Not all of my meals are successes. I screw up more than I care to admit. But today I felt like trying a new recipe. When Derrick and I were deciding what to eat for dinner, macaroni and cheese came up. We have three boxes of Kraft Mac&Cheese (it was on sale for 57 cents a box at Walmart) and one box of Velveeta shells & cheese.

But I looked in the pantry at the sad box of Cellentani sitting by itself. As you loyal readers know, I was supposed to make pasta salad yesterday before my discovery of the toxic redrum mold. That box of tiny little corkscrew-shaped enriched macaroni product was just staring up at me, and I knew that it needed to be cooked. This noodle is perfect in terms of both appearance and texture. It’s perfectly little engineered shape will hold anything, from olive oil to spaghetti sauce to cheese. Cellentani was worth the risk of adding a new fancy dish, and it matched the already “yellow plate” of grilled chicken and squash! In case you don’t know what I’m talking about at all, here’s a linky: http://www.barillaus.com/Home/Pages/Cellentani.aspx

The grilled chicken, seasoned with Tony Chacheres, was delicious. Derrick hit a home run. This was also my first time cooking squash. I sautéed it in a little pan with butter, then salted and peppered it once it was on the plate. I definitely overdid it on the butter. I’m going to post the Mac & Cheese recipe that I used/adjusted a lot/sort of invented with the help of Commonsense cookbook. I’m also going to post what I think needed to be improved. I’ll appreciate any comments/suggestions as well!

Macaroni & Cheese ala RayRay

Serves: 4-5 Prep Time: 10 minutes Cook Time: 40 minutes

Ingredients

8 oz Barilla Cellentani pasta
2 tablespoons Smart Balance Butter
1 tablespoon bacon bits
¼ cup Bisquick
2 cups skim milk
1 ½ cups Kraft Mexican four cheese blend

1.Preheat oven to 350 and spray meatloaf pan with Pam or Smartbalance equivalent.
2.Boil Cellentani pasta. Follow instructions on that box. Drain.
3.Heat butter in large pan (I used a medium-sized skillet with 2 inch high edges) and add bacon bits. Stir until melted. Add Bisquick and stir for a minute. Remove from heat. Add milk and stir until it’s not lumpy anymore. Cook until it boils and thickens (sort of like how gravy does).
4.Remove from heat. Add drained noodles and 1 cup cheese. Mix well.
5.Pour into meatloaf pan and sprinkle ½ cup cheese on top.
6.Cook 20 minutes on middle oven rack.

Suggestions for improvement:

• Use 1 ½ cups of cheese inside dish, then sprinkle ½ cup on top.

• Cook real turkey bacon to put in mac&cheese.

• I actually did sprinkle salt in the macaroni at one point or another, but it was a dash, and it definitely WAS NOT enough. I think it needs either 1 tbl salt or 1 tbl garlic salt to give a little more flavor.