Good Ol' Macaroni and Cheese

Most times growing up (once we were old enough to be left alone), whenever my parents went out together at dinner time, my mom would leave a couple boxes macaroni and cheese on the kitchen counter for an easy meal that I or one of my siblings (she usually called on one of us before she left) could fix for the rest of the bunch. I took my share of turns at this task.

Macaroni and cheese should be foolproof, right? And for the most part it was; but my siblings will probably remember as well as I, there were a couple times I got it wrong-- really wrong.

Once, I forgot to drain the water before adding the cheese powder. I'll leave the rest of that story up to your imagination.

Another most memorable time was when I decided to add salt to the pot, per the box's suggestion ("1 tsp. salt optional"). Only I somehow read "1 Tbsp." instead. So, since I was fixing a double recipe, I added 2 Tablespoons salt and happily stirred away.

At the table, I dished out my siblings' plates first (as a good big sister should) and one of my brothers took the first bite and immediately complained that it was too salty. "Oh come on," I said (perhaps not verbatim, this was a long long time ago). "I just added a little salt, it's not that bad." Eventually, I settled in to eat myself and took a bite. "Okay," I confessed. "You're right. Guess I'll have to heat up some cans of chilli for dinner instead."

As I've grown into adulthood, first going to college and then settling into married life and raising my children, macaroni and cheese is still my go-to quick and easy meal at the end of a stressful, busy day. I know, it's really not that good for me, or for my family. But I figure, as I generally feed my family healthy foods, I can afford to "splurge" once in a while. Someday, too, I'll try my hand at mac-n-cheese from scratch; but the boxed stuff is so much cheaper and we keep buying it in bulk at caselot sales, so I feel obliged to keep making it the easy way.

But I don't just fix the same-old recipe over and over again. I like to experiment when I cook, and the macaroni and cheese dinner has not escaped my efforts to continually "shake it up" and make it new and more interesting again (though I have never again tried adding salt after that first failed experiment).

I've added hot dogs (learned that one from my mother). I've added tuna. I've added mushrooms. Peas. Carrots. Ground beef. Just this afternoon, I threw in a can of diced tomatoes. I've made it without milk. I've made it without butter. I've baked it in a casserole dish with bread crumbs and parmesan cheese sprinkled on top.

And it's probably one of the first things my kids will learn to cook on their own, for those times when Nick and I leave them for the evening to fend for themselves.