Macaroni & Cheese

Or, there's the lesson of Rotel Cheese Dip: you could use half Velveeta for stability and half a sharper cheese for flavor.

Are you making a milky sauce with your cheeses? Try reducing that liquid to make room for tomato liquid. The roux approach or just more fat would tend to stabilize your sauce too.

What order are you doing things in? See if you can get the cheese to cling to the macaroni the way you want it to first, then add the tomatoes; or else see if you can create a stable cheese sauce that incorporates tomatoes first, then dress your noodles with it. Or do a layering approach so if the tomatoes and the cheese are gonna fight they don't have to sit next to each other.

Here are 256 recipes for mac + cheese + tomatoes. There doesn't seem to be any one trick I can extrapolate from them on a quick browse though.

"Mac 'n' Mad Cheddar" (4 servings)

1/2 pint grape tomatoes, halved (substitute 2-3 regular tomatoes)
1/2 large onion, thick sliced
2 tbsps olive oil
2 cups elbow macaroni
4 tbsps butter (= 1/2 stick)
2 tbsps flour
1 1/2 cups milk (skim works fine)
4 oz cheddar, grated (more if you want it cheesier)
1/3 cup crumbled gorgonzola (sub feta if you want)
1/3 cup chopped fresh basil
1/4 cup bread crumbs, mixed with black pepper and thyme

Heat oven to 450. Roast the tomatoes + onions for 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, grease an 8x8 caserole dish (or equivalent) with a little bit of the butter. Reduce heat to 350 after tomatoes and onions are done. Cook macaroni and drain. Melt butter over medium-low, add flour until deep golden brown. Stir in milk, bring to boil over medium-high, stir constantly until thickens (about 5 minutes). Remove from heat, add grated cheddar. Add gorgonzola, basil, tomatoes and onions, stir a little. Put in greased caserole dish and sprinkle bread crumb mixture over it. Cook in over for 30 minutes. Enjoy.

1) I think the oil is intended for greasing the casserole dish. I just use butter instead.

2) VERY IMPORTANT: After you add the milk to the butter-flour mixture, also add a dash of tabasco, black pepper to taste and 1tsp of cayenne pepper. I guess this is the "mad" part.

Like I said, it tastes good but it just looks...funky, until I bake it (I bake it with extra cheese thrown in so maybe that helps gel it together, god only knows).

These are all good suggestions tho and that recipe sounds good!

You can never really have enough oven mitts and kitchen towels.

To get this back on the macaroni track - Ally, what italian cheeses go in your mac & cheese?

Anyhoo. What I do is: I make a basic bechamel sauce, can be thin or thick depending on yr preference. Chuck in some tasty or parmesan cheese as you like and melt thru.

Meantime, rather than just add tomatoes I actually cook a tomato sauce like I would for pasta. Fry off onion and garlic, add canned tomatoes and paste, cook for abt 10 minutes to reduce. If you liked you could toss in some veg such as carrot, peas, or broccoli too.

Then gently stir the bechamel into the tomato sauce and stir it til its all well mixed, toss that into yr cooked pasta, add some more cheese, top it with a thick layer of cheese and breadcrumbs, and bake til thats crusty (maybe 15 mins or so).

You could add chopped boiled egg too. Its delish: its a bit like an italian pasta al forno I suppose, tho I dont think that usually has bechamel stirred into it.

this is just disgusting. it lays waste to a perfectly simple combination of foods. our forefathers were onto something. the tomato is a practically worthless fruit good for nothing more than pizza sauce, & half the time thats not so great either. this thread makes me sick.

Well, I feel sorry for you, a little bit. But mostly I'm thinking "excellent! more for me!"

I've got an Early girl and a Large Yellow plant in containers out front, as well as 2 tomatillo plants which are already setting fruit. Had 6 sweet basil plants, one of which mysteriously withered away (and a second seems to be doing the same now - I may have overwatered), 2 of opal basil which are doing okay, and 1 Thai holy basil which is happy as can be.

Jaq, I've had problems growing sweet basil too - I can't find any rhyme or reason as to why one dies while the others flourish happily.

Growing that and some Sun Gold tomatoes on my windowsill at the moment. Come July my living room is going to smell like tomato salad (i.e. the best summer smell ever). Jaq, I'm so jealous yours are fruiting already!

i made a huge pan of mac and cheese last weekend, using "sharp" cheddar and gruyere. great, but i would have liked it to be a bit more tangy.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1440/578204837_9578346822_m.jpg

has anybody noticed that "deej" "deeznuts" and "dean ge" all seem to have the same bad attitude about everything?

uh huh.

hejira, only my tomatillos have fruits at this point. I've never tried to grow them here (Seattle), but am hoping for the best. The yard gets more afternoon sun than I thought it would - the ficus tree I moved outside has gotten sunburnt!

Lauren, please YSI some of your mac'n'cheese. :-)

Jaq - poor ficus tree; I guess calamine lotion doesn't work like it does on people? I am jealous of any fruit at all! My Sun Gold are about two feet high on the cane, and although looking fab they're nowhere near fruiting. I'm collecting some rain from today's TORRENTIAL downpouring (UK law states that it must rain heavily on the first day of Wimbledon) so I'll use that on them to make them feel like they're outside (this is the ridiculous way my mind works).

Back to mac 'n' cheese - can't say I'm a huge fan. It looks kinda like a half-finished lasagne to me and my subconscious goes "hey! where's the meat?"

A friend of mine won the Northwest Regional division of the Tillamook Mac&Cheese contest this year! She's going to the finals on Dec 7 (at the Lucia (?) hotel in Portland, where they live anyway). GO V.!!!!

Secondly, I want one of these "edge" pans (http://www.eugeneweekly.com/2007/07/26/chow/features7.html), both for mac&cheese and brownies.

That pan is super-awesome.

i posted on ile about wanting that pan for my birthday. it looks awesome.

Mac & Cheese in the oven *right now*. It's Nigel Slater's recipe from Kitchen Diaries, with Fontina, Pecorino, breadcrumbs, dijon mustard and grain mustard. Will report back, but the spoon-licking bodes well for the finished item. I don't half wish I had one of those pans.

Hmmm. The topping was marvellous - a 50/50 mix of pecorino and breadcrumbs - but the stuff underneath was only OK. Not nearly cheesy enough for my liking. Sorry Nige.

Did it need more cheese d'ya think, or just different cheese? I came home last night w/ a big mac&cheese craving to a fridge full of cheese, but no pasta to be found. The loaf of bread I baked on Sunday will make terrific crumbs in a few more days though, so I'm planning a big pan of golden cheesy buttery goodness for the weekend.

i have a hunk of elderly cheddar in the fridge, but i don't think it's enough for m&c. sad face. it might be enought for cauliflower cheese, though...

The Fontina was pretty pokey, but I don't think 75g was enough (for 175g of pasta). If I did it again I'd use twice as much. Also, you couldn't tell there was mustard in it, really, apart from grainy speckling.

fuck it imna make some for lunch

i made it

http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/246/macncheesegu7.jpg

uh maybe better? http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/246/macncheesegu7.jpg

i made the cauliflower cheese last night. it was wicked.

My cheese sauce broke and was grainy last time. Tasted fine but looked & felt odd. I haven't really investigated why yet, maybe I used too much hard cheese? Maybe too much heat, maybe lots of things. The cookbook wasn't very scientific about the recipe, I'm afraid.

https://i.imgur.com/fWCzbjr.jpg
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1812-the-best-macaroni-and-cheese
So much better than my old bechamel-based recipe. Repeated stirring & adding milk & cheese is key.
Forgot the bread crumbs, obvs.