Hope you all had a good Christmas day today. I decided to do this post when my cousin told me that she used my recipe for mac & cheese and it was a grand hit–her son loves it! Now, we all had an abundance of food. My family takes that shit as a challenge. We had enough food to feed an army. Some of us ate twice–including myself. I crashed so hard on the carbs, I came home and had to take a nap. And I’ll be back at mom’s tomorrow for leftovers. And I’ll probably have to take another nap after that.
A short word about macaroni & cheese: I have seen macaroni salad at the grocery store deli that made me wanna barf. I’ve seen recipes for mac & cheese that had fifteen ingredients, I swear, and all I could think was “for something so simple, why is it so complicated?” This recipe has macaroni, milk, cream, cheese, salt, pepper (optional), butter, and that’s it. There is nothing complicated about this recipe. It’s a simple dish that calls for simple ingredients, and I have no idea why in the hell people just want to complicate it by adding a bunch of useless stuff in it: relish, onions, olives, paprika (what the actual foxtrot), etc. Just don’t. For the love of Mike. Don’t.
Cook 2 pounds of elbow macaroni according to directions on the package (usually boil it in salted water for 9-11 minutes.) You can also use rigatoni or ziti if you want to have something different.
Add 2 cups of evaporated milk and 2 cups of heavy whipping cream to a pot on medium-low heat. Chunk up a 2 pound loaf of Velveeta and add to the pot, slowly melting it. Add 1/4 pound (1 stick) of butter to the Velveeta/milk and slowly melt it. Add 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon pepper (optional.)
Spray a disposable aluminum turkey roasting pan with cooking spray. Dump cooked macaroni in it and mix in the Velveeta/milk concoction. Top with about 3 or 4 cups of shredded sharp cheddar cheese. Bake at 350 degrees, uncovered, about an hour. This will make the cheddar cheese form a nice slightly crispy crust on the top. Enjoy. See? That was easy. Unless you make it difficult. Just don’t. It’s not worth seeing disappointed faces when you think you’re being all cute and epicurean and shit by added olives or pimentos. Nobody thinks that shit is cute. Save that crap for a charcuterie platter if you wanna appear uptown. Mac & cheese is not an uptown dish. Trust me–this dish is the tits if you make it just the way I told you.