Fresh or frozen peas are an unexpected hit, might be hard to find right now, though.
If you have access to the History Channel series “The Food That Built America” check out season 2 episode 4 “American Cheese.” It’s fascinating to see the birth of Kraft (and yes cheese was their flagship product)
The whole series is a blast to be honest.
My wife doesn’t like the Kraft stuff but I do, so I have a big box of Easy Mac packets. If I’m having lunch by myself and need a quick side, a couple of packets are great for a fast single serving.
My secret hack for it is to drop a slice of American cheese on it right after mixing in the powder. It melts in perfectly and makes it more like the “Deluxe” big box that comes with the cheese sauce and not the powder.
When do we eat? I’m bringing Birch Beer if I can find it.
All hail the Hypno-Toad!
If we’re talking about Mac N Cheese in a generic sense, not from a Kraft box, choosing a good quality cheese can make it a gourmet item. I like Greek Mizithra cheese myself. Sprinkle on some red pepper flakes, chopped parsley, and fresh-ground pepper and you’ve got a grownup dish.
Good to know!
Not long ago, I posted about getting good results by making a béchamel (white) sauce first with butter and/or olive oil, flour and goat milk and then adding aged goat cheese. Really good if you like that goaty taste, although it takes some time and effort to get the sauce right. Pulykamell’s recipe looks interesting and will probably be my next experiment, once the heat subsides.
I was so fuzzy-headed this morning that I forgot to mention the reason I asked about additional ingredients. Some or most of you may know there’s a mac-and-cheese recipe that calls for lobster. Lobster!!! I haven’t tried it making it or eating it yet, but I was amused to no end when I first saw it. I still think it sounds extraorindary. Anyone try it?
Haven’t tried the lobster version (I find the texture of melted cheese very off-putting, so I don’t eat much mac’n’cheese of any sort) but I’ve seen quite a bit of it going through the check-out where I work. Strikes me as not much different that the “add a can of tuna” upthread except, of course, for the status of lobster as a food. Prices for lobster are one the few that have gone down in recent years rather than up, and the stuff used in mac’n’cheese is probably less expensive than fresh-and-live so adding it to mac’n’cheese for a luxury-seeming comfort food is, apparently, working out for the makers of the stuff.
A lot of people are still buying the basic Kraft brand. It’s cheap and it’s easy. For some people that’s just as important, or more important, than taste.
I strongly, strongly recommend the Netflix historical documentary series High on the Hog. Broadly speaking, it’s about how the food traditions of Africa got disseminated through world cuisine by the slave trade, with a particular focus on the Americas.
One of the episodes has an extended discussion of slave cooks in the American White House, including a demonstration of what was the conventional recipe for macaroni and cheese in the time of Thomas Jefferson.
It’s a great series, and this is a great episode of it.
While I can’t stand the Kraft stuff, I make a baked Mac & Cheese using a killer Ina Garten recipe. One time I added leftover langostino (not true lobster). It tasted fine, but didn’t add enough to the dish to justify the cost.
I add extra bacon, and make sure to get good quality cheese.
Macaroni and cheese is an important component of the gourmet meal with ground beef that Mrs. J. sometimes serves for dinner along with sliced peppers and onions, a.k.a. “bowl o’ meat”. Lobster mac & cheese is good too. I draw the line at mac & cheese ice cream.
It’ll taste better if you think of it as “macaroni au gratin”.
Mmmmm Birch Beer.
The key to making palatable M&C out of a box is to not drain it of the starchy cooking water (at least not entirely). Add evaporated milk and a gob of butter instead and stir to make a creamy sauce. Add some ground garlic, paprika, and black pepper, and you’re set to go.
This works even with generic M&C, of which I ate a lot when I was in college.
sort of 1390s, dish called loseyns is layers of pasta and cheese, could be mac n cheese or lasagne. http://resurrectedrecipes.com/2010/01/07/loseyns-medieval-cheese-and-pasta/
The link says no one is quite sure what “Cheese ruayn” was. I’m guessing “ruayn” is “Rouen,” the city in Normandy. Famous cheeses from Normandy include Camembert, Neufchâtel, Pont-L’Evêque, and Livarot.
I suppose Brie would work well too.
Joey and the robot were only on for half a season, so I wouldn’t say it became a “thing.”
My mom didn’t do much of the meal in a box things except when they left us alone for the evening with tv dinners.
My gramma made mac & cheese wholly from scratch, as I do. Mine is typically:
Whole wheat small pasta shells or rotelle
sauteed onions and steamed chopped greens (kale does well) or broccoli
roux with a lot of aged cheddar in it
top with a mixture of grated romano or asiago and buttered crumbs, bake.
The resemblance to Kraft mac & cheese is limited to the name.
As an American living in Switzerland, I can tell you that Kraft mac-and-cheese was one of the first shortages during the beginning of the pandemic. It is definitely a nostalgia meal, and I often have a box of Annie’s in the cupboard as an option for a quick light meal. One alternative quick light meal is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Cheddar is not easy to find in Switzerland, as it is an English cheese. If I ask my husband if I should make mac and cheese, he expects that I’ll make gorgonzola and parmesan cream (crema di gorgonzola e parmagiano), normally with penne or fusilli. That particular recipe is baked for finished.
For stovetop I’ll use a mix of cheddar, Edam (or Gouda) and parmesan.
When I was in college I had my first baked mac and cheese with chunks of fresh tomatoes. Yum! I don’t think my parents ever made anything other than Kraft, or store brand, until after I moved out. It was a simple meal which goes in the same category as grilled cheese and tomato soup.
I got out the cookbook to get the correct name of the gorgonzola dish. Guess which meal hubby wants to add to the queue?
I have to say that this thread inspired me to do a pulled pork BBQ and Mac n Cheese dinner last night.
Of course, I didn’t get anything from a box or bottle. Made my own cheese sauce out of a bechamel and parmesan cheese (with just a bit of cheddar.) Made my own BBQ sauce when I cooked up the pork. I guess I did get the penne out of a box, wasn’t quite motivated enough to make my own pasta.
For the bechamel, I started by roasting minced garlic with black pepper. Once it had browned a bit, I added the butter and flour for the roux. Couple cups of warm milk, about half a cup of fresh shredded parmesan cheese, along with about an ounce of cheddar. I pulled out my handy immersion blender to make it nice and smooth.
Added the cooked penne directly to the pan and mixed it in.
Seriously though, as someone who hasn’t mastered the art of a successful roux (and by extension bechamel or gravy) I am envious. I guess for cheesy goodness I’ll have to stick to chupa queso, fried cheese stuffed with cheese. It’s trickier than it looks as the window where the shell is integrated enough to hang together yet not too brittle to withstand the folding is narrow.