Extreme Comfort Food, From Scratch

Hello everyone!  I am happy to say Ryan and I fit in a from scratch meal this week before I headed home to the States.  Yes, that's right, I am in the US right now.  But before I could go, we had to make a delicious meal from scratch because the previous weekend was just too hectic, and I am out of town for 2 weeks, so we just had to squeeze this one in.

Comfort food can be many things to different people, but for me, my ultimate comfort food, well other than chocolate, is macaroni and cheese.  I could eat this every day, all day, and still want more.  Since I love this dish and it is such a classic, we decided to do this from scratch. 

Here are the recipes:

We started with the egg pasta dough so we could make the macaroni noodles.

Ryan did the pasta extruding, but after a few he realized that there might be a better way than the directions, which stated to let a 6-8 inch strand extrude and then use a knife to cut them.  Well, there may have been a reason for this direction, but we did it our own way instead.  After about every inch, Ryan would chop it as it was coming out and the noodles just piled up.  The machine did over heat, so we may have been asking too much, or it could be because our house is original wired for 220 and it is converted to 110 for us Americans to use!

Look how cute they are

You can't have mac and cheese without the cheese, and lots of it.  Since we had a lot of pasta, we wound up doubling the cheese sauce recipe.

The Betty Crocker recipe, which I used in my undergrad cooking class, and I think I got an A on this assignment, calls for the usual and the unusual, like worchestershire sauce and ground mustard.

In goes the flour to thicken it up.

Then the milk and cheese.  Well, some of he milk.  I made a slight oopsie and only did the amount called for in the recipe because I forgot we planned to double it, so I went back after the fact and added in some more milk.  Not the end of the world.

Oh so cheesey!

Look at my dog in the back, staring and hoping she will get some.  These noodles came out perfectly.

Boilin' time!

Could we have cut it any closer?  I thought this was going to make the biggest mess, but I managed to keep it all in there.

The next step was to get this in the oven for about 20 minutes of baking.

Since just mac and cheese may have been too rich and lacking in some nutrients, we steamed up some broccoli for the side.

Oh wow, look at that...

This wine is supposed to be award winning.  It turns out it is a sparkling wine.  It was actually very good and went well with the mac and cheese.

Dinner is served!

Seriously, it doesn't get much better than this.

This may have been the best mac and cheese I have ever had.

I am glad there was a lot leftover because I was able to leave Ryan with some dinners for the week while I am gone.  Actually I put a few containers of it in the freezer, so I hope to have some more when I get back to the island.

I am so exhausted from the flight home and then I went out to see my stepsister before she heads back to school in the morning, followed by dinner with some friends and my sister...I am just ready for bed now, so goodnight everyone.

QUESTION:  What is your comfort food?