Mac and cheese
Velveeta is just one big block of processed cheese food love. I’m just saying.
Today, I had a real craving for macaroni and cheese but I hate making it when there’s just the three of us because I do not think it reheats well. This is why, in my younger, fatter days, I used to eat an entire box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese at one sitting. I just loved that stuff and still do. It’s a food memory from a time when I was starving to death because my mother didn’t cook.
Over the years, I’ve tried probably three dozen recipes for macaroni and cheese. Mac and cheese is peasant food and it shouldn’t cost an arm and a leg to make. But most recipes that look pretty tempting call for cheese that sells for $14 a pound. No, sir.
So, today Noah called and asked if he could have a few friends to supper. Yea! Enough people to eat an entire pan of mac and cheese. Fortunately, I had stocked up on Velveeta when the Publix had it “buy one, get one free.” Velveeta keeps for years, you know.
So, here it is. Isn’t it pretty? Why, yes, thank you. I think it looks fairly appetizing. What to serve with it? I think if you’re busting out the seams with macaroni and cheese you might as well go all the way. We had fried pork chops. Oh, I threw in some green beans just for color. JUST for color.
Macaroni and Cheese
8 ounces elbow macaroni
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
1 1/2 cups whole milk
8 ounces Velveeta
Salt and pepper to taste
Corn flake crumbs
Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium high heat and add the flour. Whisk about two minutes to get the raw taste of the flour out. Slowly add the milk, whisking continuously, until you get the consistency in the sauce you want. Cube the Velveeta and add it to the pot. Whisk until it melts and season with salt and pepper (I usually throw in a little smoked paprika, too). Taste it.
Cook the macaroni in boiling salted water until it’s just tender. Do not cook the macaroni to mush. It’s the biggest mac and cheese sin.
Combine the macaroni with the cheese sauce and put in a 9-by-9 pan. Top with a generous sprinkling of corn flake crumbs. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.
I wonder what Thomas Keller would say about Velveeta after you spent so much time with him the other day?
I think deep in his heart of hearts Thomas Keller may be a Velveeta man. In the book he talks nostalgically of beef stroganoff made with cream of mushroom soup in the 1970s.