Mac & Cheese Please

Mac and cheese is far and away one of my most favorite foods. I will admit, I have eaten an entire box of Kraft mac & cheese by myself for dinner, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in that. I actually don't eat it very much though because it's mac & cheese, and well, it's just not really that healthy. I had been wanting to make this crock-pot mac & cheese for a couple of months now, but kept putting it off in favor of other (possibly more healthy) meals. I now realize the time to make mac & cheese for dinner was probably while I was training for the marathon, not the weekend after Thanksgiving while on an exercise hiatus, but oh well. Healthy eating starts tomorrow, right?

I'll eat pretty much any kind of mac & cheese, but I prefer when it's made with cheddar cheese and shells. Something about the shells just seems to hold the cheesy goodness in. No matter what kind of mac & cheese I'm eating, it always makes me nostalgic for the blue box Kraft Mac & Cheese that I often enjoyed as a kid...and frequently enjoyed as a 22 year old. Our first year out of college, my friend (and roommate) Maggie & I would cook weeknight dinners that often involved good ol' Kraft in the blue box (but the 3 cheese shells version, because that's the fancier kind, and we were adults after all). I laugh a bit now thinking that those dinners quite typically consisted of a chicken breast, seasoned with salt and pepper (maybe Montreal Chicken seasoning if we were feeling crazy) cooked in a skillet, and mac & cheese. Feeling it wasn't cheesy enough as is, we liked to add shredded cheese for that extra ooey-gooeyness, and Maggie liked to sprinkle Old Bay on it for a little extra flavor. Thus, the inspiration for my Sunday crock-pot version, which I tried to make slightly healthier and adapted from this Trisha Yearwood recipe.

Ingredients:

• 16oz medium shell pasta
• 2 cups skim milk
• 1 12oz can evaporated 2% milk
• 1/4c butter, melted
• 2 eggs, whisked
• Salt & pepper
• 16oz block sharp cheddar cheese
• 1/2c Panko bread crumbs (optional)
• 1 tbsp Old Bay seasoning (optional)

Directions:

Cook pasta according to package directions. While the pasta is cooking, grate the cheese. I bought one 16oz block of cheese, rather than buying two separate ones because I thought buying two was silly. Trisha Yearwood suggests using 2 blocks of cheese, and while I don't know for sure, I discovered one possible reason as soon as I started grating. As I tried to grate my giant block of cheese I realized it's pretty difficult just because of the size, so I'd recommend cutting it in half or just buying two (I've always been the kind of person who just has to learn these things for myself).

So much cheeeeeese.

In the crock-pot, combine the milk, evaporated milk, melted butter, whisked eggs and pasta. Add a dash each of salt & pepper, then stir in the grated cheese. Cover and cook on low for about 3 hours.

Before cooking

While I typically consider myself a mac & cheese purist, I decided to make a little spiced breadcrumb topping. About 30 minutes before the mac & cheese was finished in the crock-pot, I combined the panko bread crumbs and Old Bay in a small skillet and toasted over medium heat just until the bread crumbs were starting to brown. Sprinkle the crumbs over the mac& cheese and let cook for the remaining time.

After cooking

I'll be honest, the finished product wasn't quite what I was hoping for, but it was still delicious. The cheese sauce just wasn't sticking to the pasta to make it ooey-gooey, which I think was the result of one or both of these reasons:

1. The skim milk and evaporated 2% milk. Try as I might, mac & cheese just wasn't meant to be low fat. I'd recommend trying the same recipe above, my with fuller-fat varieties of milk.
2. Adding the grated cheese to the cold milk and egg mixture. It might be worth a try to heat that mixture in the crock-pot while the pasta is cooking, then add the pasta & cheese for a more even consistency.

In any case, stay tuned; I think I'll be trying Trisha Yearwood's actual version of this sometime in the near future!