Why, do you ask, have I begun such a jovial and carefree love affair with Tuesday? On a typical week, I have nothing planned on Tuesday nights. Of course date night plans with Mr. Gamer usually land on Tuesday nights for this same reason but I'm generally home 2-3 hours before him. That's 2-3 hours of blissful alone time.
As of late, I have been using these hours to bake or cook. I mean really bake or cook. Such as play around with new recipes, bake a delicious treat, or attack an ambitious meal project. That's what happened tonight. Not only did I think outside of my recipe box, I rocked the proverbial socks off of my recipe box.
Seriously. Amazing.
It all began, once upon a time (okay so it was last night) during a busy late night grocery shopping trip. I had my dinner menu meticulously planned out for the week:
Monday-soup
Tuesday-crock pot turkey chili
Wednesday-Red and her hubby over for dinner, grilled ginger chicken thighs and salad
Thursday-Mr. Gamer fends for himself while I'm at class
Friday-homemade pizza
That's when everything went wrong. Or very right. As I made a bee-line for the organic ground turkey that was on sale at a fabulous price this week, my hopes and dreams of Tuesday night turkey chili were dashed. Sold out.
This is where it gets intense.
I had to think of an alternative quickly. With the pressure of late night grocery shopping and wanting to get home to make last night's yummy soup, I caved. I decided to keep Tuesday night's dinner a mystery, to be determined later.
Fast forward about 10 hours later, circa 5am this morning. Inspiration struck while in the shower. I find that most of my ideas-good or bad-originate in the shower. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's why my showers are so long, I need to get all of my major ideas for the day out of the way so I can go about my morning routine and have a stress-less day.
Side note...while Mr. Gamer does not endorse my wasteful showering habits, he reaps the benefits of my idea forming sessions when a fabulous meal idea is the end product, so I think I'm justified.
It came to me somewhere between lather and rinse. Buffalo chicken mac and cheese.
Before skidattling off to work this morning, I threw two frozen chicken breasts in the crock pot, went to town with some garlic powder, then splashed on a ton of hot sauce. Ten hours later, I took two forks to it, swirled in a dollop of sour cream and it looked heavenly.
I let that hang out while preparing the mac and cheese. Now, a brief word about mac and cheese. I have been trying to make the perfect homemade mac and cheese for about 2 years now. I have tried various recipes, I have experimented with my own versions and at most, I've ended up with a good meal (let's not talk about what I've ended up with at worst). Nothing mind blowing, nothing spectacular.
Until tonight.
I based my mac and cheese tonight loosely off of the Betty Crocker version I used the very first time I ever attempted homemade mac and cheese.
While boiling some noodles (bow ties because they're fun!), I melted 4 (butter makes it better, right?) tablespoons of butter in a pan, then threw in a quarter cup of flour, a heavy handed shickity shake of garlic powder and onion powder, some salt, and a dash of ground mustard. I let this all come to a slow bubble on medium low heat until it looked golden and smooth.
This is the point where things got a little crazy as I attempted to juggle the noodles and not burning my roux (I had to Google that word to make sure I was using it correctly).
I added about 2 cups of milk to the roux and stirred like crazy over medium heat until the whole shebang began to boil softly. I then pulled it all off the heat and dumped in about 2 cups of white cheddar cheese. While that turned into a creamy cheesy masterpiece, I poured my buffalo chicken concoction over the noodles, then topped it with the cheesy roux (is it still roux when I add the milk and cheese??) mixture.
Noodles, buffalo chicken, and cheesy goodness all went into a casserole dish and looked a little like this...
Until I poured shredded cheese, crushed tortilla chips, and more cheddar cheese all over it.
20-25 minutes later, after baking at 350, and THIS came out of the oven...
I totally planned on taking a picture of this served up in a bowl but I was too distracted by the enticing bowl of comfort food in front of me to find my camera.
This was SO, SO very delicious. Like words cannot describe how delicious. Mr. Gamer raved about it and is even willing to overcome his strange avoidance of Tupperware/leftovers to take some in for lunch tomorrow.
All in all, it was a very successful endeavor, a perfect compliment to my new favorite day of the week!
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