Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Macaroni and Cheese, Irish-Style

I.
Love.
Dubliner.

That is the background. Then recently I came across this recipe on the blog, Food for My Family. Dubliner cheese in the recipe? OMG.


I kept putting off making the recipe because I wanted to get the Dubliner at Costco where you can buy a giant brick of it for less than $10. Alas, I never got around to begging my dad to meet me there so I could take advantage of his membership so I gave up and bought a tiny brick for $5 at Target. Oh well.

Anyway, on to the recipe. Because I can't just make things exactly as prescribed, here is my version, which differs only slightly from the original .

16 oz package of brown rice pasta*
2-3 Tb butter
1 Tb flour
1.5 cups milk (I used soy milk)
6 ounces cream cheese
1 tsp dijon mustard
black pepper
salt
1 cup-ish cheddar cheese (I just used generic sharp cheddar. Eh)
1/2 cup Dubliner cheese
1 cup chickpeas
spinach, torn into small pieces
asparagus, cut into bite-sized pieces
 1 piece of whole wheat bread

Cook your pasta and set aside.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Melt the butter in a medium sized saucepan. (in the end it would need to hold about 2.5 cups or so of liquid) Add in the flour and whisk until the flour begins to brown (just a few minutes). Add in the milk and then the cream cheese and whisk until it melts into the liquid. Add the mustard and black pepper and salt to taste. Cook for another 5 minutes or so until the liquid is thick and creamy.

Add in the cheddar and Dubliner cheeses a handful at a time. I cut mine into 1-inch cubes and mixed them in until melted and then added the next bunch, repeat. Once all the cheese has melted transfer the noodles and cheese sauce into a greased baking dish. Add any proteins or vegetables at this point.

Use a food processor to break down the bread into crumbs. Lightly sprinkle the crumbs evenly over the surface of the noodles.

Cook in the oven for 15-20 minutes and then bring it up to the top shelf of the oven and put it under the broiler for 5 minutes or until the bread crumbs have browned.



*I only bought this because I couldn't find whole wheat pasta in tube form. The closest I could find was whole wheat penne but I knew from past experiences that stuff is like chewing on cardboard and was just way too big to use for macaroni and cheese. The brown rice pasta instructions said to cook it for 16 minutes (waaaah???) which I probably did but it ended up quite mushy. Next time I will try harder to find whole wheat tubes or elbow macaroni shape...

Cheesy goodness with crunchy bread crumbs...

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