Mr. Mom Essentials II: Homemade macaroni and cheese

A Facebook friend (Hi Lisa!) asked for a homemade macaroni and cheese recipe yesterday, so I posted this on her wall. It started out as the recipe from Better Homes & Gardens, but has evolved over the years.

My youngest daughter loves it, but started having issues with lactose intolerance a while back, so we don't have it as often as we used to. But with the first snowfall of the season still on the ground, it's comfort food time! (I made a meat loaf in the iron skillet last night, so this recipe comes up for tonight.)

Sorry the quantities are a little vague, but if you're comfortable enough to try it, you're good enough to figure them out.

First make your noodles--I use whole wheat elbow macaroni and I make enough for 4-6 servings. That's usually around half a box of dry, maybe a little more.

While those are cooking, I melt about half a stick of butter in my big wok-shaped pan and sauté maybe a cup of chopped onions. When those start to get clear at the edges, I sprinkle them with 2-3 Tbsp. of flour, then dump in about 12 oz of milk, stir it up good, add maybe a tsp. of salt and ½ tsp. pepper and a 1 tsp. of dry mustard, turn down the heat and let it cook until it starts to thicken.

When it gets there, I stir in at least two cups of shredded cheese--your choice of what kind--a couple of chopped Roma tomatoes and some cubed ham. (Sometimes I buy a couple of quarter-inch thick slices of ham in the deli, and cube them myself; other times I get the prepackaged cubed ham at Walmart.)

Drain the cooked noodles and stir those into the sauce. Get a big casserole dish, spray it with (butter) cooking spray, then coat the inside of the dish with finely ground bread crumbs--whole wheat again, if you have them. Cracker crumbs work well, too. Someone mentioned Ritz crackers--those are great for this.

Dump the noodles and sauce into the dish, cover the top with a couple more thinly sliced Roma tomatoes, sprinkle with more breadcrumbs and some additional cheese, then into a 350 oven for half an hour.

I usually serve this with a green vegetable--stir-fried green beans with almonds are the fave, but peas or broccoli are good as well--and some Pillsbury biscuits or Sister Schubert rolls, hot out of the oven.

You can sub frozen chopped onions and canned diced tomatoes (drain 'em good!) in the sauce, and skip the sliced tomatoes on top, if you're in a hurry. (I do that a LOT.)

Here's how mine looks. And yes, it knew I was taking its picture and it put on a sprig of parsley.