savory saturday: macaroni&cheese (&squash&beer bread)

Last weekend it started snowing. A lot. And suddenly I wanted nothing more than to burrow into the couch with a blanket and a fully belly. So I whipped up my very favorite childhood comfort food (yes, I did need to call my mother for guidance): what we used to call "real" macaroni and cheese!

Ingredients:

1/4 c butter

1/4 c flour

milk

sharp cheddar cheese

Directions:

In the beginning, there was (1/4 c) butter, melted at the bottom of a large pot.

Then, there was (1/4 c) flour (or perhaps a little more if you like your sauce thick, like me), mixed into the butter to make a roux.

Then, there was skim milk, added slowly but surely to the roux (and I was stirring all the while).

And then there was cheese. Sharp, cheesy cheddar.

And lots of it. I put in as much as I damn well pleased (~1 lb).

I cooked up a big pot of elbow macaroni, drained it, and mixed everything together. Yum! As long as you attend to the roux, this is pretty easy and very delicious. For a side dish, I baked butternut squash and a hearty beer bread:

Ingredients:

3 cups flour (sifted)

1/4 c sugar

3 t baking powder

1 t salt

1 12-oz bottle of beer

Directions:

First there were dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.

Then, the fun part--beer!

I picked Guinness because I thought it would give the batter a nice creamy consistency.

I watched the batter toil and trouble (and bubble), then stirred it all together and poured into a non-stick bread pan and baked it at 375 for ~1 hour (the time is an approximation because K turned off the oven while the bread was baking, assuming I had been my absent-minded self and forgotten to shut it down after baking my squash):

I think it turned out rather well! The flavor of the beer is very faint, but I'm very curious to try pumpkin beer bread and perhaps other interesting flavors! I spread apple butter on top--it was delicious!

I also finished another puzzle last weekend. Man, am I good or what?

:)