My Perfect Homemade Mac and Cheese

As I searched the internet one day I came across a homemade mac and cheese recipe by Martha Stewart.  It claimed it was "perfect" mac and cheese ever created so I decided to try making it at home.  Little did I know that Martha was going to use over 7 and 3/4 cups of cheese!  Three different cheese at that!  Where did she think I, living in secluded Northern Ontario, was going to procure all this cheese?!  And where was I getting my mountains of money to afford all this cheese!?  Needless to say I have drastically altered the recipe.  I think thought that you will find some of my techniques still have the Martha touch.  If you are interested, you can find Martha's Original Recipe here.  I hope you enjoy!

Here is the entire recipe (detailed pictures will follow):

Ingredients
3 Tbsp butter
1/4 c flour
...
1 1/2 c milk (or soy or lactose-free)
1 tsp salt (Martha specifically says "Kosher salt" but table salt will work too)
1/8 tsp pepper
...
2 c uncooked macaroni elbows (or any pasta on hand really)
...
1 1/4 c shredded white cheese (I like the "Pizza Mozzarella" for it's tasty stringy cheesiness, but you can use white cheddar or any other white cheese you like.)

How-to
1. Add butter to a small/medium sized pot on medium heat.  Once butter is melted and bubbling add flour.  Continue to cook and mix for 1 minute.
2. While butter is melting start a second medium pot, half full of water, on high to boil.
3. Once butter and flour are melted and mixed, whisk in milk, salt and pepper.  Increase heat, whisking occasionally, until sauce thickens or bubbles.
4.  While white sauce thickens, add noddles to the boiling water.  Cook until "El Dente" (approx. 7 minutes).  Baking the noodles will finish the cooking.
5. Add 1 c of the cheese to the thickened sauce.  If you like a cheesier mac and cheese you can add up to an additional 1c of grated cheese.  Stir cheese into the sauce until melted and combined.
6. Grease a 2 quart oven-proof dish.  Rinse noodles under cold water to halt cooking and add to dish.  Pour white cheese sauce over noodles.  Stir to coat all noodles.
7. Heat over to 400F.  Sprinkle remaining 1/4 c of cheese over noodles.  Cook 20-30 minutes.

Butter and flour in my smallish pot.

Shred white cheese.

Add milk, salt and pepper to melted and mixed butter and flour.

Add the cheese to the deliciously thickened sauce.

Grease a 2 quart dish.  I like to grease with a stick of butter but you can use sprays, lard or whatever you prefer (as long as it's edible!).

Pouring the white sauce over the 2 c of cooked pasta.  If you cook the pasta through (instead of leaving it "El Dente") you could eat it as is --especially if you're pressed for time.  But baking makes it "perfect".

Sprinkle remaining cheese on noodles before baking.

Delicious!

(My family dug into the Mac and Cheese as soon as it was ready. 

I almost didn't get a picture!)

Thank you for taking time to visit my blog today!

Make It Monday: Rainbow Cookies

This is a great spring idea to create with your child, children or just for yourself.  

It was my son who came up with the idea.  I asked him what kind of cookies he wanted to make and he said, "Blue cookies!"  But once I got the food dye out he had to make every colour.  I made the cookies small so that if my kids wanted to choose more than one colour to eat they could.

You could do this with any cookie recipe really but here's how I made them:

I used the recipe for Chocolate chip cookies that came with my Baker's Secret Air Insulated cookie sheet.  The cookie sheet has no sides so it cooks the cookies evenly. And it is large to accommodate more cookies than the standard sheet thus fewer batches in and out of the oven which helps to save time.

Also this chocolate chip cookie recipe is the best I have tried.  And I have tried many!

Baker's Secret Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients:
1 c butter
3/4 c white sugar
3/4 c brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/4 c all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (*I prefer 1 c regular sized chips and 1c mini*)

*For Rainbow Cookies*:
use the above reipe and add a few drops of any food dye colour or combination of food dye colours.

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350F.  Grease sheets for best results.
2. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy.  Add one egg at a time, beating well with each addition.  Stir in vanilla.  Combine flour, soda and salt and gradually stir into creamed mixture.  Fold in chocolate chips.  (*Divide dough into the number of colours you wish to create.  Add your chosen food dye colour a few drops at a time and knead the dough to disperse the colour throughout*)
3. Drop by rounded spoonfuls (*approx. 1 Tbsp in size to create bite-sized cookies*) onto cookie sheet. (*I can fit 20 cookies on one sheet*)
4. Bake 8-10 minutes until light brown.  Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Yield: approx. 4 1/2 dozen

Thank you for visiting my blog today!

I hope these Rainbow Cookies inspire you to add some Spring to your kitchen.

And a BIG THANK YOU to my helper today.

He was very happy and excited to have a big box of Rainbow Cookies.  

(If you look closely you will see he has a chocolate chip mustache from his job as "cookie tester")  

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Organizing Desk Drawers

 I LOVE organizing.  The best thing about having a growing and changing family is that there is always something to organize!  Last Saturday I was finally motivated to clean out our desk drawer (ie. I couldn't find what I was looking for) and make it more usable.  There is really no magic solution or secret to getting organized so I thought I'd share with you how I did it:

1.  Take everything OUT of the drawer. 

A The drawer then needed a good wipe down so I did that too.

B I laid everything out on the floor to see what was really in the drawer

C I know this drawer doesn't look that disorganized but it was many layers deep.  The drawer almost didn't close anymore.  It needed to be reorganized to remove the constant hassle and frustration it was causing.













2. Decide what needs to go back into the drawer and what could be thrown out.

 A We needed a phone book in the drawer but did we need four?  I threw out the two we didn't use and put back the ones we did.

Did we need BOTH check books in the drawer?  I moved one to a different part of the house.

 B Pamphlets with information I wanted to keep could be kept elsewhere.  Or, as I did with the library pamphlet, I simply cut out the information I wanted to keep (the library hours) and put that back in the drawer (taped it to the front of our phone book).

C I gave my son back all the items that were his.  Namely all the pencil and eraser combos he'd been given at school as prizes or gifts from friends.  I didn't need them in my drawer and he was very happy to have them (I also snuck some unused ones downstairs to be put in our Operation Christmas Child shoe box in November).









  

3. Create organizing solutions for the things I wanted to keep.

A I needed a place to keep all our electronic cords and chargers but the baskets I had previous were wide at the top and narrow at the bottom.  The took up alot of space without holding alot.  I had bought these containers for the pantry but ended up not using them.  They were perfect for this project.   I also removed some old cords that were no longer needed.  That allowed me to fit all the cords into one basket.

B I was able to use that little extra space (one basket) to hold all the small sticky note pads that were floating around the drawer.  Now they're all in one place and easy to find if they are needed.

C I placed a small square of anti-slip pad under the basket that holds the pens.  The pad is meant to go under dishes or glassware or placemats.  I cut it to fit my purpose and prevent the basket at the front of the drawer from sliding around and disorganizing my newly organized drawer.

The Finished Product

 

Hooray!! I love organization!

I was so inspired I did the same thing to the drawer beside it:

Some solutions I LOVED from this drawer:

A Using this small take out container to hold all our spare loose felt pads.  Our home is all hard wood.  Keeping that hardwood scratch-free from chairs, couch legs and children's toys is almost a part-time job in itself!

B Using the twine itself as a  holder.  I needed something long and thin to hold extra twist ties.  The twine roll was just what I needed and saved on drawer space!

C Choosing compact tools.  We always seem to need something repaired.  But that something may just need a quick turn of a screwdriver or wrench.  Having these simple compact tools at hand saves us time (and energy) from having to haul a full tool box around.  They're also a great space saver for my drawer.

And there you have it, two drawers successfully organized!

Hooray!

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