Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Happy Birthday Baked Mac 'n' Cheese & Meatloaf

Today is my son's 12th's birthday so we celebrated with all of his favorites. On the menu was a new recipe for baked macaroni and cheese and family favorite recipes for meatloaf and sauteed green beans.

Both of the kids helped with cooking dinner and dessert. It's fun to get them involved to see how they are growing up and what they are able to do to help. Andy did a lot of chopping and stirring today. Alexis helped out a lot by being the "gofer".

I found a new recipe for baked macaroni and cheese today. This dish turned out creamy and cheesey and really good. I followed the recipe as per the directions with the only changes being that I cooked 2 lbs of small shell pasta and multiplied the rest of the ingredients by 3 to make sure that I had plenty of leftovers. This made enough for a full 9 x13 dish + a full 9 x9 dish.


Baked Macaroni & Cheese

Ingredients:
1/2 lb. elbow macaroni
3 tbsp butter
3 tbsp flour
1 tbsp powdered mustard
3 cups milk
1/2 cup yellow onion, finely diced
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 large egg
12 ounces sharp cheddar, shredded
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Fresh black pepper
Topping:
3 tablespoons butter
1 cup panko bread crumbs

Cooking Procedure:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a large pot of boiling, salted water cook the pasta to al dente.
3. While the pasta is cooking, in a separate pot, melt the butter. Whisk in the flour and mustard and keep it moving for about five minutes. Make sure it’s free of lumps. Stir in the milk, onion and paprika. Simmer for ten minutes.
4. Temper in the egg. Stir in 3/4 of the cheese. Season with salt and pepper. Fold the macaroni into the mix and pour into a 2-quart casserole dish. Top with remaining cheese.
5. Melt the butter in a saute pan and toss the bread crumbs to coat. Top the macaroni with the bread crumbs. Bake for 30 minutes.
6. Remove from oven and rest for five minutes before serving.

You can see the original recipe here.


Such a great dinner!

The recipe for this fabulous meatloaf is here on my blog.

The sauteed green beans are super easy:

1 bag of frozen thin string beans
2 tsp minced garlic
2 tsp onion powder
drizzle of olive oil

Saute all in a frying pan over medium heat until heated through.

There's leftover meatloaf for sandwiches and plenty of mac n cheese for another meal.

Be on the lookout for birthday cake in the next posting!

4 comments:

karen said...

When I first read the title my brain skipped over the "&" so I thought:

Mac 'n' Cheese Meatloaf???

I gotta have that!!!

You see, two of my favorite things are mac n cheese and meatloaf. Yours look great but now I'm going to HAVE to see about doing them all in one :)

Tami said...

If you try a combo like that, please let me know! It sounds strange but that's something that my family would probably love. (Yes, we are strange. ROFL!!!)

Thanks for stopping by!

karen said...

Done!

Here you go!

We're strange here, too :)

BugnLVoe said...

Yum! Sounds like a great birthday dinner. Whats more comforting on your birthday than comfort food? :-)

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...