T-day Foods Made

mac & cheese cheesecake

1) My regular baked mac & cheese made with vegetable radiatore. In the background you can see Mike’s peas dish with onions, parsley, marjorum, butter lettuce, etc…

2) Brownie-Bottom Cheesecake: Brownie layer made from scratch, baked for 20 mins (could be more) and then cheesecake layer added and the whole thing baked for another 30 mins. This cheesecake mix has sour cream in it, which is delicious!

Baked Mac & Cheese


I got a recipe from mom the other day and decided to try it tonight. Of course I made modifications, so need to make note of it:

Ingredients:
1 (16 oz) bag of rigatoni
4 TBL butter
1/2 cup bread crumbs (very fine)
1 TBL all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp granulated garlic
1 1/2 cup milk
1 lb cheddar cheese, shredded

Directions:
1. preheat oven to 350
2. start cooking pasta (20+ mins for rigatoni), leave it a bit under done, because it’s going to continue cooking in the oven later.
3. melt 2 TBL (half) butter in small bowl or mug in microwave, add bread crumbs and use fork to mix completely. Set aside.
4. melt 2 TBL (other half) butter in medium sauce pan over medium-high heat, add flour and spices, stir, add milk, stir. (It’s supposed to thicken, so I’m sure I did something wrong here, but it was still yummy. *shrug*) Add cheese, and stir constantly until melted. Lower heat, but keep the sauce warm and stir regularly to keep it from forming skin over top, until you ready for the next step.
5. In regular baking dish (16″x8″x3″ – a guess) pour in the cooked pasta, over this pour your cheese sauce, and then sprinkle the bread crumb mix evenly over the top of this.
6. bake at 350 for 25 minutes, until just getting darker on top, and the put it on broil for about a minute and a half to complete the GBD on top. Be very careful not to let this burn, it darkens suddenly on broil. Don’t take your eyes off of it.
7. Oh, and then let it cool for at least 5 minutes before trying to eat it.

Yummy!