… outside the box …

This is one of those catch phrases so often bandied about it makes me cringe. Most likely come up with by some marketing guys who’s entire existence and effort at life is to squeeze stuff into very limiting and strictly defined boxes! Go figure. (another cliche to leave me guessing)

There are some great times for this activity and some great results due to it. None of which come to mind to use as example. Sorry.

Now, there are also times when such thinking is just not appropriate. Easy example: Macaroni-n-Cheese.

In the clutches of a fit of kitchen creativity I decided to create my own mac-n-cheese, from scratch. How hard can this be? Cooked noodles, milk, butter, cheese. Easy-Smeasy! Exactly my thoughts too.

I stared with wheat noodles. Not because they are healthy or any of that. Because they are brown and I thought is would look nicer with yellow cheese. Very aesthetic mood. Presentation is a big part of a nice meal after all. Along this same line I thought some finely diced up bell peppers would add some nice color too. Just happened to have four color options on hand.

With chicken breast happily simmering along I poured the noodles into the boiling water. So far so good. I am dicing away and really excited about this. I finish pulping the peppers and move to start shredding the cheese. AH! What’s this, I have two kinds of cheese here. Yellow, traditional for this use, cheddar. Also, happy little single servings of string cheese – WHITE – cheese. OK – now we have: brown noodles, green, yellow, red and orange peppers, yellow an white cheese. Picasso baby – nothing but art.

Breasts are looking good and smell fantastic. Noodles are finished. Time to melt and mix. Butter – check! Milk – check! Diced up string cheese – check! Shredded up cheddar cheese – check! Nice soft mix of cheese melting in the pot ready to cover my brown noodles with sticky, gewy joy – – – – uhm, hello? Where are you gewy cheesy joy?

What is in the bottom of the pot is quickly overheating milk with an island of yellow pliable but not really melted and spreading cheese. Amongst this island as well as around it there are many little white blobs of cheese that are even less spreadable. Also quickly over cooking are a zillion bits of bell pepper in various colors.

Maybe if I stir in the noodles and turn up the heat some ….

The water from the not so completely drained noodles quickly solidifies any cheese it touches. The higher heat takes what has not become solid again and melts it enough that is does thin out and become gewy. For just a few seconds it is like this. Then, it becomes super gewy and attaches itself with giant octopus like intention to the PAN, not the noodles. The milk is scorched. The pepper bits are now gewy from being in too much heat for too long. Some of the noodles, despite being in a pseudo- gewy environment are sticking and burning to the bottom of the pan along with the milk that has somehow managed to separate from the butter which is also burning but spitting due to noodle water. Ouch – that crap hurts when it lands on your skin.

Remove from heat and stir faster seem like good ideas. Only part one was. Faster stirring did two things. Since the heat was gone the cheeses both became rather solid again – right after they where industrial strength sticky for a few seconds. Enough seconds to coat the pan but not one single noodle!

At this point the only rational thing to do is put down the implement being used to stir and with no protection, grab the really, terribly hot lid over the chicken breasts to see how they are looking. They looked wonderful for the 1/4 second I saw them before I realized I was in pain from burning my hand. This realization led to me dropping the lid, which hit a breast, which made it jump up on the other breast which then slide across the pan quick and hard enough to cause the olive oil to splash out. OUCH – that crap really hurts when it lands on you skin!

Well, spicy chicken sandwiches with a small salad was great. The noodles were good with garlic oil over the top. Cleaning up with a wood spoon, to scrap cheese off bottom of pan, not so great. Little red dots from hot liquids on my flesh, not so great. Although if you squint it does look like an outline of North Dakota.

Next Mac-N-Cheese desire will be an in the box sort of thing. 0.99 cents a box – how could I possibly thought to try and compete with that? You can’t feed your pet for 0.99!

OK. I made myself hungry writing this. Off to kitchen.

Peace, Ant-Knee