At Home: Baked Macaroni & Cheese

It's a new year and with the encouragement of my dear bestie (love you, Lucinda!), I am going to start a new series here on What Micky Eats...called At Home - featuring homemade eats by yours truly as well as my awesome husband, Keith.

After over indulging for the holidays, I thought to myself "What's one more day of decadence?"  I still had another day off from work, so I promised Keith I would make dinner.  For Christmas, I received a lovely Bubble & Brown Casserole stoneware dish, in my favorite color purple, and felt this was a perfect time to break it in.  And I knew just what to make - baked macaroni and cheese.

I don't remember where I originally found this recipe, but I have modified it over the years and find it to be fairly simple.  Feel free to adjust to your likes, as it is quite forgiving:

Micky's Baked Macaroni & Cheese

• ½ lb. pasta
• 3 Tbsp. butter
• 3 Tbsp. flour
• 1 Tbsp. powdered mustard
• ½ Teasp. paprika
• 3 cups milk
• 12 oz. sharp cheddar (or any cheese) shredded
• 1 Teasp. salt & black pepper

- Preheat oven to 350 and Boil pasta to al dente.
- In a separate pan, melt butter.  Whisk in flour, mustard powder, paprika, milk. Simmer.
- Stir in ¾ of the cheese. Season with salt & pepper.
- Fold the drained pasta in the mix.  Pour into casserole dish.
- Top with remaining cheese.
- Bake for 30 minutes.

Here is the finished product!  Since my "casseround" is pretty deep, I actually doubled the recipe above.  I used elbow pasta with a combination of Jarlsburg, Fontina, and a Garlic Cheddar cheese.  I was worried if all the cheesy sauce would incorporate enough with the macaroni, but it worked out fine and Keith loved it!  We paired it with some barbeque chicken and steamed broccoli (that Keith made when he got home from work).  We had plenty of leftovers and luckily this type of dish stores well.  So not too shabby for the first installment of What Micky Eats...At Home.