Monday, January 10, 2011

Macaroni and Cheese in Your Rice Cooker

Miss Em's friend came over last night for her second dorm cooking lesson: mac and cheese. She's been buying those little round things that you cook in the microwave: can we say YUK? Not to mention expensive with wasteful packaging?

I've posted on the beloved comfort food before, but this is a new version. Miss Em's friend is a vegetarian, so will not use the chicken broth in the original Wolfgang Puck-inspired recipe. I told my student that canned broth, including vegetable broth, is kind of over-priced. So we threw in a garlic clove, which made garlic broth as if by magic. It was good!

OK. Put about 2 cups of macaroni or similar in the rice cooker. Add water JUST TO COVER. Add some salt and your garlic clove. You could probably use garlic powder instead.

Put on COOK. After 15-20 minutes, test to see if the mac is done.

DO NOT DRAIN. The starch from the pasta thickens the sauce. Genius! At this point you turn to warm and add a little milk. (You do this when it's on warm so it doesn't curdle). I showed my student how you could mix up a bit of powdered milk in a cup (with COLD water) in the event that you didn't have regular milk.

Then we cut some cheese in small pieces and put it in. If you have a cheese grater, go ahead and use it. Or buy pre-grated. We used Cabot extra sharp.

Keep on warm and stir till cheese melts.

My student was wide-eyed in wonder during the procedure.

3 comments:

  1. I made the mac and cheese and it was great! It only costs 1$ for 16oz box of shell noodles, and 2$ for some shredded cheese. Those individual easy macs are 1$ each at least!

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  2. Very exciting Jen! What do you want to do next?

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  3. Tonight I made some more shell noodles, but I mixed in some cream of mushroom. TOMORROW I am making the rice cooker version of fried rice, which everyone is excited about since our cafeteria has been even worse than usual.

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