Bacon Mac and Cheese

So this summer with the chaos in the house we got lazy with the cooking.

Last night I made a scratch made Bacon Mac and Cheese. My macaroni and cheese connoisseur still complained. He said it was good but still missing something, I am pretty sure he is giving me a hard time because he had 2 insanely large plates. 

Everyone thinks making macaroni and cheese is difficult and time consuming, I promise you it really is not. 

To start boil pasta. While I was boiling my pasta I set everything else up. 

 Shred the cheese this will make the rest simple. 

Drain the pasta out and I used the same pot for everything. 

Cook the bacon until nice and crispy. and set it aside. 

In the bacon fat toss the onions, salt/ pepper ( I used my Tex- Mex blend) and equal parts flour. 

The flour and fat will make a rue and that will thicken the milk creating a white sauce which we will add the cheese creating a cheese sauce. 

So I added about 2 cups of milk, and you simmer until it starts to thicken. 

Chop up the bacon and add with the cheese. 

Mix until the cheese is nice and melted and the bacon is well incorporated. 

Add the pasta and mix until everything is coated. 

Now enjoy the beautiful bacon macaroni and cheese.  I served with green beans. 

I will try to remember to price everything out and do my budget prices but it should come to about $2 a person depending on what kind of cheese you use. Better taste comes from the stronger flavored cheese. 

Fried Chicken and mac-n-cheese

My family settled for a time period in Macon, GA. While down there I grew to love my southern comfort food. I have worked hard learning how to cook foods that I really love without having to go out often and friend chicken is one of the hardest things to master. The reason I feel that it is the hardest is because not enough flour mixture the to over cook the chicken and its not good, under cook it and you get sick. If you bake it you lose some of the flavor, making it such a finicky meal. 

I started with my chicken because I was doing oven baked "fried" chicken and it was going to take the longest. 

 I pull out my flour (1 cup) and turmeric (1 teaspoon), paprika( 2 teaspoon) , salt, pepper, small a mount of Italian seasoning. Mix it all together and set aside.

Now for my wet ingredients. I used 1/4 cup milk, 2 eggs, salt and pepper to taste. Mix really well and set aside. 

Now is the time to pull out the chicken and start the long pain staking process of pat dry roll in the flour and set aside and do the remaining. 

After all of the chicken is dusted dip in the egg mixture and roll around in the flour again. Repeat with the rest. 

At this point I toss into the oven and let cook at 350 for about an hour give or take depending on the size of your chicken. 

Now for the mac and cheese. 

I made pasta ahead of time and set aside so I was well prepared to my one hour crunch time. 

I made a quick rue (1 tablespoon flour to 1 tablespoon butter) and added onion, garlic, turmeric, salt and pepper to taste. I get my sauce some what thick and then add the cheese. I love real raw sharp cheddar cheese with dubliner cheese for its bite but for this meal I used the regular cheddar found in the dairy section.  

Mix it until all of the cheese is melted. Add the pasta and mix well. Then I made a quick simple salad. 

This meal came to about $14 for the entire meal. This feed everyone and we had leftovers, making each serving about $2 per person.