Macaroni-n-Cheapness

    Raise your hand if you have a husband who is better in the kitchen than you are.  I know someone is raising their hand.  I feel your pain.  Part of my job is to cook for our family and I stink at it.  Remember....I'm the kitchen dyslexic.  My hubsband however is pretty darn good at it.  Strange considering he's such a picky eater.  You'd think he wouldn't even like to cook, much less be good at it.  But he does.  And he is.  And I loathe it.

    Last week we were thinking of ways to save money on our grocery bill.  One thing we decided was to make our own macaroni and cheese instead of buying boxes and boxes of the Kraft stuff.  We could make a big batch and the kids could eat it a few times during the week.  Much cheaper and better for you than the boxed stuff.  So upon googling mac-n-cheese recipes, I came across a recipe from The Pioneer Woman.  I love her blog!  My sister turned me on to it.  She mostly loves the cooking part of it.  I mostly love everything but the cooking part of it.  It's torture looking at recipes and pictures of beautiful food that you know have to taste wonderful, when you know you'd mess all of it up.  (Remember....I'm the kitchen dyslexic.)   Nevertheless, I decided to try her mac-n-cheese recipe.  It looked yummy.  It looked easy.  And how can you mess up mac-n-cheese?  (For a moment I forgot who I was.....the kitc.....oh you know!)  So we made our grocery list and headed to the store.  Before going to King Soopers, we stopped at Sam's to stock up on a few items that we use enough to purchase in bulk.  One of those was macaroni noodles.  Six pounds of macaroni noodles!  We also purchased two pounds of cheddar cheese and nine pounds of Quaker oatmeal.  We like brown sugar in our oatmeal, so I should have purchased (you have to say this in your best Marilla Cuthbert voice) "Twenty pounds of brooown sugar!"  If you don't know who Marilla Cuthbert is, then you really need to watch Anne of Green Gables.  It's a classic.  I want to watch it right now.  I'm chasing rabbits.  Back to the mac-n-cheese!

    To make what could be a very long story short.......I burnt the roux and curdled the cheese.  You can imagine how that tasted.  Brian kept saying, "It'll be fine.  Maybe not the best, but we'll still be able to eat it."  Poor guy.  He knew it would be bad, but he hated that fact that we used one pound of cheese and four cups of dry noodles, and he was not gonna waste that!  We choked down half of our portions on our plates.  Well, we as in everybody but Wesley.  He shoveled it down and asked for more.  That kid is weird.  I finally convinced Brian that we had to toss it.  He agreed and shed a tear as I chunked it in the trash.  He's so cheap.  I vowed to never make it again.  He said I was not allowed to give up and just because we messed it up once didn't mean we could quit.  He said that since I knew what went wrong that I had to keep trying until I got it right.  Wasn't that sweet and encouraging of him.  I wanted to knock his head off.  He was supposed to say, "That darn Pioneer Woman!  Her recipe must not have been right.  She probably did it on purpose just to make you feel terrible!  We'll just stick to the boxed stuff." 

    So tonight my dear hubsband decided to make it himself.  With my limited help, of course.  And guess what.  It was good.  It needed a bit more salt, but other than that, it was really, really good.  I dislike him sometimes.  As much as I wanted to stomp to my room and pout, I seized the moment and told him how good of a cook he was and now that he gets home at 4:00 in the afternoon that maybe we could cook together and make more home cooked meals which are cheaper than boxed, convenience foods.  He smiled and told me that was a good idea.  See how I complimented him and appealed to his cheapness and in return got him to want to cook for us so I don't have to.  I'm good.

Sincerely,
A Happy Woman

P.S.  Sorry for doubting you, Ree!  I love your new Food Network show!