Mac and Cheese

I just found this draft sitting around. No idea why it didn't get posted!!

So I've been working now for a couple of weeks. It is a lot of fun teaching the little ones. Quite a jump to go from adult education to 3rd grade!! But at least there is no stressing over the content or the questions that come from the audience :) Cooking has been a bit tough but I've managed to put a hot meal on the table almost every day even though I only get home at 5 pm. Of course I've gone through all my half hour meals and they certainly came in handy when my husband had to cook one evening (afternoon staff meeting :( ).

What with having to cook quickly I haven't had any time to take pictures of what I've been cooking and of course without pictures what is the use of a blog! But I do have some reserve so now that I have the time I can post them. And so here is one of my kids favorites "Mac and Cheese". When we lived in the USA I just opened up a box, boiled the macaroni, poured in the powder, milk and butter and voila I was ready to go. Here in Germany you cannot buy Mac and Cheese in a box. I'm guessing there is a good reason for this but I can't figure out what. I think it has something to do with the cheese powder because we can't get goldfish either. It makes me wonder what I was eating back in the USA. So now we make it from scratch.

Hmmm... I remember back when I was a kid I visited a friends house and we had mac and cheese for dinner. It was the most delicious thing ever. I wish I'd been wise enough to get the recipe but I was only 8 years old.

So here is my recipe. Hopefully it creates happy memories for you too.

Preparation time: 45 minutes; Serves: 6

Ingredients:

10 oz/250 g	Short-cut macaroni
1.5 oz/45 g	Butter
4 tbsp./35 g	Flour
1 pint/500 ml	Milk
1/8 tsp.	Freshly grated nutmeg
1 tsp.	Salt
6 oz/175 g	Tofu
5 oz/140 g	Frozen peas
6 oz/175 g	Cheddar cheese, grated
2 tbsp.	Bread crumbs

Method:

First of all this is not your traditional mac and cheese. For additional nutrition it has tofu and peas in it. My kids love the peas but you can feel free to omit them. The tofu can be omitted too.

What makes mac and cheese mac and cheese is the creamy cheese sauce so this is where all my effort goes. Before I start with the sauce I put a large pot of water on the cooker on high heat. This is to boil the macaroni. Since this takes forever I make the sauce in the mean time. My fan oven also takes a while to get heated up so I pop it on at 180 C (200 C conventional, 400 F).

In a small saucepan over medium heat I melt the butter. Be careful not to burn it. If you do happen to burn it, toss it and start from the beginning again. Once it is melted I add the flour and stir it until it is cooked, about 2 minutes. 

Then I add the milk. There are various ways to do this and it doesn't really matter which one you use as long as you aren't left with any lumps. I do it the way my mum taught me to and that is to gradually add the milk stirring all the time. So I add my first little bit, and the milk sizzles as it hits the flour/butter mixture. I stir it vigorously until it is all incorporated. Then I add a little bit more and stir again. I keep doing this until I have a mixture which is liquidy enough that there is no way lumps are going to form. Then I dump in the rest of the milk, stir and bring the sauce to the boil stirring all the time. Your sauce should get thicker and look like this:

Remove it from the heat.

Don't lose hope if your sauce does get lumpy. You can save it by using a stick mixer or a food processor. You can also pass it through a sieve. (Oh my, I remember doing that when I was a child and we didn't have any fancy gadgets!)

Now the worst is over, not much can go wrong from here out. My water is boiling so I carefully dump in my macaroni and let it cook as per the packets instructions. I always let the water re-boil after adding the macaroni and then start the timer.

Back to my sauce. I grate the cheese and crumble the tofu.

And then put 2/3 of the cheese into the sauce and stir it well. Then I add everything except the breadcrumbs and mix it all together.

Now for a bit of down time while I'm waiting for the pasta to finish boiling. Hmmm the options are endless, either a nice cup of tea or clean up the mess. Unfortunately I have to go for cleaning up the mess :(

Once the pasta is done it is well drained, rinsed under cold water and drained again. Then it goes straight into the sauce and everything is mixed together.

I then take out my favourite baking dish, which is rather large, and pour everything into it. At the end I mix the remaining cheese with the bread crumbs and sprinkle them on top.

This baby gets popped in the oven and baked until it is golden brown about 20 minutes.
And will you look at that I forgot to take a picture of the finished product. Probably because it was devoured before I could pull my phone out!!