Making Mac & Cheese

Horny Hardardt's Automat, of blessed memory, was my destination on most visits to Manhattan.  Insert the right number of coins and the window would pop open exposing some treat to relocate to my tray.  They had a unique macaroni & cheese, made with ziti rather than elbow, a creamier sauce than the stuff served at the school cafeteria.  It came in an oval green porcelain ramekin baked individually.  I sampled other H & H goodies over the years.  Chocolate milk gave way to some very good coffee.  There was a cake that I liked.  But the mac & cheese imprinted the indelible memory of good eats.

The Automat long closed.  The fondness for the food endured, with recipes now available on the internet.  My minor variations, as it is dumb to buy cream for just a few tablespoonfuls, though more realistic when made in restaurant quantities, has become one of my often repeated kitchen efforts whenever kosher certified cheddar goes on sale, as a home quantity uses about 12 ounces of the stuff.  It was once an effort, now tedious but not that hard, especially with a food processor's grating disc to prepare the cheese.  I also have to buy two quarts of milk, far more than my wife or I use for anything else.  All else, we usually have around the house.

I've learned to set out ingredients.  Any tubular pasta will do.  Ziti and penne or variants work the best.  Elbow just seems phony for this.  Boil, drain, leave in strainer.  Shred cheese and leave in a separate bowl.  Measure milk and flour.  Cut the desired amount of frozen butter.  The tomatoes which make it characteristic come in a can, with or without chilies.  Open the can.  Add desired amount of salt, sugar and pepper to the can.  Now all set.

Melt butter.  Add flour to make a roux.  Whisk for about five minutes.  Now the hard part.  Add the measured milk and whisk.  It will take about ten minutes to become thick.  Preheat oven.  Cooking spray to a lasagna pan.  Then just keep whisking.  Try not to add cheese prematurely.  When clearly thicker than it was, add the shredded cheese to the white sauce, keep whisking until it smooth, add the tomatoes and seasonings from the can while whisking some more, then add the cooked pasta.  Pour into the prepared lasagna pan.  Into the oven for 45 minutes.  Sometimes additional browning to make it look more like the Automat is desired.  Broil for a minute or two.   Out of oven.  Wait about five minutes for sauce to become less runny.  

Now have four meals.  One for day of preparation, one for next day, then portion into two more servings for storage in freezer until needed for meals the following week.