Baking it off tomorrow morning for a big ol' graduation party. The casserole is topped with buttery croissant crumbs. Use light cream or half-and-half for a richer sauce. It LOOKS good, anyway, in the enormous pan. A small amount of Dijon mustard is added to the cheese sauce for this delicious creamy macaroni and cheese. And I think I did rescue it, rather than having to waste 4 pounds of cheese (and an extra trip to Costco)!. And the resulting sauce was still a little bit grainy - but the cheese did melt back into the liquid. But, rather than throw it all out and start over, I poured off most of the liquid into another large pan, added the roux to THAT, thickened it over LOW heat, and then added the clumpy cheese solids back into the hot thick milk sauce (aka bechamel) about one tablespoon at a time, whisking until melted each time, over LOW heat. I used The Google and found out a slew of Food Science reasons why this works better.)ДЈ) have the cheese at room temperature (or at any rate not right out of the fridge).ДЇirst time through (before learning and incorporating these tips), my cheese 'seized' (made the awful gluey clumps that other people screamed about). (This milk/roux mixture will make a bechamel sauce, to which you can THEN add cheese. Hello! Here are some helpful hints, learned from hard experience, to make the 'Cheese Seize' danger less imminent, and the recipe a bit more foolproof:ДЎ) add the roux to the hot milk and stir to thicken that a bit BEFORE adding the cheese. Easy recipe that you canГўВЂВ™t mess up and serves a lot. The prepackaged stuff has starch on it and it wonГўВЂВ™t melt like it should for the cheese sauce. Another excellent tip is, donГўВЂВ™t use shredded cheese that is ready for purchase.

Like I said I hate to cook and usually not good at it and this turned out awesome. I poured the cheese sauce over the pasta in the stock pot and mixed it all together and then put some in the crock pot to keep warm and the two 1/2 chaffing pans. Because I was getting short on time, I never baked any of it. It turned out AMAZING!! My neighbors all raved about it. I didnГўВЂВ™t have white pepper so I used everyday regular pepper. I used 2 lbs of Sharp Cheddar 1.5 lbs of Monterey Jack and 1.5 lbs Colby Jack.

I read all the reviews and took up someoneГўВЂВ™s suggestion about using an extra pound of cheese. It makes a ton of mac and cheese that will be more than enough for days. However, I love homemade macaroni and cheese and I wanted to make some for our neighborhood block party. Let me first put this out here, I hate cooking and do not enjoy it by any means.

Baked mac and cheese for 30