Macaroni & Cheese

Ingredients:
1 pound macaroni
1/2 lb shredded cheese – colby jack mix
1/4 lb smoked cheddar cheese
2 cans (10 3/4 oz) Campbell’s® Cheddar Cheese Soup
2 cups homogenized milk
1 can (10 oz) Ro*Tel® Original Diced Tomatoes & Green Chilies, undrained
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tbl seasoning salt

Directions:
Bring 5 quarts of salted water to a rolling boil in at least a 6 quart pan. Most pastas cook in 8-12 minutes, but I prefer macaroni and cheese to be very soft, so I boil them for at least 15 minutes, and then leave them in the hot water until I am ready to use them.

In a 4 quart sauce pan on medium heat combine the milk, garlic powder, seasoning salt and Campbell’s Soup. Slowly add the shredded cheese and smoked cheese a handful at a time, stirring until completely melted.

Drain the macaroni, and in a large bowl combine the macaroni, Ro*Tel and melted cheese mixture. Stir until combined and let stand 5 minutes before serving.

As an alternative, you could now put this in a casserole dish and sprinkle with a handful of shredded cheese and/or goldfish cracker crumbs and bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

Grandma info – Cant see more than 4 pictures? Click on the title link above or here to enter this post and see all of the pictures.

3 cups sugar
1 cup milk
1/4 cup corn syrup
1/8 tsp salt
4 tbsp butter
2 tsp vanilla
1 or 2 jalapeños, stemmed and seeded
green food coloring (if desired)

Equipment:
Candy thermometer
3 qrt heavy saucepan
9″ x 9″ square cake pan, greased
small bowl of cold water
sturdy mixing spoon
beating helper
large towel

Put milk and jalapeños in blender until liquefied. Combine milk mixture with corn syrup, sugar and salt in saucepan. Mix well. Cook over medium heat stirring until mixture dissolves. If sugar crystals form on the side of the pan wipe them off back into the mixture. Put in the candy thermometer in and stop stirring once it starts to boil. Cook at a fairly low boil until in reaches 236 to 239 degrees. (called the soft ball stage). Test the candy by dropping a small amount off of a teaspoon into the bowl of cold water. If it immediately form a soft ball in is at the right temperature, if it flattens out and dissolves, it needs to cook a little longer for a a few more degrees.

Once it has gotten to the soft ball stage, remove it from the stove, and place the pan on the towel. After it stops boiling, place the butter gently on the top of the fudge, allowing it to melt and form a thin layer of oil across the whole surface of the pan. Remove the candy thermometer and clean it to make it easer to read. Reinsert it, and let the fudge cool, undisturbed, until it reaches 110 degrees.

At 110 degrees add the vanilla and 2 or 3 drops of green food coloring if desired. Beat the fudge with a clean, strong spoon until the candy looses it’s gloss and starts to thicken (anywhere from 3 to 8 minutes), well past when you think your arm will fall off. Trade off with someone else to help. It will suddenly start to thicken, and then become really thick. You want to try to get it into the cake pan just as it is thickening, but if it starts to set up in the pan you are stirring, you can still spread it out into the cake pan. If you stop stirring to early the fudge will crystallize and become as hard as a rock.

Cool until firm and then up in to 1” pcs. Store in an air tight container.

Tips
If your fudge crystallizes and is as hard as a rock. You can recook it with a little bit of milk, and go through all of the steps again.

Using the spoon that you cooked with without cleaning it will re-introduce sugar crystals to the fudge, and will make it crystallize.

This recipe is a basic fudge recipe, you could use it to make chocolate fudge, replacing the jalapeños with 2 oz of unsweetened bakers cocoa, or peanut butter fudge with 1 cup of peanut butter(but put the peanut butter in at the end with the vanilla)

Mae laughs at anything that Sam does. Michelle and I have to really work to get just a giggle out of her, she really loves her brother! Check out this video!

So last night he made his own costume out of his “big shoes”, the yellow chair and an easter basket (it is round like the thing in Ironman’s chest).