What’s Cooking?

Another shot from last weekend, as Claire and I prepared Chuck’s macaroni and cheese. According to Williams Sonoma, “Freshly made bread crumbs are the key to achieving a crisp, golden crust.”

After trying this recipe, I’d say freshly made bread crumbs are the key to making macaroni and cheese with crumbs on it. If that doesn’t sound good to you… well… it wasn’t good.

We’ve discussed what worked and what didn’t. We decided the following would have made a difference:

1. The recipe didn’t call to mix the sauce and the noodles… just spoon the sauce over the noodles in the pan. This left dry areas, and the noodles ended up crunchy and hard in places. Next time we’ll mix the noodles into the cheese sauce, then transfer the well coated macaroni to the dish.
2. Bread crumbs are out. We like our macaroni and cheese to have a crispy cheesy crust on top.
3. More cheese in the sauce. This recipe called for one cup of shredded cheese. I doubled that. It wasn’t enough.
4. Sharper cheddar. I was too cheap when I bought the cheese.

We’re also considering mincing a bit of onion to go in the cheese sauce. I think it might add to the bite ever so slightly.

Regardless of how it goes, you’ll read about it here.