I’ve had macaroni and cheese on my mind for a while now. My experience of the dish is evenly divided between my mother’s homemade mac – baked and swimming in orangey cheese – and the ubiquitous blue box stuff from Kraft. For reasons I can’t quite tease out, I’ve been reluctant to attempt the dish as an adult. Perhaps a therapist could help explain this reluctance. Having no such culinary-minded shrink on staff, I’ve been left to simply forge ahead on my own.
Circumstances can help one break through self-imposed barriers. M recently expressed a desire for an alfredo pasta meal, and I live to serve. A brief search of the Innertubes brought me to a 2003 recipe at FineCooking.com: baked pasta with cream & parmigiano reggiano (registration). That description is chock-full of win, eh?
I used penne pasta instead of the ziti called for by the recipe (my grocer has never heard of ziti, alas), and I prepared the entire batch in a single baking dish rather than in separate serving-sized containers. These steps would be labeled deviations! by my occasional food post partner, the M5, but the dish turned out awfully well all the same. Extremely tasty and surprisingly light given all that cream. Our only regret was that I hadn’t made more. I recommend this recipe to all. Don’t be afraid to add more cheese to your serving. Also extra white pepper, perhaps dispensed from an alien-looking device such as this:
I don’t often use white pepper, but it demanded some blog exposure, so there it is.
Sounds yummy! Lent is coming up, and I’ll need more meatless meals.
That’s just how we approached it – as a nice meatless dish. It was really good, and wonderfully easy.
That not only sounds good but sounds easy enough that I might give it a try.
I’m not as dedicated to cooking as you are.
I was surprised at the simplicity of it. Tell me what you think after you give it a try!
This looks really good! Macaroni and cheese of any sort is always a hit around here! I’ll have to give it a try.
I bought some white pepper the other day for a recipe (of course now I forget which one–old age!) Any-hoo; is there much difference?
I find white pepper more subtle, less obviously ‘peppery.’ I think black pepper would have been okay for this dish, but perhaps the cooks who created the recipe wanted white pepper for aesthetics.