Friday night comfort food

I don't think anyone could say that they don't like Mac N Cheese, especially homemade baked mac N cheese.  This is some awesome comfort food for a chilly fall evening!  

So...onions make me CRY!  Big time!  Every single time I chop onions I feel like my eyeballs are on fire.  And unfortunately, slap chop, you let me down, because I STILL cried!  Does anyone have any ideas?  Besides buying some onion goggles and looking ridiculous in my kitchen.  Or maybe I will just enlist Logan to be the onion chopper...what do you all think?

Alright so this mac n cheese recipe is awesome, however it does take about an hour to complete, with prep and bake time.  However, 30 of the min are spent in the oven, so really you spend 30 min actually cooking, not bad at all actually.  

ENJOY!

Macaroni and Cheese

1 lb elbow pasta

4 T butter ( I used low fat butter spread)

1 small onion, chopped

1/4 cup all purpose flour

4 cups milk

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper (optional) I used 1/4 tsp

1 1/4 cups shredded yellow cheddar

1 1/4 cups white cheddar cheese

S&P

8 oz ham, diced into pieces

2 slices white bread

Preheat oven to 375.  Cook pasta.  Meanwhile, in a 5 qt pot, melt butter.  Add onion; cook until softened, about 3-5 min.  Whisk in flour to coat onion.  In a slow steady stream, whisk in the milk until there are no lumps. 

Cook, whisking often, until mixture is thick and bubbly and coats the back of a wooden spoon, 6-8 min.  

Stir in cayenne, if using, and 1 cup each of the yellow and white cheddar cheese.  Season with S&P.

Thank you to Kraft and Budweiser for allowing me to relax while cooking this meal, I didn't have to shred cheese and well a little beer never hurts. 

Toss the pasta with the cheese mixture and fold in ham.  Transfer to a baking dish.  Set aside.

In a food processor, pulse bread until large crumbs.  Toss together with remaining 1/4 cup each white and yellow cheese.  Top pasta with breadcrumb mixture.  Bake until top is golden brown about 30 min.

Serves 8.

Logan Rating: ****