Mac and Cheese

Seriously, this is the easiest mac and cheese you will ever make in your whole life...and you can make it knowing you're not eating weird powder cheese with who knows what in it.

I'm going to put the recipe at the top of this post, because I am always slightly irritated by long blog posts that I have to scroll and scroll and scroll through to get the recipe.

So here it is people!

MAC AND CHEESE

2 cups milk (we rarely have cow milk on hand, so coconut milk for us!)                               2 cups pasta (we use GF penne pasta that we buy in bulk from Costco)                                 1 cup cheese (any cheese you want! Shredded is best, it melts fastest)                                                                                                                                                                       Bring the milk to boil and add the pasta. Cook until pasta is done. Add your cheese, stir until melted (do not drain the milk). Turn burner to low and let it thicken for a bit. Serve and enjoy! If you are using a GF pasta, always cook al dente or undercook it by just a smidge. GF pasta tends to fall apart if you cook it like normal pasta, so if you are new to GF pasta you should keep an eye on it. My mother always scooped a noodle out of the pot and taste tested it to know if the noodles were done cooking. I mostly have a feel for the timing now but still taste test to be sure.

Now that you know the basics, I'll blog for a bit.

I love mac and cheese, as does my husband. When we were first married, our go-to meal was mac and cheese with fried spam...because it was cheap and because we both think fried spam is delicious. Don't judge me!

While I loved mac and cheese, I knew that those boxes of Kraft with the strangely orange powder cheese could not be good for Curtis or I. But I tried a few "fancy" homemade mac and cheese recipes and they never turned out yummy...and were usually more complicated than a simple boil, drain, milk, powder cheese, stir, eat box of goodness. One thing you can know about me, I will always choose the cheaper, easier option. Mac and cheese with more than 3 steps? No thanks.

Then enter into the picture of our marital cheesy bliss my newfound issue with all things gluten. First, it took a while to find a box of gluten free mac and cheese (Annie's!). Then I had to come to terms with the fact that it was 3 times as expensive as the gluten-y stuff. The result, Curtis and I stopped eating mac and cheese almost entirely because newly married couples don't often have a large budget.

Imagine my joy when several months ago I came across a mac and cheese recipe on Pinterest (you know you waste just as many hours scrolling as I do.) with 3 ingredients and simple instructions. Glory hallelujah! I waited until I had tried it myself before getting too excited but I shouldn't have been worried...it has quickly become our go-to meal once again.

Here is the pasta boiling in the milk. Milk gets a film on it when it is heated, no big deal just keep stirring and breaking it up.

Once the pasta is done boiling, add your cheese! Really, any cheese will do. I suggest creativity! Here I used a glob of goat cheese, a handful of shredded colby jack, and a scoop of some spreadable cheddar cheese.

Mix it all up! Shredded cheese will melt quickly, the globs you will want to put directly on the bottom of the pan and hold there with your stirring spoon to warm it up until it is soft enough to mix with the rest of the pasta.

You can always use mac and cheese as a side or as the main meal like we do! We didn't have spam on hand today so I used some small pepperoni slices I found in one of the fridge drawers. I think I bought it for homemade pizza but let's be honest, homemade pizza is way too many steps for me. Those slices would've stayed in our fridge forever if I didn't use them in this pasta. Some other ideas are tuna, ground beef, cubed chicken (you can cook the chicken with fun spices to change things up a bit!). Or, sometimes I like to just add some seasonings to my mac and cheese like oregano, garlic salt, and cayenne powder.

This is the pepperoni I used. It has no nitrites, nitrates, or MSG which are all really gross and bad for you but are in most processed meats...and it is also GF!

 This is a fantastic, easy, family-friendly (by family friendly I mean picky eater friendly) recipe that I've used 3 or 4 times in the past week. It's also easily gluten free, as I've shown in my example above. Try it out! It's just as cheap as those boxes of Kraft and you can be much more creative with it...or, if you're like me, just throw whatever you have on hand in it!

Try this recipe and tell me what new things you added to make it delicious!