Vegetarian -- Day Four

Day Four
Breakfast: toast w pb and fruit (me), pineapple and banana-chocolate chip bars (Hub and kids)
Lunch:  mac and cheese with veggies
Dinner:  pancakes and onion rings (me) I know that's not healthy, cheese pizza and cottage cheese (Silly), meat (everyone else)

We ended up going out to dinner with the family, and so most everyone ate meat last night.  Eh.  Silly and I are the last hold-outs here.

I love homemade macaroni and cheese.  For real.  I don't usually add veggies, but I think I will from now on.  It's an easy way to increase our veggie consumption.  I mean, they are covered in cheese.  Yum.

Macaroni and Cheese

1 lb. pasta of choice (I used wagon wheels)
1/4 to 1/2 onion, finely chopped
4 tbsp. butter
up to 1/4 c. flour (or so)
1 lb. cheese, shredded (I used cheddar, and a few slices of cojack that I needed to use up)
1 1/2 c. milk
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
pepper to taste
veggies of choice (see below)

Preheat oven to 350.  Put the pasta on to cook.  Be careful not to overcook it.  In fact, because it bakes a little, I usually drain it just before it's done.  That's me.  In a skillet, melt butter (you could use less, and then you need less flour).  Saute onion and garlic until opaque.  Add flour to soak up the butter, stirring with a wooden spoon.  Oh look!  You've made a roux!  Now you want to add the milk and let it warm up.  Add the cheese, and stirring frequently, let it cook and melt (this takes about 5 minutes).  You can add some pepper here, too.  Once it is just about all melted, turn up the heat to a brief boil, stirring constantly.  That helps it to thicken.

For the veggies, I used a bag of frozen mixed veggies (broccoli, corn and red peppers).  You could just saute some of whatever you have in your fridge, or use a whole bag of broccoli or whatever.  It's up to you.  I did saute the frozen veggies for a little bit in a pan to thaw them out most of the way.  I also put a very light sprinkling of salt over them.

Put the veggies, cooked pasta, and sauce into a large bowl or right into the casserole if you want to wash fewer dishes (who doesn't?).  Stir to coat everything with the cheese.

Bake, uncovered, 10 minutes.