I love mac and cheese, especially baked mac and cheese. I can remember, as a child, eating at my Nana’s and she made hers with stewed tomatoes. After the bit of a fail in the crock pot that was too small, I decided to give that a try and bake it this time around (FYI my no boil recipe in the bigger crock pot works much better). However, I also have to say this is one of those times I was so excited to eat it, that I forgot to take a final picture. So you will need to use your imagination lol.
I prepped my mac and cheese as I always do. I created a roux that I seasoned with some salt, white pepper, black pepper, ground mustard and a bit of garlic powder. My cheese medley: some fresh grated white cheddar and Colby jack, fresh mozzarella chunks, white American and chunks of Velveeta. I set aside some chunks of all kinds of cheese as well as some grated cheddar and Colby jack for the topping. As always, we don’t measure cheese, and we like it cheese. In my roux I used milk and some heavy cream to get it cheesy and creamy. While creating the magic (and perfect cheese pull) of a cheese sauce, I cooked macaroni to just aldente and then combined all together. I pour my mixture into a glass baking dish. This is when I mixed in my extra chunks of all cheese so there would be even more pockets of cheese! I then added one can of stewed tomatoes and mixed all together. I topped with the remaining grated cheese and some panko breadcrumbs. I wasn’t going to use all the juice of the can, but I wanted to include all the goodness. So it did make my mac a bit runnier than I normally would have, but it did have extra flavor LOL.
I love baked mac and cheese because you can put all this together and then bake it when you are ready to serve. I had this prepped the day before. Then I took the dish out to get to room temperature and preheated the oven to 375. I baked covered with foil for about 20minutes and then an additional 20 or some minutes uncovered, until it was bubbling and nice golden color. It was delicious and took me back to my childhood. My only complaint is that I used a circle baking dish so there were not extra crispy corners LOL. The added chunks of cheese in the baking dish also leveled up the cheesiness of the dish and I will be keeping that in mind for next time! Do you have a favorite family mac and cheese recipe? Comment below!
Live to Eat,
Tiv
Living Tivalicious 