mac and cheese, first go

last summer chad was having the good idea that someone should make mac and cheese for thanksgiving.  i teased him a lot for this.  so today, i made a go at mac and cheese to bring to thanksgiving.

1. cook pasta
way ahead of when you want to make the mac and cheese, cook your pasta.  i used strangled priest.  once i drained it, i put it in the fridge in a bowl. it could be there as long as over night, but at least 4 hours or so.

2. start to heat oven to 350 degrees.

3. fry pasta
put way too much olive oil and butter in a dutch oven like pot.  (i love my crueset pot).  when hot, add the pasta and stir and fry until you have a satisfactory amount of "crunchy brown" pieces.


4. mash garlic
using a masher or knife, mash about 4 or 5 cloves for 1lb of pasta.

5. grate cheese
tonight i used gruyere.  whatever the size is they sell at my local market, rainbow bridge.

6. add garlic and some of cheese
when pasta was close to done, i added the garlic and stirred.  i added some of the cheese and stirred.  i also grated parmeson cheese into frying pasta.  i removed from heat.  if i was not "making mac and cheese" i would have stopped here and eaten this.  yum.

7. make creme sauce
melt butter and add equal parts flour.  stir until roux is light blond  color.  slowly pour in milk or creme.  (tonight all i had was half n half, so i used that).  add the rest of grated cheese to milk mixture.

8. mix, salt and bake
pour creme cheese sauce onto pasta.  stir.  gruyere is pretty salty, but i added some smoked salt too.  i grated some more cheese onto top of pasta and put it oven for 20 minutes.