Mushroom mac and cheese

The Boy has had a craving for mac and cheese for ages and ages and he has been asking for it. I finally caved a few nights ago and made it for him.

The thing that I did not like about the mac and cheese recipes that I was finding was that I had to make a roux. I do not like the idea of making a roux and it seems rather intimidating to me - very easy to get it wrong.

Anyhow, I went searching in the interwebs and found a recipe for the cheese sauce for the mac and cheese that could be done in the Thermomix. Hooray! No making roux for me. However, if you don't have a Thermomix, here's a recipe that would work. It's actually very similar to the recipe that I used for my cheese sauce, except this one requires you to make a roux.

This likely won't apply to anyone who does not have a Thermomix, but here's what I did:

RECIPE for the cheese sauce:

Ingredients:

• 60g butter
• 50g plain flour
• 750g milk
• 120g cheddar cheese
• 80g Parmesan cheese

Instructions:

• Put Parmesan in thermomix and grate on speed 8 for 10 seconds. Set aside
• Place cheddar cheese in bowl and grate for 10 seconds on speed 8. Set aside
• Make sauce by placing butter, flour and milk into thermomix bowl and cooking at 90 degrees for 12 minutes on speed 4

Of course, even with the Thermomix I did not follow the recipe exactly. I made the roux exactly as the recipe stated and also the sauce, but then with with the cheeses, I also had a little bit of leftover Pecorino cheese in the fridge, so I grated that up as well. It made for a very cheesy sauce.

I also had some butter mushrooms leftover from breakfast a few mornings ago, so I ditched the sauce from that and added the mushrooms into the mix.

For the pasta, I boiled water and added some salt. After that, I added 250g of elbow pasts and boiled that for exactly 8 minutes for an al dente pasta. I drained the pasta and put it back into the pot I cooked it in.

Once the pasta was back in the pot and still hot (ha ha ... that rhymes! the silliest things amuse me!) I added the sauce and mixed in the cheese progressively.

After that, I added salt and pepper to taste. I used quite a bit of pepper to balance out the cheesiness of the sauce.

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