Monday, September 28, 2009

Mac N Cheese Take Three

As you may recall, I'm on a personal mission to discover the best Mac n' Cheese recipes out there. So far my results have been so-so, see here and here for details. Last week I tried a new Mac n’ Cheese recipe from a Pampered Chef Recipe Book my mom recently got me. I’m really excited to try more recipes out of this book as 29 minutes cooking and prep time is right up my alley and the first recipe was easy to follow. Plus some of the recipes just sound delicious! Yum!

That said, I wasn’t exactly impressed with my first recipe choice from the book: Butternut Squash Macaroni. It’s really good in theory, especially for people like me who have a tough time digesting dairy. The squash gives the dish a cheesy color and is keeps a creamy texture so you don’t have to use as much cheese. The problem is, squash doesn’t have quite the flavor that cheese does so it isn’t a stellar substitute. It didn't help that I had to use a four-cheese mix when the recipe called for a six-cheese mix… for the life of me I couldn’t find the “Italian six cheese mix” the recipe mentioned and maybe if I had, it would have tasted better. The flavor was just lacking a little. So I plan to try this one again because it was really simple and definitely has potential. It just needs more cheese for the mac! Oh, and I used whole wheat pasta to make it even healthier, I imagine with the lack of cheese, I should have kept with regular pasta to balance it out. The good news is I found a new favorite pasta brand that I can use next time (I'll share it with you then)>

Look how intense Matt was when giving it the first taste test. His response? “It’s okay.” And that’s exactly what it was, OKAY. Not great and not bad, just somewhere in between. I’m confident it will be better next time.

If you want the recipe, let me know and I will happily share!

2 comments:

Cara Hoag said...

I checked at the store today and totally saw the Italian cheese mix - with all SIX cheeses. And it looked a lot different than the 4 cheese mix I used. I can't wait to try this recipe again with the correct cheeses. Stay tuned!

Megs said...

Keep us posted- the correct cheese really makes all the difference! I can't wait until you guys finally come up with a recipe that is AMAZING, then I am stealing it from you. You guys are putting in all the hard work and dedication to find the right recipe, and I play on reaping the rewards once you find it.