Drained macaroni

With all of Jim’s health problems, it’s no wonder I’ve been craving all kinds of comfort foods. Sarah’s been wanting me to fix some macaroni & cheese for awhile now so I’ve decided to get to it. I have several macaroni & cheese recipes I use depending on the cheeses I have onhand & which one I feel will suit my tastes better at the time. Some of them are very simple & easy with only 1 cheese involved; some are more complicated & use several cheeses. Today, I don’t want to have to pick up more cheese & just want a simple basic macaroni & cheese. As usual, I have cheddar cheese onhand.

Layered macaroni, cheese, & cracker crumbs just needing milk poured over them.

That’s why I went with the simplest & most basic one I have. Once again, I’m using one of my great-grandmother’s, Mama Bobo. Cook 2 cups of macaroni in boiling, salted water until it’s tender. Drain the macaroni. Grease a 2-quart casserole dish. Place 1/4 of the macaroni in the casserole dish  & pepper it to taste. Taking 2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese & 2 cups of crushed cracker crumbs, layer a 1/4 of the cheese over the macaroni & cover with 1/4 of the cracker crumbs. Continue this until all ingredients have been used. Then pour 2 1/2 cups of milk over the layers in the casserole dish. Place in a 350 oven, uncovered & bake for 50 minutes. Try to refrain from eating it until it has cooled enough you won’t burn your tongue!

Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers with parmesan cheese

Tonight I did something different. I usually use the whole wheat Ritz crackers for the cracker crumbs. We have some Pepperidge Farm goldfish crackers that are made with parmesan cheese. Nobody in the family has liked them that much. Not wanting to waste them, I decided to use them for making the macaroni & cheese. You wouldn’t think such a small detail would matter, but frankly, we liked it even better than usual. I have some more of those crackers left so will try it again & see if they do work better or if it was just we were so hungary.

Oops. Somebody has already been in the mac & cheese!

Broccoli Rice Casserole before it goes in the freezer.

Today I’m going to take my leftovers from last night’s supper & make broccoli rice casserole. I pull out approximately 2 cups of the citrus rice & add it to a 8 X 8 corningware dish. Pull out around 1/2 cup of the broccoli & return that to the refrigerator for my salad later. The rest of the broccoli I add to the corningware. We keep a ziploc bag of shredded cheddar cheese in the refrigerator at all times & I get it out. Add cheese until it looks like enough & mix thoroughly. Throw the casserole dish in a gallon size ziploc bag & into the freezer. When the mood strikes, I’ll pull it out of the freezer & bake it in the oven at 350 for 20 to 30 minutes. The time difference will depend on whether or not I thaw the broccoli rice casserole before cooking it. It’ll come in very handy some time & took less than 10 minutes because I used planned leftovers.