RECIPE! Spicy Mac

I DECLARED YESTERDAY after seeing a recipe for Spicy Mac at the Not Eating Out In NY blog that this mac would be made. Truth be told, it was! The kicker was that I had most all of the ingredients I needed already in my very own apartment, save only for cheddar cheese which is not exactly a specialty item. Ten minutes and $5 later, I was ready to go.

I'll assume since the recipe was posted online its author doesn't much mind us sharing it here, but to be faithful I'll just give you a link to the Spicy Mac to-do list and let you click your way over there yourself. It's not a daunting set of instructions, but the creation of a bechamel sauce base for the future spicy, cheesy sauce is not something I frequently do. Strike that, it's not something I've ever done.

Looks good so far, right?

Reading up on bechamel sauce after the fact, I'm fairly certainly that I screwed it up. I think I would do well to keep the heat lower next time and make sure the flour and butter don't scald during the first step, but this quick method did, nonetheless, manage to make a delicious and spicy sauce for the for the mac n' cheese--the paprika in particular was a nice touch.

I did not give in and add the chorizo as instructed and opted instead for my own vegetarian substitution--thick chunks of plum tomatoes, which I added at the last minute before popping the tray into the oven. I also sprinkled in a handful of fresh-grated Parmesan cheese at this point and topped the whole thing with a few slices of sourdough bread crumbled in the food processor to add a bit of crunch when baking. Long, spiraling whole wheat pasta certainly added a heartier flavor.

Just 350-degrees and 20 minutes away!

I doubt that anyone should be annoyed with so many alterations to the recipe. After all, mac n' cheese is a rather personal food, so I would expect anyone else to do the same. The spicy sauce, however, does make the dish something more than "everyday" and would be a great party dish since it serves so many.

I'll be attempting this one again in the future. My ultimate goal is to, first, come up with a version that does not use cow milk and substitutes cheddar for something like sheep's-milk Manchego or a goat cheese (avoiding certain allergies), eventually inventing my way to a vegan version that doesn't taste suspiciously fake. Now, I'm not vegan and, yes, the very idea of creating a decent vegan mac n' cheese does seem like chasing a formula for alchemy, but I do like a challenge. Stay tuned!

Today in Blogs: An Ode to Mac n' Cheese

UPON HEARING ABOUT this little venture, both Elissa and Jenny mentioned to me the existence of a blog of similar food nature--Not Eating Out In NY. I checked it out, was quite impressed, and decided that it would be the topic of a future post. Until I happened to glance at it this morning to find Cathy from Not Eating Out, in her infinite wisdom, had posted a recipe for spicy macaroni and cheese, whereupon it was decided that Not Eating Out would be the topic of today's post.

The only "mac n' cheese" in my apartment at present

I used feel about french toast the same way I presently feel about macaroni and cheese: I love it. I love the idea of it. I want to have, like, ten thousand of its babies. I don't know what happened to french toast in my mind, but I suspect that the sheer overabundance of it took some of the thrill out of my search. Unlike french toast, with is fairly ubiquitous at any diner or brunch spot in the city, macaroni and cheese is not the type of menu item that gets a lot of attention. I suspect it's just too annoying to make in a commercial kitchen, too hard to perfect, and perhaps just not cost effective enough to make it worth the while, but I balk at all these explanations. Honestly, I think people have just grown out of it.

In addition (and Not Eating Out makes a grand point of this in totaling the price of her creation at $6.57), no one wants to spend $10-plus on mac n' cheese. It's macaroni. And cheese. As any hungover college student knows, Easy Mac costs approximately $0.10 per gallon. If we go gourmet and, let's say, you put noodles and cheese in a pan and stick it in the oven, that same hungover college student will declare it a four-star meal and you still haven't spent more than $7. Yet, if you find mac n' cheese on any menu in this city, I defy you to pay less than $11 to have it brought to you.

Like french toast, you run a risk in searching for mac n' cheese that, when you find it, it might be as awe-inspiringly amazing as you had hoped, or as bland and clearly just-thawed-out as you feared. Which is why making your own seems the best solution--if you want it done right, do it yourself. I will admit I have not made mac n' cheese in a very, very long time, but this recipe stirs something inside me, something more than my secret vegetarian desire for chorizo. This mac... it will be made.