Ditching the Blue Box: Homeschooled Mac and Cheese

Finally a chance to try my all time favourite meal, macaroni and cheese! If I had to live on one meal my entire life, it would be mac and cheese with tuna. Some might cringe at the addition, as I did when I first heard the suggestion, but give it a shot and you'll never be able to go back to plain M+C. For the sake of experiment, we've actually made this batch straight up, and I found the most basic (and apparently surefire) recipe from A Year of Crockpotting which has proven to be an invaluable source of inspiration. I would suggest some slight alterations, but it is a pretty solid recipe and worth the try for a healthy tose of cheesy comfort goodness.

INGREDIENTS



500g uncooked elbow macaroni (uncooked, SWEET!)
4 cups of milk (other recipes call for evaporated milk, but I just used 1%)
2 eggs
4 cups of shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp dry mustard

VARIATIONS

And there are many! Again I strongly encourage the addition of a can or two of tuna (maybe two for this quantity). It would probably be added in just before the noodles are ready to be taken out, as the fish just needs to be heated through. Lots of other possibilities as well. We almost went with sausage, but we had a vegetarian around so opted out. Spicey sausages would be great. Concerning veggies, I think onions or brocolli would go really well. Onions could go in at the start, but brocolli probably later on to avoid getting too soggy. Minced garlic would be super tasty. Some crumbled saltines and a layer of parmesan would add some girth and make this a bit more of a casserole. Our own personal touch was a teaspoon of cayenne better to give it a bit of bite. Seasoning is really important in this recipe, and I would possibly have added more pepper to the mix. Run with it!

DIRECTIONS

Super simple, nice.

Grease your slow cooker well. I didn't do this and the mess is minimal, but I can imagine it could get pretty bad.
Beat together eggs and milk and mix in spices.
Combine pasta and cheese in slow cooker and mix well.
Pour liquid mix onto pasta, ours was almost completely covered.
Cooking times are a bit unspecific. My source says 2-4 hours on low, or 1-3 hours on high. Apparently it gets al dente after an hour and a half on high. We used the low setting since we were out of the house for a bit, and it was welldone after 3. After another hour on warm it was pretty mushy. This is a recipe worth keeping your eye on, especially if you like it al dente!

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