Baked Macaroni and Cheese with Bacon

[kelliem]

I had a cooking first last night. Though I've been cooking for decades, I had never made macaroni and cheese from scratch before. It was always too easy to just reach for that box with the radioactive orange cheese powder in it. Recently, though, I keep hearing people talk about the home made kind, and seeing some interesting variations on it, and decided I wanted to give it a shot. So I hunted up a recipe on FoodNetwork's website and got to work. First I had to halve it, because it made a huge amount. Then, I realized I didn't have any gruyere, or parmesan or heavy cream. I did have generic swiss, and romano, and half & half, though. I didn't have any elbo 'roni, but I had a big box of conchigliette. And I didn't have any bread crumbs, but I did have some commercial garlic & butter croutons I could pulse in the food processor to make some. Also, my kidunit always wants some sort of meat substance at dinner, so I decided to add a token amount of bacon. So this is the recipe I ended up with, which is bears only a familial resemblance to the original.

Baked Macaroni and Cheese with Bacon

2 strips thick-cut American-style bacon, cooked and crumbled
1-1/2 cups dry macaroni, (your preference)
2 C half and half
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
2 scallions, thinly sliced (tops included)
2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
2 cups grated Swiss cheese
1/2 cup finely grated Romano
1/2 cup grated Cheddar
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp. hot pepper sauce (like Tabasco or Cholula)
1/8 tsp freshly ground Tellicherry pepper (or whatever pepper you have handy)
1/8 tsp. freshly ground nutmeg
1/2 cup toasted bread crumbs

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter the sides and bottom of a 2 quart baking dish.

Cook your macaroni in a large pot of well-salted water. Undercook the macaroni very slightly (say, 6-8 minutes instead of 8-10), as it will cook more when you bake it. Also, when you drain the macaroni, reserve half a cup of the cooking liquid to use below.

Mix the cheeses together in a large bowl.

In a large saucepan, bring the cream, garlic, scallions, and the reserved cooking liquid to a simmer. Stir in the mustard, then add the cheese mixture, a bit at a time, stirring between each addition until it is completely melted intot he sauce. Continue adding the cheese until it is all in the pan. Add the salt, pepper, nutmeg, Worcestershire & hot sauce, stir to blend. Taste and adjust seasoning if needed.

Add the macaroni to the sauce and stir gently to blend. Allow the macaroni to rest on the stove, 5 to 10 minutes. While it sits, stir the bread crumbs and bacon crumbles together in a separate dish.

Pour the macaroni and cheese into your baking dish, sprinkle the top with the bread crumb & bacon mixture, and bake 15 minutes or until bubbling, and browned on top. Let rest 5 minutes before serving. Makes 4 servings.

I served it with a handful of fresh grape tomatoes and some asparagus sauteed in butter and garlic.

Comments

[divanoir.livejournal.com]

It looks delicious.

[kelliem.livejournal.com]

It was. My only complaint was that it created too many dishes to wash up afterward, but that's not going to stop me from making it again. ;D

[jaymalea]

Macaroni and cheese is real forgiving. You can do practically anything with the recipe and it still tastes good.

My simple recipe uses only 4 tools:

Small saute pan (fry pan)
Spatula
Grater
Kettle

Boil water in the kettle for noodles. As soon as you put in the noodles, start the sauce.

Melt a little butter or olive oil in the saute pan. Dollop in your choice of sour cream (fat free or not), splash in a little milk (or 1/2 and 1/2 or whatever). Stir over med heat til smooth. Grate directly over pan whatever cheese you have. Voila! Cheese Sauce

Drain the water from the noodles, add the cheese sauce to the noodles in the kettle. Mix with spatula. Voila! Macaroni and Cheese.

This dish does not need to be baked. If you'd like to add meat (hamburger, bacon, [hot dogs-these can be cooked using the noodle water) return the cheesy noodles in the kettle to the burner on lo-heat and add the meat until heated.

[kelliem.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I love the idea of using sour cream in it. Mmmm!

I think we have a difference in terminology here, though. To me a kettle is a vessel for boiling water for tea and other hot beverages-- it looks something like this:

But it sounds like you mean a large cooking pot. Is that correct?

[jaymalea]

Yes - a stock pot, soup pot etc. Something big enough to boil the noodles, then stir in the cheese sauce.
Yum!

[kelliem.livejournal.com]

I thought so! Thanks! I definitely want to try the sour cream trick.

[imkalena.livejournal.com]

That sounds AWESOME. Almost worth making it myself, though I never would. :)

[kelliem.livejournal.com]

Why not?

[imkalena.livejournal.com]

I'm just not so much of a pasta fan. But you know . . . potatoes . . .