I’ve been dying to eat a good Mac ‘n Cheese for months now. I needed to find recipe for a healthy alternative. Funny thing is I was sort of “offered” 2 options last week. Once, while watching “Eat, Shrink and be Merry” and the second flipping through the pages of one of my favorite cookbooks, trying to find inspiration for this week’s menu.

I decided to try the latter. Well, actually, my daughter did. And she followed the recipe pretty much to the tee, omitting only the ¼ cup of butter that the recipe called for. That omission alone couldn’t have been responsible for the major deception we were about to get. Indeed, there are many many flaws with that recipe. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t GOOD. And mac ‘n cheese being the comfort food that it is, it NEEDS to be major GOOD, even if it’s healthy.

Just looking at the picture, one can easily tell that there is way too much bread crumbs. It almost looks like a plate of bread crumbs. The second biggest flaw is not enough sauce. It turned out awfully dry. The taste wasn’t bad, but it could still use some help.

So next time, I will have to double the amount of milk, add some parmesan cheese, smoked paprika, cut the bread crumbs by half and maybe add some nuts. Broccoli would be nice, red peppers or mushrooms, but since my daughter doesn’t care for the last two, broccoli it will have to be.

One very strange thing that almost caused me to choke on a bite I was in the process of swallowing… my son, who was making his own supper because he despises “brown” pasta, had a taste of the macaroni and said “Actually, that macaroni is really good. If I hadn’t started making something else, I would’ve totally had some.”

All the more reason to work on my own version of a healthy Mac ‘n Cheese!

Need I tell you I’m not even going to bother writing that recipe down? Just watch this space for a more decent one in a very near future!