Thursday, December 2, 2010

updated mac and cheese

I have been craving warm foods for every meal lately. Something about this wintry weather we've been having (with highs in the 60's--cold for here--and frosty windsheilds in the morning. Loving it!). A couple weeks ago, Faith asked for this old favorite--Updated Mac and Cheese (from this cookbook). I used to make this recipe pretty frequently, then it just fell by the wayside. I was really glad she remembered and requested it--it's warm, nutritious, and comforting. The fun thing about this recipe is that it has a layer of spinach in the middle. Super healthy, which makes me happy. It also uses whole wheat pasta (on this night I tried it with brown rice pasta, which was also yum). Here's the thing about Faith--even though I consider her a picky eater, she likes things like spinach in her mac and cheese. Go figure!
Alas, the little boys would not touch this, so next time I'll just make a smaller pan with no spinach along with the larger, spinach-ful version. Do try this for a warming, winter meal. This would make a great winter lunch as well.

Some notes: there are lots of steps to this recipe! I made this weeknight-possible by doing a lot of the prep work Sunday night: grating the cheese, combining the breadcrumbs with oil in a little container, and even measuring out some of the other ingredients in little containers. It made a huge difference. On Monday night I just sailed through the recipe. Also, the recipe calls for 8 ounces of pasta, but I used the whole bag with good results.

3 comments:

Karen said...

Looks delicous!!! And there are five spinach eaters here!

I'm sorry, but I had to laugh about your "wintry weather" - our current temperature is -10°C (= 14 Fahrenheit) and we have heaps of snow! What a difference between California and Thuringia... You can find some wintry pictures in my blog (and a google translator gadget - though I'm afraid Googles Translation is even worse than my English ;-)

Greetings from a very early and very cold morning in Germany!

Joy said...

That looks delicious! We're fortunate to have kids that will eat spinach in most things so I'll have to give this a try. I've also had good luck with using jarred marinara from either Whole Foods or Trader Joes and adding sauteed veggies that I've run through the blender. I do alot of dinner prep work on my lunch breaks. We working moms have to always be thinking ahead! ;) Thanks for the recipe, Mary Beth!

Andrea said...

Mmm...looks yummy. We haven't had mac and cheese in a while...I think it's time!