Baloney!

This is another word that rhymes with macaroni, and expresses my disappointment with my first attempt at homemade macaroni and cheese.

I kinda thought this would be an easy one. I mean, who can’t make macaroni and cheese? If you can make it with bizarre ingredients from a box, you should be able to make it amazing from scratch. That wasn’t quite what happened.

I should say that this wasn’t a total fail. The flavours were great, the nice crispy breadcrumb topping was great for added texture. The problem was the cheese sauce. It kind of… disappeared.

Everything was going so well… the sauce was great, I tossed in the noodles and they looked great. It all seemed great! I put it into the oven to bake, and when it came out, it was as though the oven got hungry and ate all of the sauce out of my dish. What the what?!

This recipe is going into my ‘lessons learned’ file… a great start, but something to build on.

A couple of thoughts for the next time I try it:

• Don’t bake. Just toss the noodles with the sauce and eat. Maybe crisp up a breadcrumb topping to sprinkle on top of each serving.
• Make a more liquidy, creamy sauce, so that it doesn’t all evaporate in the oven. This is the harder choice of the two, because I think it will take some trial and error to get just right.

Anyone have any other suggestions on ways I could fix this recipe???

Macaroni & Cheese Fail!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 pound dried macaroni, cooked and drained according to package instructions
• 1/2 cup shallot, chopped
• 1 – 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup spicy smoked sausage, diced (I used spicy Hungarian Csabi)
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1 cup shredded cheese (I used swiss, gruyere, cheddar and mozzarella)
• 1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese
• 1 cup milk
• Breadcrumbs
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Preparation:

1. Cook and drain the macaroni, according to the instructions on the package.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
3. In a medium pot, over medium heat, sauté shallots until softened. Add garlic and diced sausage, and cook until some of the oils begin to release. Remove from the pot and set aside.
4. Turn heat down to medium-low. Melt butter in the same pot. Whisk in flour until combined. Slowly add cheese, until melted and fully incorporated.
5. Slowly whisk in the milk, until fully incorporated. Add onions, garlic and sausage to the sauce. Cook until the sauce thickens.
6. Toss the sauce and noodles together, and spoon into a baking dish. Sprinkle breadcrumbs evenly across the top.
7. Bake for about 15 mins, until breadcrumb topping is crispy.

I served this on a bed of steamed swiss chard.