Homemade, Bechamel-base Macaroni and Cheese

My wife was going through the fridge, she's 37 weeks pregnant and fully in "nesting" mode, and came upon cheese from last month. It wasn't bad, except for the cheddar was dried a bit, but she wanted me to use it up since we had 32oz of brand new cheese.

This was a wonderful opportunity for me to make some homemade mac and cheese. I thought I would share the recipe with you all. This is a pretty versatile recipe, I use whatever cheese I have on hand (except I've never used an extremely soft cheese in it). I did not take a picture, but homemade mac and cheese pretty much always looks the same, so you can Google it.

Ingredients

• Pasta, 16 oz. You can use waht you have, we had elbows, but I've used bowties, shells, and even rotini.
• Cheese, 2 1/2 cups shredded. Whatever you have on hand. I used cheddar, mozzarella, and then a 1/2 cup of parm I held in reserve until the end
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup bread crumbs. You can use panko, I had the remainder of bread I made two weeks ago that was really dry but still good so I crumbled that.

Optional spices, all to taste

• Garlic powder
• Cayenne pepper
• Red pepper flakes
• Black pepper
• Onion powder
• Salt

Directions

1. Boil water and preheat oven, temp doesn't matter too much, you just don't want it cold.
2. Melt butter in large frying pan. Add flour and mix. It will go through a few different consistencies.
3. Add 1/2 cup of milk. Mix this. It will start to get VERY thick. At this point you are going to want to add any spices you choose. Then add the remaining 1 cup of milk and mix until it has thinned out and is an even consistency.
4. Add the cheese to the pan and mix. It will slowly melt in and will get thicker. You want to continually mix this until the sauce starts to form large bubbles. It will be this weird almost liquid consistency that wants to stick together.
5. Quickly strain the pasta and add it to the sauce pan. Mix it well until the pasta is covered in the sauce. Take off the heat. While it is still hot pour into a 9x13 baking pan.
6. Mix the 1/2 cup of reserved cheese and the bread crumbs. Then sprinkle over the pasta.
7. Turn on broiler and put under broiler for about 3 to 5 minutes. You can go longer. it all depends on your taste and your broiler. I have a gas broiler and it cooks very quickly. Electric broilers may differ.

bon appetit