Like Kraft Dinner, only edible!

When I started this little experiment over a year ago, I did it with two major purposes in mind: first, to actually teach myself to be a slightly less useless person in everyday life. Second, to win the heart of a beautiful girl who still needed just a little bit of a shove to cave in to my irresistible charm. While I'm still working on the first part, the second was deemed a brilliant strategic victory for me and we were engaged a few months later. I figured the ol' blog had served its purpose, and updates petered out as the summer of 2011 moved on.

Then a few weeks ago, Jenn mentioned that she missed being wooed by my unique, wonderfully charismatic musings on the delights of the culinary world, always accompanied by unmatched wit and style. Maybe not in those words, exactly, but that's the gist of it. And she's right: just because a goal is accomplished, doesn't mean the game is over. So, here I am, back in the game, ready to entertain you, embarrass myself, and maybe even make some food worth eating!

Today's menu: homemade macaroni and cheese, using a recipe famous within Jenn's family. This was very intimidating for me, because I'm trying to reproduce something that she has completely mastered. But I'd been having mad cravings for it for weeks, so I decided to kill two birds with one stone and make it myself, then write about it.

Boiling water is something that even I can do, so putting elbow macaroni in water and watching it boil is almost as easy. While that's going on, I cut up about of cup worth of cheese(various types of cheddar, but I would've added some mozza too, if it had been handy. Give it a shot!) and waited. And waited. At some point, a revelation hit me: I have no idea how long it takes this macaroni to become tender enough. If this were the old Adam, I would've ended up with crunchy, half cooked pasta because the recipe was under the grievous assumption that the cook has prior knowledge/common sense about the subject and didn't list an exact amount of time. But this is the new, humble Adam, and I shouted across the house at Jenn to come look and give me some hints. Eventually I figured it out, drained the(fully cooked) macaroni and put it in a casserole dish with the cubes of cheese and mixed them together, and covered it while I started on the cream sauce.

During this sequence of events, I found out that milk can burn. Yes...milk can burn. What the hell? I'm sure that goes against several laws of physics, but whatever. When I managed to get some milk to the point where it was hot but not hot enough to violate nature, I added a mixture of water and flour and stirred vigorously to both keep it chemically stable and make it nice and creamy. When that was accomplished, I poured it over the macaroni, threw it into our completely out of whack oven, and let it bake for half an hour.

Man, oh man, was this ever a good idea! It was damn near as good as Jenn's own mac and cheese, and let me tell you, folks, that's a HUGE victory for me. So, if you doubt your abilities as a cook, take heart! Even an ogre like me can be taught! Until next time, readers!

P.S. I'll post a picture later if I get the chance!

P.P.S. I have nothing against Kraft Dinner! In fact, I even eat the little microwavable cups of the stuff...what that says about me, well, I'll let you decide..