attributed to shiitakes include anti-cancer properties, and boosts to the immune system.

But really, I eat them because... I simply like them.

(I made a few changes to the original recipe as published in the book "Simply In Season" by Mary Beth Lind and Cathleen Hockman-Wert. Despite my love of the toothsome texture of shiitake mushrooms, I wasn't fond of the appearance of the finished sauce as written in this recipe. I chose to puree everything into a sauce in the blender, and I think the choice was a good one. It's up to you to decide what kind of texture and look that you prefer; the flavor is the same no matter what, but I think the dish looks more appealing when the sauce is blended.)

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons butter
• 2-1/2 cups fresh shiitake mushrooms, chopped
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 7 tablespoons sherry or broth (I like to make a quick shiitake broth from the mushrooms' stems and a garlic clove in one cup of water while the mushrooms and onions are sauteeing. This really brings out the shiitake flavor in the finished sauce.)
• 2 tablespoons unbleached flour
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 2/3 cup water or broth
• 1 cup plain yogurt at room temperature

Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat. Saute mushrooms, onion and salt for about 10 minutes or until onions are transparent and soft.

Stir in sherry or broth. Turn heat to low and slowly sprinkle in flour, stirring constantly for about 2 minutes until all flour is incorporated.

Add garlic and black pepper and continue to cook and stir over low heat for 5 to 10 minutes. Be careful not to burn.

Stir water or broth, and room temperature yogurt, whisk until completely incorporated and heated throughout. Serve over hot cooked pasta and top with grated Parmesan cheese.
** See above - I made some changes to this recipe; I prefer the sauce to be smooth and blended.
Serves 4 to 6.

use your noodle!

It seems that there is a special day for everything, and noodles are no exception. And why not? They're versatile, inexpensive, and delicious. Celebrate "National Noodle Month" this March with a steaming bowl of chicken noodle soup, a nice chilled Japanese salad with soba noodles made of buckwheat; fry up a little lo mein, or just nuke a nice cup of ramen noodles in your favorite flavor.
The word noodle itself is derived from the German "nudel" and the first recorded writings about noodles were during the East Han Dynasty between AD 25 and 220. They differ from pasta in one major way: egg solids. The National Pasta Association (NPA) says that in order for a noodle to be legally considered a noodle, it must contain 5.5 percent egg solids by weight. Noodles are also typically made from durum flour (more finely ground than pasta's semolina). And yes, pasta has its own month - October.

Technicalities aside, here is one of my favorite noodle dishes using some of my favorite noodles - soba noodles from Japan. I love their almost chewy texture and rich flavor, and they're good cold or hot.

Soba Noodles with Macadamia and Sesame

Ingredients

• 6 ounces soba noodles
• 2 ounces macadamia nuts, chopped
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil, divided
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoons sesame seeds
• 2 tablespoons soy or tamari sauce
• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
• 1 green onion, all white and part of green, minced or sliced
• 1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped

Directions
Cook soba noodles in boiling water according to package directions; 6 minutes is about enough. Watch them carefully - they WILL foam up fast!
Toast macadamia nuts in a 350 degree oven for about 5 minutes and set aside to cool.
Heat 1 tablespoon of the sesame oil in a skillet over medium-low heat. Add garlic and sesame seeds and saute about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and whisk in the remaining 1 tablespoon of sesame oil, the vegetable oil, soy sauce and vinegar; whisk to combine.
Add the macadamia nuts, green onion and cilantro to the soba noodles.
Pour sesame sauce over noodles, mix thoroughly, and serve hot, room temperature, or cold. This will make about three or four servings. Two if you're serving me.