For macaroni and cheese fans

Homeroom, Oakland
>Homeroom: A restaurant that serves only macaroni and cheese? Sounds like a youthful fantasy, but dream no more.

This Oakland hot spot does mac and cheese every which way, except from a box. And for those who can't tamp down that grown-up inside, there are vegetables, too...

For those living the double-wide lifestyle, there's the trailer mac ($8.50), a combo of cheddary pasta, chunks of hot dogs and crushed potato chips. Mac the goat ($9), a melange of Cypress Grove chevre, green onions and crisp breadcrumbs drizzled with oil, might appease the more discriminating palate.

For a taste a little south of the border, go with the Mexican mac ($8.50) with chipotle peppers, chorizo, cilantro and a wedge of lime.

Then there's the classic ($7.50), an extra creamy and cheesy version of an all-cheddar mac. Feel free to spruce it up a bit with an assortment of add ons (50 cents-$2), including buttery breadcrumbs, broccoli, bacon and peas.

The restaurant's web site. They even have vegan & gluten-free versions.

My kind of place. Looking forward to their expansion to Minnesota.

We have a place near us that only does grilled cheese sandwiches. I only went there once and had the bacon and tomato one. The sandwich was pretty good except they obviously didn't use real bacon. You would think that a place that bakes their own bread would use real bacon. I think if I go back I'll make up my own sandwich. All of their standards aren't quite right for me.

My mother had one with brie cheese, raspberry sauce and chocolate chips. She really loves sweets.

Lets hope it's still al dente by the time it hits the table.

Doggone apostrophe bug

The restaurant's web site. They even have vegan & gluten-free versions.

Lets hope it's still al dente by the time it hits the table.

Macaroni & cheese is not supposed to be al dente.

Edited by: James L. Kraft

+Vermont White Cheddar 8.5O
Our creamiest mac made with velvety white cheddar from Grafton Village cheese in Vermont+

Throw some bacon and buttered bread crumbs on this one and I'm there!

There are lots of these places now. It seems like a silly concept to me but I guess if people like them I'm wrong. S'Mac and MacBar in New York, Cheeseology in St. Louis, MacDaddy's in Connecticut, J.B. Mack, which claims to be the first, with six locations on the East Coast (including three in Connecticut, which must be the mac'n'cheese capital.

MacBar has the most annoying website I have yet come across.

Very krafty business plan.

These places all sound yummy. I love cheese :) You can't go wrong going to a place like that with kids either!

I just made Macaroni and Cheese at home. It was the kind where you make a white sauce and layer up the cooked noodles with sauce and cheese. Lacking sharp Cheddar, I combined a bit of Parmesan with the shredded Medium Cheddar. I used some mild seasonings in the white sauce, eg; grated nutmeg and white wine Worcestershire sauce. In lieu of buttered crumbs on top, I used oat bran. (But buttered bread crumbs and Parm are better.)

It came out fine and we ate heaps of it. We had a simple, oil and mayo-free cole slaw with it. Or maybe it was homemade pickled beets. Both are good accompaniments to M&C.

While I might order Mac & Cheese as a side in a restaurant, I wouldn't usually make it my main course.

Speaking of being krafty (cute Niner), the only mac & cheese my family will agree to eat is the original Kraft Krap with the powdered cheese. My daughter only eats it plain, my husband only eats it with tuna and seasoned salt.

The thing is, neither of them actually like it so we only eat on nights that no one feels like cooking. But, neither of them is willing to try an improved mac recipe. My husband hates bread crumbs on mac & cheese.

Maybe I need to try to sneak in a good one as a side dish one day - hmmmmm.

I don't even order as a side at a restaurant, btw. The last time I had it as a side while eating out, it was mushy and disgusting and not very warm. Put me off of that.

The only time I ever ate macaroni cheese was when I was hard up back in the early 80's and whilst eating it I thought there's got to be something better than this pile of bland stodge!.

True it's not supposed to al dente but 9 out of 10 it's usually been sat in a baking pan over a bain marie or under a lamp before it gets sliced into a portion, I've never ever seen it made to order.

I love Macaroni Cheese. My mother's recipe is one of my favourite comfort foods of all time. Actually to be absolutely fair she pretty much uses a standard recipe from a very common recipe book here. But she adds her own spices.

Even now Macaroni Cheese is one of the only ready meals I will often keep in my freezer. Great for a little meal when I get home at 4:00am and hungry. It's much safer to cook with a microwave than a frying pan after a few drinks :)

For macaroni and cheese fans

I agree.

I do too, tony, or I don't understand what the fuss is about (yes, there've been quite a few threads featuring or mentioning macaroni and cheese). Myself, I've never tried the dish and feel no temptation to do so.
If I were a poor student, maybe....

I can't say I'm fond of mac&cheese but every now and then, when I'm way too tired to cook and don't feel like ordering or eating out, that's what we have. Do you like other pasta dishes, field?

(A) :"I don't understand what the fuss is about "

(B): "I've never tried the dish "

If B, then necessarily A, no?

Even I figured it out, Vinny. You need to start using the old noodle.

Do you like other pasta dishes, field?

Yes, I do, but rather as primi or secondi as they often are served in Italy. Also as antipasti. Not as a main dish, unless it's lasagna or canneloni.
M&c seems like a quick fix, a better version of pasta + ketchup.

Yes, I do, but rather as primi or secondi as they often are served in Italy. Also as antipasti. Not as a main dish

What do you mean by secondi, Fieldgate? My idea of an Italian menu is something like this

Antipasto
Primi (pasta asciutta or soups)
Secondi (main dishes)
Contorni (side dishes)
Formaggi/frutte/dolci (cheese/dessert)

It's primi, secondi, and the main dish - three different plates.
Antipasti can be primi, or a starter, or a small dish before the proper meal.

What's the term for main dish, then? And how do they differ from these secondi piatti?

Ricette per secondi piatti:

Agnello e capretto (lamn and kid)
Arrosti (roasts)
Piatti freddi (cold plates)
Brasati Stracotti (braised and potroasted meats)
Bolliti (boiled meats)
Carni bianche (white meats)
Grigliate (grilled meats)
Insolita fettina (unusual steak recipes?)
Manzo Vitello Maiale (beef feel pork)
Souffles, polpettoni, flan
selvaggina (game)
Pesce (fish)
Frittate omelettes e crepes

I wonder how long that restaurant will last. I see it has been open for two months.
I would love to go someplace to get - don't laugh at me - macaroni and cheese done well, as when it is all hot and cheesy and somehow in that lovely white sauce it is very good. I had it recently with chips, yum. Often, as has been said, its all dried up and been under the heatlamp for ages.
I don't know how often I could eat it though.
Surely no-one eats pasta and ketchup?
Every now and then I get a macaroni and cheese pie from the bakers. I would eat it cold rather than attempt to swallow the dried up version.

Surely no-one eats pasta and ketchup?

When I was a kid, we often had Kraft Macaroni & Cheese as part of a Friday meatless meal. I always put ketchup on it. It's still a guilty pleasure of mine. I can't say it's the most refined of gourmet pleasures; in fact, I can't really say it's really all that tasty. But it's comfort food to me.

Then there is Naporitan, "a pasta dish, which is popular in Japan. The dish consists of spaghetti, tomato ketchup or a tomato-based sauce, onion, button mushrooms, green peppers, sausage, bacon and Tabasco sauce."

I once dated a guy whose father put ketchup on everything. And I mean everything. If you think pasta & ketchup is bad, you should see someone putting ketchup on a tossed green salad.

That Naporitan sounds similar to a family-favorite recipe from my childhood - Quick Bacon and Spaghetti. Which is very good, but not at all in the same flavor group as macaroni and cheese.

Quick Bacon and Spaghetti

½ lb lean bacon slices, cut into squares
½ cup chopped onions
1 chopped green pepper
½ lb. spaghetti, broken into 4 or 5-inch pieces
1 ½ cup boiling water
1 large can tomatoes (3 ½ cups, chopped) – 1 lb 13 oz
½ teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon worcestershire sauce

In large skillet, cook bacon, onions and green pepper about 5 minutes until lightly browned. Add uncooked spaghetti, water tomatoes and salt. Simmer covered 20 minutes. Stir in worcestershire sauce.

There's a movie about Milton Glazer, the guy who designed the IHeartNY logo and a hundred other iconic images of the twentieth century, and who was also half of the Underground Gourmet for New York Magazine in the 1960s. In it he describes his mother's spaghetti, which if memory serves consists of a pound of spaghetti boiled to death, a block of Velveeta cheese grated, and a bottle of ketchup, mixed together, baked for an hour, and turned out and sliced.

My Italian-American goddaughter once saw an English housemate eat canned spaghetti on toast with ketchup on it. And once she and a Spanish housemate in the same New Zealand auberge espagnole made spaghetti aglio ed olio (olive oil, garlic, parsley, grated cheese) for the house and a German guy stirred in several good dollops each of sour cream and ketchup before tasting it.

She survived both experiences, but she hasn't been the same since.

NOTB, why not make your own? If you can make a white sauce you can make mac n cheese.

Quick Bacon and Spaghetti

Sounds good Mid. I might have to give that a try.

My cousin used to put ketchup on her pizza. That was stomach turning enough for me.

Here's how Milton Glaser describes it:
>First, put a 1 pound package of Mueller's spaghetti in a large pot of rapidly boiling water. Allow to cook for 45 minutes to an hour, or until most of the water has evaporated. Add half a bottle of Heinz tomato ketchup, and a half pound of Velveeta cheese. Continue cooking until all the contents have amalgamated. Allow to cool and de-mold from the pot. Divide into 1 inch slices and fry in chicken-fat.

When I was in my early teens, I went to a neighborhood Italian restaurant in the Bronx, and ordered spaghetti. The waiter brought me a bowl of strange-looking stringy things covered with tomato sauce. "No, no," I said, "I ordered Spaghetti, SPAGHETTI!"

That reminds me of the first time my daughter ordered lemonade in Morocco. They brought her Sprite. Fortunately, although Sprite is not her favorite, she was able to be stoic about it.

"Lemonade" in lots of places, including the UK, is a carbonated lemon drink.

Yeah, we learned that the hard way. Then we realized we had to order a lemon drink to get lemonade. The lemon drink was much better than the lemonade we usually get here and lime drink was even better!

I do make it sometimes, I have been lazy and used packet cheese sauces and it doesn't taste very good.I was told that proper macaroni and cheese had to be baked. I take it this is true. I made it on the stove top and was told that the result was too chewy. And before you ask, I have no oven.

Cook's Illustrated has a recipe for a pretty good one that is completely stove-top. You can bake it if you want, or run it under the broiler (UK grill). Mac & Cheese

NOTB - sounds like you might just have to cook it a bit more. My oven died years ago and we still haven't gotten around to fixing. For years I did all of my "baking" on my propane grill (which has a back burner). A few Christmases ago my husband got me a mini oven, does convection, baking, toast, etc. There are a few things I would like to make that the oven's not big enough for but not a lot.

Your link can't find the page nutrax.

Try this I screwed up the original link.

If I bought my wife a toaster oven for Christmas I'd be sleeping in the doghouse huddled for warmth.

#35 - so make it a New Year's gift, or a surprise "just because" presentation, if you've got a place on the countertop for it. Our very-high quality one (a Cuisinart "convection oven toaster broiler with Exact Heat") gets used every day. It astounds me how many women will never buy themselves better tools for daily cooking, while men frequently will get a new power-tool to make a single large project go more smoothly. My mother-in-law still comments how much she appreciates using the new set of pots/pans we got her- she'd been living with dented vintage 50's-60's cookware.

My apologies, Midwesterner, if you think I was dissing your choice of appliances.

I don't want to become embroiled in a toaster oven dispute.

That reminds me of the first time my daughter ordered lemonade in Morocco. They brought her Sprite. Fortunately, although Sprite is not her favorite, she was able to be stoic about it

Yup, that's exactly what you will get in New Zealand as well.

Great pun, Niner. I was in no way offended, just wanted to encourage you to consider gifting cookware without an "occasion", since it seems so few women will get their own.

That's not a great pun, Mw: it's a mixed metaphor.

embroiled doesn't have anything to do (etymologically) with broil, so I would call it a pun.

Last night I had macaroni and cheese from a macaroni and cheese place called Macaroni Macaroni in New York. It was good.

I suspect ye would call it a pun!