I'm no professional. I'm just wingin' it.

How do the food bloggers do it?  You know, post regularly.  With gorgeous daylight pictures.  I'm convinced all the good bloggers don't have day jobs outside of the home.  I unfortunately have a regular ol' outside-of-the- home job and a long commute to boot.  I don't keep the camera around my neck every time I enter the kitchen.

Most cooking I do is just something thrown together to feed my hungry belly.  And that's ok!  In fact, it's great.  The ability to make something satisfying from seemingly unrelated items in your fridge, freezer, and pantry is a valuable skill. It keeps you from hitting the fast food joints.  It makes you more creative in the kitchen.  Waste not, want not, too!

Julia Child insisted that you shouldn't have to use a recipe every time you cooked.  If you had to follow a recipe every time and you never learn the basics, you'd never be able to cook.  I gave that theory a test yesterday morning.  I've made macaroni and cheese a dozen times following the America's Test Kitchen recipe.  It is luscious and decadent and a heart attack on a plate.  And all it is is a properly made mornay sauce with pre-cooked noodles. Now here are some basic definitions that sadly, a lot of people aren't familiar with anymore.   A mornay sauce is a bechamel sauce with cheese.  A bechamel sauce is milk thickened by a roux.  A roux is flour and fat mixed together into what I heard Alton Brown call "Southern Napalm".  Sauces aren't hard, right?  Um, yeah...

Here is what happened: First I boiled noodles in salted water.  When they were tender, I dumped them into a collander and melted butter in the same pot.  I hate dishes.  Then I whisked in about the same amount of flour.  Maybe too much.  Maybe I should have used a measuring spoon instead of a regular spoon.  Maybe I should have tried to add the same amount of flour each time.  It's actually supposed to be the same amount by weight, not volume.  Hm.  Oh well, let's keep going.  I added the milk off heat then brought it back to a boil to thicken.  If it was too thick, I could add more liquid.  But then I'd have too much sauce.  Too much cheese sauce?  Bah, no such thing.  Oh good, it looked right.  I added the cheese and mustard powder and salt and pepper.  Oh dear, the cheese made it thick.  Very thick.  Help, more milk!  Um...okay...this is okay.  I added the noodles.  Yeah, this is gonna be rich. 

So, in the end I had really rich and thick mac and cheese that I made all by myself.  The world didn't end,  I didn't have to crack open a blue box, my mouth was happy, and my belly was full of cheesy noodles.  Success!