Hidden Veggie Mac and Cheese

Last night the hubs and I had our smoothie again.  It was even better than the night before!  However, there was no way my boys were going to let me get away with a smoothie for dinner, so we had to do something for them.  

They were both eager to hang out and help, and I was thrilled to get to spend time with them.  Ordinarily they would have preferred to be up watching TV or video games, enjoying the last few days of summer freedom, before school starts and weekday electronics come to a screeching halt.  I didn’t have the heart to ask if they had done something to get kicked off the electronics, I just enjoyed it!

Pasta is always a safe bet when it comes to my two, I try to reserve the boxes and jars for when we are pressed for time.  As I was trying to stretch out the time my boys were spending with me, I opted for a slightly more time consuming option.  There are a couple points where little changes could have saved time and I will make sure to point them out.

We decided on elbow pasta, as the boys wanted to make mac and cheese.  Solly is pretty particular when it comes to his food, and this is the only shape pasta I can get him to each homemade mac and cheese.  Jonah doesn’t care, as long as it is at least half-way edible, so it all worked out.  You could also use whole wheat or gluten-free pasta options.  I happened to have run of the mill elbows on hand, so that’s what I used.  I also had some leftover tomatoes and asparagus from Sunday’s salad, so we decided to throw them in as well.  For the veggies we tried to make them a similar size to the pasta.  I love the color and freshness they added.

While the pasta cooked, I had the boys help me with shredding cheese, removing the seeds from the tomatoes and making the béchamel sauce for our cheese sauce.  To save time here, you could easily buy the shredded cheese and it works perfect.  My boys love helping out, wand grating cheese is one of those tasks that I can let them do without too much supervision.  I do have to share a Solly quote though, “Mom, I’m going so fast that cheese is flying!”.  Not quite the result I was looking for, but he had a blast! 

For the béchamel sauce, this is one of my all-time favorite base sauces.  It is so easy to make and can be used for almost anything!  I also made this sauce in my leftovers reinvented casserole.   The ingredients are butter, flour and milk.  It’s that simple.  Traditionally you make it on the stove and have to stir pretty constantly so it doesn’t burn.  I’ve learned that making in the microwave is so much easier and lower maintenance.  It is very rare that I suggest using a microwave, but this is one that I am hooked on.  I combine the butter and flour, equal parts, and microwave, stirring every 30 seconds.  After it has had time to get very bubbly, the flour will be cooked enough.  Now it’s time to add the milk.  Stir in your milk until there are no lumps.  Now back in the microwave.  Last night it took two one minute turns, stirring between, for the sauce to be perfect.  If your sauce is too thick, add a little milk and stir until there are no lumps.  Again, to make this gluten-free all you have to do is replace the butter and flour with cornstarch.  Just make sure to add the cornstarch to cold milk.  If you add it to hot liquid you will get a clumpy mess.

We added the grated cheese to the sauce.  For this I left the sauce in the container I used to microwave it, and didn’t need any additional heat to melt the cheese.  I find that when I melt the cheese in the sauce over a burner my cheese burns really quickly or my sauce separates.  So far, this approach to my cheese sauce has never failed me.  After adding the cheese, I check for salt and pepper.  If you salt before the cheese, there is a risk that your dish will end up too salty.  I also added a little cumin to the cheese sauce.  I’ve also used ground nutmeg and ground mustard in the past.

I combined the cheese sauce, hot drained pasta and asparagus together.  I added the asparagus first to have them heat through.  I added the tomatoes just before I served it.  We love crunch veggies, so I didn’t want to give them time to cook and change texture.  This was a HUGE hit last night.  After I made it Jonah had polished off a bowl and was on seconds before I had finished making Ric and my shakes for dinner.  Dinner success!