Baked Macaroni and Cheese for Three

June 4, 2013 at 7:18 pm | Posted in Cheese, Macaroni, Pasta, Side Dish | Leave a comment

This yummy side is courtesy of Amydoll at All Recipes. I was fixing hamburgers for supper and hubby said he wanted mac & cheese from the blue box. I told him I preferred to make it myself; he responded by telling me he was trying to save me time since we had traveled to Fayetteville and back today. It’s not too much work to make baked mac & cheese, so I hopped onto All Recipes and found a recipe for Baked Mac and Cheese for One. I changed the servings to three and here it is:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp. uncooked macaroni pasta

water for cooking the pasta

3 tbsp. butter

3 tbsp. flour

3/4 tsp. salt

3 pinches pepper

1/4 tsp. onion powder

1 1/2 cups milk

1 cup shredded Cheddar (I used Co-Jack)

1/4 tsp. ground mustard (I used about 1/4 tsp. Plochmann’s mustard* because I was out of ground mustard)

3 dashes Worcestershire sauce

3 dashes hot sauce

1 tbsp. plain bread crumbs

3 tbsp. shredded cheese

*Yes, I know that’s Grey Poupon in the picture. I changed my mind once I looked at all of the ingredients together. See? I’m a woman, I’m allowed to change my mind. Often.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Spray baking dish with canola oil and set aside. Boil some salted water (you don’t need a lot) in a medium sauce pan. Cook the macaroni for about 5 minutes, drain and set aside.

Shred your cheese; it’s much cheaper to shred your own cheese and I happen to think it tastes better. I don’t really measure my cheese, I just kind of guess. Hmm, that looks to be about 3/4 of a cup…maybe a cup. You can never have too much cheese!

In the same sauce pan you cooked the macaroni in, melt the butter on medium heat. Stir in the flour and rapidly whisk until it’s completely blended. Slowly add the milk and seasonings. Actually, what I did was add the dry seasonings to the flour and the wet seasonings to the milk. Whisk everything together and slowly raise the heat and add the cheese when you’re on medium high.

When the sauce is beginning to thicken, pour in the macaroni and gently blend. Pour the entire mixture into your prepared baking dish. Sprinkle bread crumbs and remaining cheese on top of the casserole. My baking dish was almost overflowing! I ended up setting the dish on the cookie sheet that I used to toast the hamburger buns:

Bake for about 10 minutes until cheese bubbles and the top of the casserole gets pretty and brown. Let the casserole sit for about 5 minutes before serving.