Super Cheesy Mac N’Cheese

Mac n’cheese is a favourite food of mine. I remember when I was little and my mom would make a mac n’cheese casserole with hot dogs in it. It was one of my favourite meals so I figured I would try it out myself, with a bit of a spin of course. Now the other day I was talking to my aunt about recipes and realized there are two kinds of people out there: the type that follow recipes to a T and measure absolutely everything out (her) and the type that never measures and just wings everything (me, unfortunately for you). So on that note here is what I think I put into my mac n’cheese…

Ingredients
2 medium tomatoes, crushed (about 1 cup)
2 Tbsp margarine
3 cups cheddar cheese
1 cup Parmesan cheese
1 cup milk
2 cloves garlic
3 Tbsp flour
450g dried elbow macaroni
Breadcrumbs
Optional: 2 cups protein, cooked
Optional: Cayenne pepper, red pepper flakes to taste

I started by boiling, peeling, and crushing two medium sized garden tomatoes. 

Add to this the margarine, cheddar, Parmesan, milk, and garlic. Melt this down on low-medium heat until it’s smooth. I find it best to use a whisk and stir continually to get a good consistency and avoid burning the cheese. While this is melting, prepare your macaroni. Once your macaroni is almost ready, whisk the flour into your cheese sauce. I chose to add a few shakes of cayenne pepper and red pepper flakes to mine for a bit of heat but you could also add other spices for a different taste. 

 
Now mix the sauce, macaroni, and your choice of protein (I used leftover chicken). Pour it into a casserole dish and top with a thin layer of breadcrumbs. Toss this in the oven at 350°F for 10 minutes or until it’s brown and crispy. Dig in and enjoy! 

How NOT to Camp: A Learning Experience

All this planning for our anniversary camping trip this coming week has me reminiscing about our last camping trip. Our last experience with camping was 4 years ago, before kids, and newly married. The tent that we had was one I had purchased in highschool on a whim because it was on sale and we needed one for Relay for Life. The car we drove was my husband’s old Pontiac Sunfire, “dog pee yellow” as his grandpa calls it. We had just bought a house and paid for a marriage but really wanted to get away for a long weekend so why not go camping since we had all the stuff for it anyways. 

We thought we had it all planned out. Scott would finish work early on Friday and we would drive to Waterton National Park, get a site just before sunset, set up, and stay the whole weekend. Easy, or so we thought. Turns out everyone else had the same plan… by the time we got to Waterton all the sites were full and we were turned away from multiple campgrounds. By midnight we were tired of driving, all the sites were closed, and we had resigned to waiting until morning. Our lack of planning meant there were also no vacant hotels so we parked in a viewpoint halfway up a mountain with some really nasty outhouses nearby. Our handy, LITTLE, good on gas Sunfire didn’t seem like such a fun little vehicle anymore. Even with the backseats folded down and our feet in the trunk space it didn’t prove to fit two adults comfortably. Camping fail #1 turned out to be not too bad since the view we woke up to the next morning was totally worth the lack of sleep!

Best views I've ever had while brushing my teeth!

We got on the waitlist to get a site and then had a picnic and went for a short hike up a mountain and enjoyed the gorgeous views. This trip was starting to look pretty good. We were both having a blast and I was “attempting” to conquer my fear of heights by getting close(ish) to the edge of a cliff. We climbed down a rather steep mountain side and walked back to the car via a creek. It was really a gorgeous day.

Facing my fears

Scott clearly has no fear of heights!

The creek that we walked along

I know you all are waiting for the next camping failure so here it is… remember that tent that I bought years ago? So I had left it at my parents house for them to use and had just got it back from them. We assumed that all parts would be in the bag, I mean that’s what a tent bag is for, right? Turns out we were missing a few parts. But I mean who needs poles anyways. So we headed over to the ridiculously overpriced camping gear store to find some replacement poles which, of course, they didn’t have in stock. They were, however, able to offer us two options of brand new top-of-the-line North Face tents. In the end our “inexpensive” camping trip ended up costing us about $500 more than we planned. Oh, and we forgot the basics like a frying pan, plates, and utensils. 

That's one fancy tent right there!

Made that spatula myself! 

This time around things will be a bit different. We have pre-booked all our campsites so no matter what time we get there at we won’t be left sleeping in the car. Our new, only-used-once tent is currently set up in our basement on a test run with all poles, pegs, and pieces accounted for. And the list of things that need to be packed includes everything we forgot last time and then some!

After all this reminiscing I am super pumped to start on our camping adventure tomorrow! I’m sure I will come back with many stories to share with all of you!