Trying to Cook (and Eat and Be) Healthy: The World's BEST Macaroni & Cheese

Well I did it! I successfully made my mom's fantastic macaroni & cheese. A total favorite while we were growing up (and now), Billy and I request this meal all of the time. Since I was thinking about trying recipes I know and love from mom's book of amazingness, I decided to go for the big one and it worked! This recipe is awesome and I am so glad it came out well. Just like the stir fry, this recipe does not exist online so I will write it out for you here!

Ingredients:

3 tbs. butter or margarine (obviously there is more than that in this pic, I hadn't cut out how much I needed!)

5 tbs. flour

1.5 tbs. dry mustard or dijon mustard

0.5 tsp. salt, pepper to taste

16 oz. box medium (I used large) shells (wagon wheels are also great!)

16 slices good quality American cheese (I bought Boar's Head brand and it works out to about 3/4 lbs.)

2 cups milk

1/4 cup half and half

So to get started I got some water set to boil for the pasta and shred the cheese. This was done on the 2nd biggest side of a 4-sided cheese grater.

Obviously not grated to perfection, but still good!

In a large saucepan I melted the butter over medium-low heat. Then I combined the dry ingredients in a bowl to add to the melted butter.

I removed the butter pan from heat and stirred in the dry ingredients. At this point I thought I was doing something wrong because it is super clumpy, but I soldiered on and it started working! Very gradually, about 1/4 cup at a time, I added the milk and when that was finished, the half and half. The entire time I stirred and stirred and stirred and stirred. The stirring is super important.

Stirring away!

I then put the pot back on low heat and stirred even more until all of the lumps were gone and it started to thicken up a little. Then I added the cheese in about 4 groups and stirred more and more until all the cheese melted. And then I stirred more just in case. At this point I tasted it and called my mom because I was so excited that it tasted just like hers!

Once the pasta was done I drained it and then dumped the shells into the pot with the sauce in it, and stirred and tossed until all the noodles were covered in delicious cheese sauce.

Yum!

My mom always serves this with applesauce, ham, and a green vegetable. The ham is cooked in the oven or toaster oven with pineapple rings with some of their own juice and some brown sugar. Sometimes we use deli ham, sometimes a ham steak. This time I used deli ham.

For the green vegetable my favorite growing up was always broccoli so I steamed some up!

All in all this turned out to be a great meal and I am super proud of myself. All of my taste testers really enjoyed it and the whole meal made me feel like I was home!