Monday Mac & Cheese

After Sunday's dinner and Friday's pizza night (we seem to have perfected the margherita and the widowmaker, more on that later, but our Greek and my old (and odd) standby shrimp and green pepper were just plain bad - more practice is obviously needed) we had some odd leftovers: tomato catchumbar, pizza sauce and the ends of some old cheeses.

So we made macaroni and cheese. It was phenomenal - here's the recipe:

Cook 2 lbs. of macaroni in boiling, salted water.

While water is boiling and pasta is cooking, chop and then fry a tomato or two, some cilantro, parsley or other fresh herb, a green pepper and an onion in the juice of one lemon and a tablespoon of butter. Use a heavy pan that will fit the pasta too - one that can go in the over and has a lid. Add a cup and a half of tomato sauce (ours was thick - paste just barely thinned for pizza - with salt, pepper and lots of fresh oregano) and slowly add between 1/2 and 1 cup of milk, stirring carefully to prevent lumps.

When the sauce is evenly mixed with the milk, add 2-3 cups of cheese and mix thoroughly. We used fontiago (which I assume is fontina + asiago - we'd never seen or tasted it before, but it is nice and sharp) along with an extra aged white Canadian cheddar.

When the cheese is melted, stir in the pasta until it is nicely coated with tasty sauce. Cover the pan and put in the oven for about half an hour at 350F.

This would probably serve 8 for dinner with a nice simple green salad (there were only two of us, so now we have plenty of leftovers!).