Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Really cool Mac and Cheese Recipe

I love good, old fashioned, southern mac and cheese. Not that creamy stuff but the kind with real cheese and milk that is not saucey but more of a crumbly texture almost. I found the COOLEST recipe to make this.
Using my nearly free Muellers Elbow Macaroni from Triples, 2 packages of shredded cheese from the freezer from when they were on sale 3/$5, some Land O Lakes margarine that was on sale with Q from a few months ago and 4 cups of milk. It made for an amazing rich and tasty mac cheese. AND it was cheap too, roughly around 5.00 for a huge 9x13 casserole full!!!

Now for the super COOL part. You do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT cook the macaroni first!!!

I know, craziness right??? Insanity ??? Well it works!

I got the original recipe from Allrecipes.com. But as I am prone to do, I tweaked it a bit. If you follow the original recipe you only use one package of cheese but we like it extra cheesy. (Using one package of cheese would have also cut way down on the price for it too.)

Since I tweaked it so much I am going to post how I did it, but please see the original recipe linked above as well.

MomIsCrazy's EASY Mac and Cheese

6 Tbs of margarine
(Seasonings are to taste , I do not measure typically, just eyeball it knowing what my tastes are. Just remember a whole box of elbow macaroni is ALOT and needs alot of seasoning in my opinion.)
1 to 1 1/2 tsp. of each of the following:
Salt
Pepper
Garlic Powder
Onion Powder
Dry Mustard
Paprika
1 box of UNCOOKED Elbow Pasta
4 cups shredded extra sharp cheddar cheese
4 cups 2% Milk
(I added a touch more to make sure it had enough, maybe 1/4 cup more or so, just eyeball it.)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Put 6 Tbs margarine in 9x13 pan and place in oven until completely melted.
3. Take pan with melted margarine out of oven and dump whole box of elbow macaroni UNCOOKED in. Add seasonings to taste. Mix together well to cover all the pasta with the seasonings and melted margarine.
4. Add cheese in a layer on top of pasta. Do not stir.
5. Pour in milk. Still NO stirring at this point. Just pour milk in making sure it covers the cheese and pasta.
6. Place in oven at 350 for around 60 mins. About 30 minsutes in I took the pan out and stirred everything together, then place back in oven for 30 more minutes.
7. After the hour total cooking time the top will be golden and bubbly. Remove from oven and let sit for a few minutes.

How much easier does it get than that???? All mixed in the pan you cook it in!!! No preboiling the pasta!! Again, this is NOT a creamy version of mac and cheese. Some of you will know what I am referring to when I say this is the old time southern version of mac and cheese. I LOVE IT! If you make this, let me know what you thought of it!

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