BB: Grown Up Mac and Cheese

Welcome to another addition of Barefoot Bloggers! This week our selection was Grown Up Mac and Cheese chosen by...me! It was my turn to pick one of Ina's delicious recipes and I decided to go with her very interesting looking Grown Up Mac and Cheese. I loooove mac and cheese and thought this was a great recipe to make it a little more... mature. It has 3 different kinds of cheese, gruyere, cheddar, and blue cheese. Tasty no?

Well, I thought it was going to be tasty. All I could taste was blue cheese. Now I like blue cheese just fine...I just didn't want to taste only that. Gruyere and cheddar are two of my favorite cheeses. I also had trouble with the sauce. It never thickened up properly.

When I re-heated this, I added more gruyere too it and that toned down the blue cheese somewhat. If I was to make this again, I would definitely hold back some on the blue cheese or perhaps leave it off all together and substituting some other cheese. Despite my not so enthusiastic response to it, I think its a great idea to make mac and cheese more adult. Sometimes we get to used to the blue box and need something different.

Sorry for the short post. I had an accident this past Sunday. The vacuum decided to take me down. I know it sounds weird. I was attempting to do some cleaning and on my way back to the bedroom from the bathroom, my pinkie toe hit the vacuum and down I went. I thought I just bruised it and perhaps a slight sprain. Nope...the bruise kept getting bigger and deeper so off to the minor emergency clinic I went. Turns out its fractured. Now I've got to wear one of those boot things until I can get an appointment with a specialist to 'confirm' that its fractured and not broken. Its going to be fun walking up and down 3 flights of stairs with that thing on everyday.

Oh...and Charlie is back in the pics! Those cookies pics are hard to get him in!

For more Barefoot Blogging goodness, check out the blogroll here.

Grown Up Mac and Cheese
from Ina Garten courtesy of Food Network.com

4 ounces thick-sliced bacon
Vegetable oil
Kosher salt
2 cups elbow macaroni or cavatappi
1 1/2 cups milk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
4 ounces Gruyere cheese, grated
3 ounces extra-sharp Cheddar, grated
2 ounces blue cheese, such as Roquefort, crumbled
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Pinch nutmeg
2 slices white sandwich bread, crusts removed
2 tablespoons freshly chopped basil leaves

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Place a baking rack on a sheet pan and arrange the bacon in 1 layer on the baking rack. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until the bacon is crisp. Remove the pan carefully from the oven - there will be hot grease in the pan! Transfer the bacon to a plate lined with paper towels and crumble when it is cool enough to handle.

Drizzle oil into a large pot of boiling salted water. Add the macaroni and cook according to the directions on the package, 6 to 8 minutes. Drain well.

Meanwhile, heat the milk in a small saucepan, but don't boil it. Melt the butter in a medium pot and add the flour. Cook over low heat for 2 minutes, stirring with a whisk. While whisking, add the hot milk and cook for a minute or 2 more, until thickened and smooth. Off the heat, add the Gruyere, Cheddar, blue cheese, 1 teaspoon salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Add the cooked macaroni and crumbled bacon and stir well. Pour into 2 individual size gratin dishes.

Place the bread slices in a food processor fitted with a steel blade and pulse until you have coarse crumbs. Add the basil and pulse to combine. Sprinkle the bread crumb mixture over the top of the pasta. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until the sauce is bubbly and the macaroni is browned on the top.