Saturday, April 14, 2012

Grown Up Mac 'N Cheese

I apologize I haven't had nearly as much time to devote to this blog lately.  My (paying) job is now demanding much more of my time so I haven't had as much time to make new recipes and projects, much less post about them.
However, this is something that I have recently discovered as a result of having to quickly make and eat fast lunches.  Macaroni is currently one of my daughter's favorite foods, which is fine by me because now we have 4 different main course options to serve her instead of 3.  I have been buying the Kraft Easy Mac pouches.  (Which, by the way, I won't be doing anymore since I just had another DUH moment today and realized that the boxes are much cheaper).  I usually make one, give her half of it, then save the other half for another meal.  But then I found myself making them for my own lunches.  When you work at home and don't have to plan your lunches ahead, you learn to be creative and eat what you have.  Anyway, after eating Easy Mac pouches for lunch for a few days, I started to get a case of the Macaroni Blahs.  It was just a little bland for my taste.  So I started thinking about what I could do to easily and inexpensively add some flavor to it. 

So I decided to try making taco macaroni.  I wanted to give it some taco flavor, but I didn't want to overpower it so that I couldn't taste the macaroni and cheese.  I played around with it, and the best balance of flavor was 1/4 tsp taco seasoning per Easy Mac pouch, or 1 tsp per box of macaroni. 
Make the macaroni according to the package directions, and then add the taco seasoning when you add the cheese powder.

It makes all the difference!  This is a great way to jazz up macaroni for an adult's palate.  Heck, even some kids may like it.  I really want to try it with ranch dressing mix too, but I like it so much with the taco seasoning that I haven't tried it yet!

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