This will change your life FOREVER!

Starting with your figure ;)

This is the most phenominal homemade Macaroni & Cheese to walk the face of this earth. I'm telling you, you will not be sorry for making this. (Well, as long as you have pants with elastic waists for ever after). It took me quite a few tries to get this recipe just right. And I'm pretty proud of it. So without further adieux...

FIRST, start a large pan of water for your noodles!! Make sure you do this first because it takes about the same time to get the water boiling as it does to make the sauce. *wink* As soon as the water is boiling add 1 box of penne pasta noodles. (I use the blue Barilla kind) and boil for the time indicated on the box.

SECOND: In a medium Sauce Pan combine:

~4 c. Milk
~4 TBSP Corn Starch
***Wire whisk until smooth.
~Add 8 TBSP Butter or Margarine (I use butter...obviously ;)
~1 tsp salt
~1 tsp pepper
~A few shakes of nutmeg (This is TOP SECRET!!)
~Hot sauce to taste (I give it about 3 good shakes)
~Lawry’s Garlic Salt and Seasoning salt to taste (I like mine pretty salty because the penne noodles are bigger and it makes up for all their starchy-blandness)
(I really just add all the seasonings how we like them. You can add different things or more or less of others if you don't like something on the list)

Stirring constantly, bring sauce to boiling over medium heat. Boil for one minute or desired thickness is reached. This sauce will thicken up the longer it's boiled.

NEXT, shred about 1/2 pound of smoky sharp cheddar cheese and about 1 1/2 to 2 pounds regular cheddar. (Make sure you cut off the brown waxy stuff on the outside of the smoky cheese first though, I learned this the hard way LOL)

**Hint: If you cannot find or don't have access to smoky cheese, you can use regular cheddar and a couple, and when I say a couple, I mean literally ONLY TWO drops of liquid smoke! Do NOT overdo it or your mac & cheese will taste like hot dogs *BARF*

~Add Smokey cheese to the sauce and melt.

OK, next, take your cooked noodles and put about a ¼ of them in the bottom of a 13X9 dish. Ladle your sauce over the top (generously) and stir around. Sprinkle your grated cheese all over the top of that. (Take your ladle and kinda mush the cheese down into the noodles.) And repeat those steps until you have used all your noodles and however much of your cheese you’d like. I usually have about ½ pound of cheese left over and I just put that in a baggie for quesedeas later or something.

ALMOST DONE! Now…Cover with aluminum foil (or glass lid if your dish has one) and put in the oven at 425. Bake until it’s niiiiiiice and boiling/bubbling HOT. (About ½ hour to 45 minutes) Take the foil/lid off and brown the top (as much or as little as you’d like) Make sure to let this sit out of the oven for a good 10 to 15 minutes before eating. That way it won’t burn the stinkin crap out of your mouth…yet another lesson I learned the hard way. ;)

Oh and if you have any sauce left over, it’s AWESOME on steamed veggies. I usually make extra sauce and store what’s left over for a smaller mac and cheese of veggies sometime later. YUMM!

Ingredient list:

1 box Penne Pasta Noodles
4c Milk
4 TBSP Corn Starch
8 TBSP Butter or Margarine
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Pepper
3 or 4 shakes of Nutmeg
Few squirts of Hot Sauce
Garlic Salt- to taste
Seasoning Salt- to taste
½lb Smoky Sharp Cheddar Cheese
2 lbs Sharp Cheddar