Oh, lovely, lovely cheese. Everything is better with cheese. Except perhaps ice cream but the verdict is still out on that one.

T'other night Lovely Wife made mac 'a cheese. This is not the blue box dinner I speak of. Such prepared cheese like food product is anathema to the palate. No, I speak of true lucious homemade mac 'a cheese, wherein the macaroni serves merely as a vehicle to carry the delicious and savory cheese.

Why is this news, you ask? Because I am the cheese meister of the household. I am the undisputed champion chef for cheesy goodness of the macaroni variety. My mac 'a cheese is of a world class. Check that. My mac 'a cheese is beyond that. There is no mac 'a cheese anywhere, prepared by anybody, that approaches the cheesy perfection of my dish. Mac 'a cheese is way at the top of my comfort foods list. It's created with love and many years of "touch". I make the hell out of mac 'a cheese.

And Lovely Wife was going to attempt to follow my recipe to duplicate my gastronomical perfection? Let us just say that the recipe is...less than detailed:

1. Melt a stick of butter.


2. Pour in some milk.


3. Melt a couple handfuls of cheddar into it.


4. Put in some romano.


5. Add some other cheese.

And she nailed it. Oh, there were some problems, don't get me wrong. Her initial milk pour was far too great, forcing cheese compensation. Consistency was an issue as a result and took some serious tinkering at the tail end in order to resolve it. But the end product, the final grade, was unmitigated success.

Is she good or what?

In the interest of spreading the wealth I've attempted to make a real recipe for all y'all what haven't truly ever enjoyed the sensation of cheese perfection upon your palates. There really is a touch required and I can't give perfect measures since I mostly base the amounts on handfuls and eyeballing quantities but I've done the best I can for you.

1. Use a large sauce pan or medium sized pot.


2. Use low heat.


3. Melt a stick of butter. If you are one of those folks who uses a butter subtitute, use butter anyway. It's way better for you than the polyunsaturated crap in margarine. If you insist, go ahead and substitute your prefered butter substitute but I can't guarantee anything palatable will result.


4. When the butter is melted, pour in about a 1/4 cup of milk.


5. Mix the butter and milk until they blend a bit (this will happen when it has warmed back up to temperature).


6. Add in 2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese and stir occasionally until the cheddar is melted.


7. Check the consistency. If it's too thick add some more milk. A little goes a long way.


8. Add in 1/4 cup of romano cheese and stir occasionally until it is all melted.


9. Check the consistency again. If it's too thick go for some more milk.


10. Add in 1/4 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese and stir until it is all melted and the sauce has a uniform consistency.


11. Did I mention that you should be using a wooden spoon? Seriously, it makes a difference.


12. If you over-milked and the sauce is too runny you can add more cheddar to thicken it back up.


13. Pour the sauce over al dente noodles and mix carefully (so as not to bust up the noodles).


14. The al dente part is important - If the noodles are cooked to the point where they are soft the mac 'a cheese is going to have a nasty mushy consistency. The noodles must be al dente.


15. Any noodle you can eat with a spoon is acceptable. We tend toward the thicker twisty ones or the spirals.


16. Eat and make yummy noises.

POINTS: 2 points to the first person to name my source for the title of this post. No searchy-searchy.

Posted by: Jim at 11:34 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
Post contains 667 words, total size 4 kb.

1 Bugs Bunny to Elmer Fudd in ... erm can't remember the episode name but I would like to thank the 4 year old we look after every saturday for insisting on watching the same Bugs video every single time she comes over and therefore ensuring that every inch of the dialogue is embedded in my skull ...

Posted by: Robert at January 12, 2004 03:47 AM (kXZI6)

2 Can't name the source, but this: Add in 1/4 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese and stir until it is all melted and the sauce has a uniform consistency. Or FONTINA. F-o-n-t-i-n-a. Terrific melting cheese. Like velvet, but better-tasting. Homemade macaroni & cheese makes Kraft look like such a pussy. In fact, it's insulting to good pussy to say that. Okay: It makes Kraft look like a syphilitic transvestite hooker. I take that back. Too insulting to syphilitic transvestite hookers. Just personally, I also think the cheddar cheese should be sharp. That mild stuff is what you put into the kids' tacos. But maybe that's just me.

Posted by: ilyka at January 12, 2004 03:56 AM (0vVpC)

3 Oh, sharp indeed. Very good point there. I didn't think to mention that as I don't really consider mild cheddar to be cheddar. Rob's got it. It follows Bugs saying that only a dirty rat would shoot a guy in the back and Elmer shooting him and saying "Okay, so I'm a dirty rat" after which Bugs pops up with a wedge of cheese and shoves it in his mouth while saying the "have some cheese" line. Possibly my favorite cartoon clip of all time. Points to Rob!

Posted by: Jim at January 12, 2004 04:35 AM (fkewd)

4 Fontina....there it is again.I jusy CAN'T find it here ANYWHERE! Sharp Cheddar is a must,try extra sharp. Kraft is nasty,the kids don't even like it.But get this...OTHER peoples kids don't like the homemade ones and want that Kraft shit. Kill the wabbit!

Posted by: LW at January 12, 2004 07:25 AM (fkewd)

5 Strawberry CHEESE cake icecream !!!!!

Posted by: Linda at January 12, 2004 08:26 AM (3XIYy)

6 Like your Lovely Wife, I too made homemade mac and cheese on Saturday (you can't get the boxed kind here). I don't use cheddar, I use a European white cheddary type one called Heregard or Greve. And I add some gorgonzola, some Dijon mustard, and a dash of nutmeg. I'm telling you, the stuff is better than sex. Seriously.

Posted by: Helen at January 12, 2004 10:28 AM (biCTO)

7 My second-favorite grocery store memory was when I heard some guy asking where to find macaroni and cheese and I told him that macaroni was in aisle six and cheese was in the dairy case on the back wall. He was totally mystified by this.

Posted by: triticale at January 12, 2004 05:50 PM (YmQkS)

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