Hi all my Scrappy Gidget readers and fans! I deeply apologize for the extreme lateness in posting this recipe! It was so much fun and I LOVED having the leftovers to graze on over the following weeks. July was an odd month, mostly because I felt I simply had blinked and it was over. The weather is getting warmer (now we are enjoying nothing less than 80 degree weather on the regular) which also means many more outside adventures with my husband (socially distanced, of course!). I hope you all are staying well and safe during these unprecedented times. Most people also say something along the lines of "hope you are staying sane" however, crazy is fun and much more adventurous, wouldn't you agree?
As my readers are well aware, I am still skeptical about this “Sour Soup” nonsense and also should be aware our family recipes tend to be parsed out for a large number of people. What in the world would I be able to do with an entire vat of sour soup all to myself!?
Once again, I was able to avert the dreaded sour soup, this time for an exciting “Custard Macaroni”. Why this recipe? I felt it was the closest thing besides a fruit salad that fit with a “July” theme! (You know, Independence Day, BBQ, home, family, baked macaroni, it all ties together, right?)
This recipe was a duo of experiences as both my aunts and I made what we thought was the same recipe but ended up coming out quite different results. Note, we did use different ingredients and which is why we had such different outcomes.
The macaroni was the same, however I used Colby Cheese which I shredded and chunked some out, eggs, butter, and 2% dairy milk. My aunts used Velveeta cheese slices (that truly has great melty quality) and cashew milk instead of dairy milk. They also used eggs and elbow macaroni.
We decided it would be best to have the macaroni cooked ahead of time before we started our video call cooking engagement because let’s face it, watching water come to a boil is only slightly more exciting than watching paint dry. I put a small pad of butter in the macaroni while it was still warm to prevent the pasta from sticking together while we prepped the rest of the ingredients.
Once the macaroni was cooked, I encountered my first dilemma. I don’t have super small casserole / oven safe dishes, even my 9x9 didn’t seem like it would be a good vessel for only 1 cup of cooked macaroni, it barely lined the bottom of the 9x9 in one layer of pasta! Therefore, my first variation was obvious. MAKE MORE MACARONI! I went ahead and cooked another cup of macaroni, for it to actually “fit” into the baking dish.
Part one, salt the water and bring to a boil; once boiling add your macaroni. Bring to boil and continue cooking 6-8 minutes or until your macaroni is slightly aldente. Remember that the macaroni will also be baking in the oven in its milk bath so you definitely do not want to overcook your pasta at this stage.
Our first step after the macaroni was cooked was to scramble
two eggs in the bottom of an oven safe dish. This is where we split tracks a
bit. I took the recipe literal and scrambled two eggs in the bottom of the
casserole dish. (Thankfully my aunts were there to tell me that I should
probably still grease / butter the dish as it seems like it would stick easily
if it wasn’t – so I did that before scrambling the eggs).
While I followed the recipe literally, my aunts mixed their eggs up in with their cashew milk to combine all together to pour over the macaroni. Eggs – scrambled. Cheese; shredded – or cubed or in whatever way you think it would mix best! Now time to put the macaroni into the baking dish!
My aunts sliced their Velveeta cheese and layered (beautifully) the cheese over the macaroni after it had been added to their baking dish.
For me, once I added in the macaroni, it was time to mix in the cheese! I used the best kitchen tool ever created (my hands) to gently fold the shredded cheese into the macaroni. Once it was well mixed and the cheese seemed evenly distributed, I added little "chunks" of cheese randomly throughout the dish in order to provide golden morsels of cheesy goodness throughout the casserole.
Finally, it was time to add your milk. As I mentioned, my aunts already had their milk and egg mixture mixed together in a measuring cup, so they poured theirs into the baking dish with the macaroni and layered Velveeta.
As for me, it was time for more guesswork! The recipe says 2- 3 cups “or however much custard you want”. I added 2 cups to milk and another couple splashes so the milk lined up with the macaroni (my aunt said it would help prevent the top layer from getting dried out). Good call! Unfortunately I do not have any photos of me pouring moo juice into my macaroni mixture because let's face it - that would require extra hands or extreme talent without spilling the milk. Instead you can see in the next photo the beauties side by side, before they went into the oven (mine on the left, my aunties' dish on the right). I also added a pinch of salt and some black pepper sprinkled over the top just to ensure the dish was seasoned to my liking.
In the oven they went and time to bake! 45 – 50 minutes or until golden brown and a knife comes out “clean” when you poke it in the middle. Who knew something as simple as a macaroni and cheese could be so complicated?
While the macaroni was baking, we did what we do best –
talked, discussed current events, books, movies, new shows, quarantine life.
Timer went off and it was time to check – I WAS SO EXCITED!
I couldn’t get it out of the pan fast enough it smelled amazing, looked well – like delicious baked mac and cheese!
I took one bite and was instantly transported back into a different childhood memory. I don’t remember having this with my dad’s family. But I do remember my great-grandmother on my mom’s side making baked mac and cheese and it being one of my favorites. She would cube up the leftovers and freeze them so we could warm them up in the microwave for a quick lunch or snack. It has been over 15 years since I have had my mom’s grandma’s baked mac and cheese (that I can recall, but I have a terrible memory!) and it brought tears of happiness and nostalgia to my eyes. My mom made a great call saying Colby was the cheese to try. Then I got excited again because I realized there was a lot of mac and cheese leftover – so I would be able to freeze these golden nugget squares. Packed away tight in the freezer for me to chisel out to revisit a beautiful place. Now I have another great memory attached to this delectable delight!
My Auntie M was not as impressed with their macaroni, but my Aunt P thought it was still pretty good. I told my Auntie M once we were able to come together in person again I promise to make her my version of this recipe to share. We were trying to figure out why the consistency of their was so different, and as we discussed that is when I realized they used cashew milk instead of "real" milk. I had read somewhere that macaroni and milk is really a "thing" (probably mostly mid-western dish) but something with the enzymes in milk help breakdown the starch in the macaroni and it creates sort of a custard like thick consistency, almost like a "sauce", if you will. That and possibly the amount of cheese I used in comparison probably were the key factors in the much different outcomes.
Next on the list we had to decide which dish would be good that didn’t involve soup (mwahahaha Sour soup loses again!) or baking. It is way too hot in August to be using an oven (at least for me in a south facing 3rd floor apartment)! As we flipped through the cook book, we found our family’s pancake recipe! Winner, winner, pancake dinner!
