Mac and Cheese

I was really, really surprised at how well this turned out, especially considering how some of our other mac-and-cheese attempts came out (As my wife tells me: we're never going to try a mac and cheese recipe from a lowfat cookbook again...). It's got some weird ingredients, but bear with it!

Quick and Creamy Mac-and-cheese
Ingredients:

• 16 ounces uncooked pasta (of your choice... but everyone knows that the shells are the best, and elbow macaroni is a distant second)
• 12 ounces of Butternut Squash (Trust us! Gives a great color and texture, plus lots of nutritious benefits! Also, see my note below.)
• 12 ounces evaporated milk
• 2 cups shredded six-cheese Italian blend (feel free to substitute other types of cheeses or mixes here. I suspect that the exact variety isn't particularly important.)

**Edit** Actually, Bryan is wrong here. Italian cheese blends require smaller quantities to lend assertive cheese taste. Any Italian cheese blend can be used, but if you change cheese types (to cheddar, etc) you will have to change quantities to make a good amount of cheesy flavor.

• 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp salt

Directions: Cook the pasta according to the package instructions. When you strain the pasta, reserve 1/4 a cup of the water (this probably isn't super-important, and you could replace this with 1/4 cup hot water-- especially if you have a plastic measuring cup that will crack when you pour boiling water in it.); Put squash in a saucepan, and gradually add the milk, whisking (or otherwise thoroughly mixing) the two. Cook until the mixture begins to simmer (should take ~3:30 min), then reduce heat to medium. Add all the cheese. Mix it until it's a melted near-homogenous mix. Stir in salt, nutmeg, and the 1/4 cup of water you kept from cooking the pasta. Pour over pasta and serve.


Now, if you're weird, you can add more nutmeg on top of the mac and cheese, but that's just gross.

Gotta admit. While this tasted pretty freakin' good and was super-low in sodium (compared to Kraft), the texture was a little bit grainy. We used whole grain pasta, so maybe that was part of it. I think that it was probably the squash that was responsible, though. You might want to consider really liquifying it in a food processor before mixing it with the evaporated milk.


On making the squash.

• You can buy this frozen at the store, ready to go. Just make sure you thaw it. This will increase the sodium content.
• If you get a butternut squash from the farmer's market you can make the squash from scratch (which can be used for a lot of recipes!). Just cut it in half, gut out the seeds and strings, place face-down on a baking tray, and bake for ~40 minutes at ~400*F. Once done, scoop the squash (not the skin) into a food processor or blender and mix it until smooth (add a little water, if necessary).

And I think that's about it! The recipe makes quite a lot, so if you're cooking for few, you might want to cut it in half.

Idea: I mixed this into some veg chili and it was awesome.