Macaroni and Cheese, Saturday, January 11, 2014

One of my Facebook friends posted about making macaroni and cheese the other day.  I do NOT usually like plain macaroni and cheese because, I KNOW this will sound CRAZY, it has too much cheese!  HOWEVER, because of the post, I WANTED macaroni and cheese.

NOW, when I say that I don’t NORMALLY like macaroni and cheese, I DO LOVE Tomatoes with macaroni and cheese because that is HOW my Mother made it and her mother made it.  You would simply take 1 pint or quart of whole tomatoes, home canned if at ALL possible, two cups of cheddar cheese, and a 16 ounce box of macaroni prepared according to directions.  MIX all together and place in a 350 degree oven and bake about 45 minutes or UNTIL the top is a bit crunchy. (YOU might need to add a bit of water if your tomatoes are NOT too juicy...AND you can adjust the tomatoes to HOW MUCH you like...again, I tend to use 1 pint)

I was excited to make mac and cheese, so to the kitchen I went on Monday to find I had no water and I instantly KNEW the pipes were frozen.  I leaned my head on the sink and did a whiney fake cry, even though my heart wanted to BURST into crying.  I held my head up and composed myself.

This weekend, a local couple is burying their 20 year old daughter.  I have a friend whose six month old granddaughter has just had her second major heart surgery and each moment is FILLED with anxiety and the WHAT IF'S of such a dangerous surgery.  I thought of the parents of an eleven year old girl in the next county who died from having the flu…and the other 10 people who have died from flu the past couple of weeks…I had NOTHING to whine about…it was water…it was pipes…it was FIXABLE!  It was JUST money.  While I am TERRIFIED of what the HORRIBLE water bill will be, SOMEHOW, I will deal with it and get it paid.  While I live alone and have no one to help me with the minor obstacles of life, I am NOT alone and I have felt the presence of THE ONE who loves me the MOST and the BEST.

Today, as the water was on and I had my nap, my mind AGAIN wandered back to the Macaroni and Cheese that I had craved so on Monday!  =)

SO, I cooked the macaroni according to the directions on the package and put it in a colander while I made the ooey, gooey cheese sauce.

NOW, this is WHERE you have to just take a deep breath and accept that I do NOT normally measure anything!

I took approximately 2 Tablespoons of butter and melted it, and then took the same amount of flour…WELL, I put in flour until it soaked up all the oil, and I stirred it until it was a light brown.  I also put a pinch of nutmeg into this because I’ve heard that you should put nutmeg into cheese dishes, so who am I to argue!  I didn’t notice anything different by adding the nutmeg…

I poured in ABOUT 2 cups of milk and whisked it to make sure it had no lumps.  IF I thought it was too thick, I just added a bit more milk—no biggie.  I then added various cheeses that I had.  I had a little bit of an Italian Mix, and I used about 2 cups of Sharp Cheddar cheese and I shaved in some pepper jack cheese.  I stirred it until it was melted, which did NOT take long at all…BE CAREFUL to NOT burn your cheese…I had turned the heat off and it was plenty hot to melt the cheese.

I dumped the cooked macaroni into the cheese mix and stirred until all the macaroni was covered and I tasted it and decided that it needed a bit of salt and some black pepper.

I melted about 2 Tablespoons of butter in the microwave and added Panko Bread crumbs to the butter... 

...and sprinkled it over the Mac and Cheese. 

 I placed it in a 350 degree oven until the bread crumbs were a light brown—about 45 minutes…YUMMY!   It was good…YES, it could have used just a tad more cheese, but I liked it since I don’t like as much cheese as some people!

 

The great thing about this recipe is that you can use WHATEVER types of cheese that YOU like!  It does NOT matter.

I think that you all have figured out by now that I don’t do very well at following directions.  NO is simply a suggestion in MOST cases and really makes me WANT to do something instead of NOT doing it…LOL…

Food should bring warm memories to your heart.  I can remember Mother teaching me to make Mac and Cheese when I was very young…it is the way that we would use our scraps of ham and OH, how I wish I had some ham scraps to have put in this…NOW, that was COMFORT!

I’m glad that Mother took the time to teach me to cook.  NO, I didn’t always want to learn, BUT she KNEW how important it was for me to learn.  I question parents who let their children ALWAYS make their own decisions.  I shudder to think of the poor choices I would have made IF I had been given that much responsibility.  I am GLAD that I LEARNED that in LIFE sometimes you HAVE to do things that you do NOT want to do…AND that MANY times BAD things happen to good people and you know what…BAD things happen to BAD people too!  I am thankful for the wisdom of my parents…Blessings to YOU…~charlotte♥