Cheesy Homemade Mac 'n Cheese

It's been a little while since I posted one of my current favorite recipes so I thought the blog was due for a good ole recipe post.  Not too long ago I talked about my recent brownie quest--a search where I challenged myself to find an outstanding basic fudgy homemade brownie that was better than a box.  After a couple of tries I settled on a winner although that doesn't mean I'm done trying new brownie recipes.  I see no reason to be stingy with recipes that involve chocolate. 
Well during those brownie quest days, I was also on a "Homemade Mac 'n Cheese" quest.  Over the course of several weeks, I tried various recipes, some from well know chefs and cooks like Alton Brown (Food Network) and the Pioneer Woman (blogger).  Most of these recipes were good, but they weren't quite what I was looking for.  Then one day I was reading an article online about homemade mac 'n cheese and found mention of this recipe: John Thorne's Macaroni and Cheese, aka Cheesey Homemade Mac 'n Cheese.  So without further ado, here's my adapted recipe with photos.
Here's the cast of characters.  All basic items in my kitchen that I generally always have on hand.

Boil 1 pound of elbow macaroni or other similar sized pasta.  I used a bag from the mixed pasta combo sold at Costco.  While your water is boiling and the noodles are cooking, grate 1 pound of cheddar cheese.  I used a combination of sharp and mild--I suppose that evened things out to a nice medium.

Also while the pasta is cooking, beat two eggs.

And melt about 2 Tablespoons of butter in a small skillet.

Then add 1 cup of panko bread crumbs to the melted butter.  Saute for a few minues stirring frequently until bread crumbs are a nice golden brown.

Whe the pasta is done cooking, drain and toss with the butter.  To save myself from having another bowl to wash, I did the tossing right in the collander.

Then you mix the remaining ingredients into an oven safe bowl or dish.  I used my 5 quart removeable crockpot liner and this seemed to be a good size.  Pop the whole thing into a preheated 350* oven for 20 minutes, however, remove the bowl/dish/crockpot liner every five minutes to add more cheese, more evaporated milk (as necessary) and mix.

By the time the 20 minutes has passed you'll have a beautiful and cheesy dish with warm oozy cheese in every nook and cranny of each pasta piece.  The method of mixing the dish every 5 minutes is genius and really helps each piece of pasta to become completely cheesy.

Here's where I add the toasted breadcrumbs from before. 

And then of course, we feast!  But be forewarned, this mac 'n cheese is not for the faint of heart.  It's for those who really like their cheese and prefer their macaroni extra cheesy.

Cheesy Homemade Mac 'n Cheese

adapted from John Thorne

1 lb. elbow macaroni

4 Tblspns. butter--cut into bits

1 dash Tabasco sauce

1 can evaporated milk (12 oz)

1 lb. grated sharp cheddar cheese

2 eggs, beaten

1 tspn ground mustard

salt and pepper to taste

2 Tblspns butter, melted

1 cup panko bread crumbs

Prehead oven to 350*. Boil macaroni until just barely done in salted water.  Meanwhile, melt the 2 Tablespoons of butter and lightly toast the bread crumbs.  Set aside.  When macaroni is finished drain and toss with the butter pieces.  mis the tabasco into the ebaporated milk.  Reserving about 1/3 cup, stir the milk into the macaroni  in an oven safe bowl or dish.  Then add 3/4 of the cheese, the eggs, and mustard.  When well mixed, season with salt and pepper.

Bake in oven for 20 minutes total.  Every 5 minutes remove the bowl/dish and stir in some of the remaining cheese and any milk as needed.  After 20 minutes remove from the oven and top with the toasted bread crumbs.  Serve and enjoy.

Six Already?!

 A few weeks ago now, we celebrated the 6th birthday of our oldest child.  That seems so strange to say, but it's true.  We had a great time celebrating this fun and amazing child.  She really is a blessing to us.  So creative, caring, and funny.  Oh and a great big sister!  She often safes the day when the little babe gets upset when I'm in the middle of something.  You know how they inevitablly need you when your doing something like mixing up meatloaf with your hands or rushing off to use the restroom?  Big sisters are great for those times and she is no exception.
She's also a bit goofy!  And we love it.

 Her family party was the night of her birthday with my brother and sister in law, the birthday girl's favorite meal--bear spaghetti, it's true--and a delicious cake.  Shawn isn't a big cake fan and is even less of a frosting fan.  So this recipe with a light lemon sponge cake and a cool whip based frosting made him very happy.  He said it's one of his favorite cake recipes now. (And here's the recipe I used.)

 When the next weekend arrived, we had some of her friends over for a simple birthday party.  She even agreed to "no presents necessary" being printed on her invitations.  It was kind of nice and made the evening focus on just hanging out with friends.  She also chose to do something simple at home with a larger group of friens rather than a big activity (like swimming or ice skating) with a few friends.  So we decided on a movie night with pizza at our house.  It turned into a really nice (and easy) party to host.  We got some take n' bake pizzas from costco, made some cupcakes, popped some pop corn, and started a movie.  Simple, yet fun...win, win!

 The little man got to have a friend over for the evening too.  That was fun for him.

 These two have been friends since before they can remember anything differently.  It was fun to see them goofing around and still having fun together.

Butterfly cupcakes.  She's currently quite taken with butterflies and it was a fun excuse to try out an idea from the book Hello Cupcake.

Fun and cheerful cupcakes for a fun and cheerful girl.

 The movie watchers.  We're glad they could all come out to help make a special time for our special little miss.

Not So Wooden Steeds

In addition to the carousel horses our kids got to ride on while we were in Oregon, there were rides on a real horse.

Every time we visit my parents we always make time to visit our friends Mike and Christy and their family at their home.  (AKA, we invite ourselves over to play!)  Mike and Christy have so many animals: horses, donkeys, goats, chickens, a dog, and probably more.   Since they live on Stonebrook Dr. we affectionatly call their homestead "Stonebrook Farms".  It only seems fitting.

This time around both of our older kids rode on Christy's horse, M&M.  And yes, they LOVED it!
It was so fun to see the confidence of the little miss this time.  She remembered her last visit and horse ride with Christy so was pretty relaxed and confident this time.

Since he's three, I'm sure he'll remember this visit to Christy's.  It'll be fun when we go back the next time to hear him reminice about this day and anticipate the next visit.  I'm already looking forward to that.

Carousel Ride

I originally tried to publish this post several days ago, but wouldn't you know it just when I had some time to get another post together blogger was down and not working for over 24 hours.  So I feel like I already posted about this days ago, but actually it's just finally getting shared with the world.

When we were down in Oregon, one of the things my parents enjoyed doing was taking the kids on a carousel ride.  The one we rode on is a gigantic old fashioned wooden carousel in the Jantzen Beach Mall in Portland.  Of course the kids had a fantastic time, but an added bonus for me was the chance to practice a photography skill: panning.  I took several...*uhem*hundred...shots and got a couple that I was pleased with.  I definitely realized panning is a lot harder than it looks, but like they say "practice makes perfect".
These first two shots, the one above and the one below are before the carousel started.  The next ones show the movement in the background.

If the photo above was a little more in focus on our little man's face it would easily be my favorite.  So instead it's the next one, the one below.  A goofy face in focus is a pretty good replacement.

They only had to ask with a polite "please" and the smiles on their faces for grandpa to gladly give them a second time around.  So here's the second ride photos.  (I changed my position and I liked the results a bit better.)

The little man wanted to have the exact same horse as his first ride.  I guess the two of them really bonded or something. :)

I like this one...focused on my sister and her hair is just slightly flying in the wind.

The two youngest cousins enjoyed watching the whirling fun.  Well, I guess this one enjoyed watching the back of her eyelids!

Soon enough they'll get to be riders too.

Easter 2011

My recent blogging hiatus had an extra reason that I didn't mention before.  Shortly after returning from our trip "down south" we got a new computer--well new to us.  Shawn got a bare bones computer at a state surplus auction and worked to get all the programs on it that we needed.  And I must say, it works great and I'm so thankful for his skills to do something like that.  That's not an area I feel confident in at all.

Anyhoo!  New computer means new photo gallery program, not to mention that our camera is pretty new to us as well.  So it took me a while to make time for it, but I finally just made myself sit down and download all 1200-some odd pictures from my memory card that I've taken over the past 6 or 7 weeks.  I'm still figuring out the "ins and outs" of this new program, but so far I like it and am glad I can navigate it so well already.  I mean hey, last night I was downloading and tonight I'm blogging.  Not too shabby.

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So 'tonight I'm blogging'....about Easter.  Last year, I went all out and made the little miss's dress and a coordinating neck tie for the little man. This year, I just knew I'd be pushing it to get that much done, so I compromised and just made matching ties for our boys.  I used a pattern from the Make It and Love It site.  I'm really pleased with how they turned out and hope to make more of them. 

Necktie = teether for the little babe.

Not making a dress this year for the little miss seemed logical enough since my mom recently passed down some dresses that she'd been saving.  My little girl now has a whole bunch of dresses her grandma made for me and my sister when we were that size.  So she picked out this one to wear for Easter.  That hat and gloves actually came from her kindergarten teacher.  When I picked up the little miss from school on the Friday before Easter I was a little surprised to see 12 girls walking around with pink Easter hats and white gloves.  Yep, she gave them to all the girls in her class.  Apparently the boys got two card games of some kind.  Let me just say that this teacher is officially my kind of lady.  I really like that she thinks hats and glove are a basic necessity of reasonable Easter celebration.  Not only does her act of kindness encourage her student's families to at least consider the connection between Easter and going to church, but it also gives these girls a special dress up feeling.  Just another reason to be thoroughly pleased with the little miss's teacher this year.

 Crocuses in our front flower bed.

As with many of the holidays we are in Alaska for, we did much of celebrating with our church family.  After a church potluck, we met at a member's home for an Easter egg hunt.  It just worked out that the little miss was the oldest hunter this year.  Wow!  You mean I had the oldest kid there?!  That doesn't seem right...but it is true.  Being the oldest kid has it's perks I guess since she did find the golden egg.  Folded up inside was a cold hard $5! 

And to end the afternoon...a group picture attempt.  Well, at least we tried. 

Hope you had a blessed Easter too.