Baked Macaroni & Cheese

Baked Macaroni & Cheese topped with shredded cheese and homemade toasted breadcrumbs

Pretty much every OC student does their grocery shopping at Walmart. It's not ideal for gourmet meals, but I have been trying my best. At Walmart, the cheapest brand is called "great value" some products still taste pretty great, others however, are disgusting. One unfortunate great value purchase I made was their 30 cent macaroni and cheese. I made it a few weeks ago and the cheese mix had the consistency of paste. I didn't want to waste the perfectly good noodles, so I saved them for this recipe idea.

The other day, I was watching Rachel Ray and learned how to make my own bread crumbs. for the past few weeks I have been saving the heels of various types of bread and freezing them, then when I was ready to use them I toasted them in the oven at 350 degrees F for 5-8 minutes and then let them cool a bit. Then I put them in a food processor to turn them into bread crumbs. (They are an important aspect of this recipe) I found this recipe on Foodnetwork.com. I did not use the onions or paprika, and I also used regular dijon mustard for the sauce and felt like it worked well.

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound elbow macaroni
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1 tablespoon powdered mustard
• 3 cups milk
• 1/2 cup yellow onion, finely diced
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1 large egg
• 12 ounces sharp cheddar, shredded
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• Fresh black pepper

Topping:

• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup panko bread crumbs

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large pot of boiling, salted water cook the pasta to al dente.

While the pasta is cooking, in a separate pot, melt the butter. Whisk in the flour and mustard and keep it moving for about five minutes. Make sure it's free of lumps. Stir in the milk, onion, bay leaf, and paprika. Simmer for ten minutes and remove the bay leaf.

Temper in the egg. Stir in 3/4 of the cheese. Season with salt and pepper. Fold the macaroni into the mix and pour into a 2-quart casserole dish. Top with remaining cheese.

Melt the butter in a saute pan and toss the bread crumbs to coat. Top the macaroni with the bread crumbs. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and rest for five minutes before serving.