The best Mac & Cheese ever!

[bif]

Ingredients
8 ounces elbow macaroni
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
dash black pepper
dash nutmeg
1 T Dijon Mustard
2 C milk
2 C shredded sharp cheddar cheese

Directions
Heat oven to 350°. Cook macaroni according to directions. Drain but don't rinse. In a medium saucepan, melt butter. Stir in flour. Then slowly add milk while whisking. Add pepper, nutmeg, and mustard. When mixture is thick and bubbly, remove from heat and mix in cheese until it's melted. Then fold in pasta and coat thoroughly. Pour into a baking pan, top with breadcrumbs and bake 30-45 minutes until breadcrumbs are lightly browned.

http://cookingwiththemark.blogspot.com

[Glassunion]

1. My recipie is roughly the same

Try this next time you make it.

Use Panko breadcrumbs that you have sprinkled with smoked paprika, then top it with a light sprinkling of some of the cheddar.

I love baked Mac and Cheese.

[bif]

4. Wow. That sounds great!

[Glassunion]

5. Not my idea.

I stole it from a restaurant my wife and I had dinner at.

Another option is to use an Italian cheese blend instead of just cheddar.

[spinbaby]

9. Better yet...

...make some fresh bread crumbs and brown them in a bit of butter, then top the mac & cheese.

[Glassunion]

13. Better yet... Better yet...

Brown them in bacon fat.

[LancetChick]

12. Panko makes a great mac & cheese topping.

Smoked paprika sounds interesting! Thanks, I'll try it next time I do mac & cheese. I tried a roasted garlic mac & cheese from a garlic site that someone posted about a while back, and roasted garlic works really well with mac & cheese, so I always add it now.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

2. My recipe is very similar

Except that I use a few squirts of Tabasco instead of the mustard.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

6. I made some mac and cheese with a wasabi-flavored cheddar

It worked really well.

[Nac Mac Feegle]

8. Protip:

One of the things that Chefs use in their Bechamel sauce, the base for the cheddar sauce which is the liquid part, is to add a few drops of Tabasco. You can't tell what it is, but you know it's not there. The salt and hot flavors just make the difference.

[spinbaby]

10. Fish sauce, too

A few drops of fish sauce adds an indefinable umami.

[Ruby Reason]

3. This certainly sounds good. I'm going to give it a try since my baked mac and cheese never seems...

to have the right consistency.
Thanks.

[cbayer]

7. I recently ordered some cheese and one item was a spreadable limburger.

It is made by an Amish group and is very strong.

There is a recipe on the site for using it for a mac and cheese. I'm not so sure about the cottage cheese though.

Thoughts?


Limburger Mac and Cheese
Ingredients:
1 lb Pasta (your favorite Mac shape)
1 c. creamed cottage cheese
1 c. sour cream
1 egg, slightly beaten
8 oz Limburger or Limburger Spread
1 TBL hot sauce (like Frank's Red Hot)
Salt & pepper to taste
1/2 c. stale bread, cut into croutons
Paprika

Directions:
Cook pasta acording to directions, but take it our 1-2 minutes before done. This will help the pasta from becoming overcooked in the oven.

Fry bacon until crisp. Remove bacon and save fat. Fry the bread crumbs in the bacon
fat until brown and crispy.

Mix all ingredients well and pour into buttered casserole dish. Top with croutons and sprinkle with paprika. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Remove cover and continue to bake for 15-30 minutes more until top is brown and crunchy.

[pengillian101]

11. The cottage cheese probably works nicely.

But I am not a Limburger fan, so would sub that out, maybe with pepperjack. Sounds good, thanks for posting it.

[cbayer]

14. I think I'm going to try this this evening.

We are low on milk and this doesn't call for it, but I do have some cream. And i have some cream cheese that I can substitute for the cottage cheese and that might mellow it out a bit.

From some things I have read, cooking with limburger brings out the best in it.

And I love mac and cheese.

We shall see.

[bif]

15. Good luck with it!

My younger daughter is visiting her older sister at IU for the weekend. When she gets back, I think I'll make it and have one of her friends over for a feast. I almost never make this.