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mac & cheese

(1 rating)
noeboe80 avatar
Recipe by
Noelle Boesenberg
@noeboe80
San Jose, CA

Made this up when I had a TON of leftover Christmas Ham! :)

(1 rating)
yield 1 hungry person or 8 reasonable people.
prep time 5 Min
cook time 20 Min
method Stove Top

Ingredients For mac & cheese

  • 1/2 a box of macaroni elbows - cook as directed. drain. easy.
  • leftover christmas ham, chopped up
  • a little over a half of a stick of real butter. (about 4 tbs?)
  • 3 tbs of flour
  • about 2 cups of milk (i used 2% lowfat)
  • about 1 cup of half & half
  • 1 whole bag of shredded mozzerella cheese, divided into 3/4 of a bag and 1/4 of a bag. (make sense?)
  • salt/white pepper/nutmeg

How To Make mac & cheese

  • 1
    Fry up the chopped ham in a big pot until it's nice & brown. ("Taste test" to be sure it's "done enough" hee hee) Add the butter. Yes. You are FRYING HAM in BUTTER. (eek) Once the butter is melted, sprinkle the flour on top of the ham, evenly, then stir. Cook the flour/ham/butter mixture for about 5 minutes until its golden. Whisk in the milk. Make sure there are no chunks!! Turn up the heat to about med-high. Whisk in the half & half. Bring to a boil - this is gonna seem like it's taking forever. Don't worry. It'll thicken. Just be sure to keep stirring with a whisk to make sure it's smooth. When it thickens (it should look like thick pancake batter, or thin vanilla pudding...?) add the 3/4 of a bag of cheese. Just dump it in. Whisk until it's ALL melted and delicious. Oh! At this point, you can add salt (don't really NEED it b/c of ham...), white pepper (careful, this is sometimes spicier than black pepper), and nutmeg (hmmm... just a little bit though...)
  • 2
    NOW...assembly time: Heat the Broiler Spray a 9x13 baking dish with Pam...or grease with butter. Dump the cooked Macaroni into the Cheese Sauce.... yum.... combine so all of the Mac gets some Cheese.... Resist the urge to get out a bowl & start eating. Pour the mixture into the baking dish - spread out evenly, etc... Now cover the top with the rest of the cheese. Broil for about 4-5 minutes. DO NOT forget about it, or else it'll burn and you will be sad. (no... of COURSE that's never happened to me...) That's it.
  • Last Step: Don't forget to share! Make all your friends drool by posting a picture of your finished recipe on your favorite social network. And don't forget to tag Just A Pinch and include #justapinchrecipes so we can see it too!
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