Mac N Cheese

I could eat an entire pot of macaroni and cheese by myself.  I won't, but I could.

Start, by shredding cheese.  You'll want equal parts monterey jack and medium cheddar.  The cheddar is more flavorful but the monterey jack helps with the creaminess.

Next, begin the cheese sauce.
You'll want to start by melting about 3 tablespoons of butter in a pan.  Add in 3 tablespoons of flour. Stir that mixture around on low heat.   Let all of the flour become fully incorporated with the butter and cook all of the floury taste out.  Then add just under two cups of milk.  I usually use whole milk.  You can use whatever you have on hand, but whole milk is more flavorful.  I actually didn't have whole milk tonight so I used a mixture of 2% and heavy cream.

Then you heat this mixture over medium heat.  Stir it frequently.  As it starts to thicken you will need to stir more frequently.  Be careful, near the end it begins to thicken very rapidly.  You'll want to keep whisking away otherwise it may burn to the bottom of the pan!  Once it is thickened, add in the cheese.

At any point in this process, begin adding seasonings. Again, I don't do a lot of measuring.  I used a small bit of ground mustard, some paprika, some garlic powder, fresh ground pepper...

Salt! Don't forget the salt!

Then add the sauce to some macaroni noodles.  We do the gluten free thing around our house, so we have a hard time finding actual shell or macaroni noodles. So, this is really penne pasta and cheese.

Delicious just the same.