Wandering Chopstick's Macaroni & Cheese

When we had just bought a block of cheddar cheese and I saw that Wandering Chopsticks posted a new recipe for her macaroni and cheese, I just knew that I had to make it. I've never made a bechamel sauce before and I've never made homemade stovetop mac 'n cheese, but her recipe looked yummy and approachable for a rookie like me.



I jazzed up my mac 'n cheese with some dijon mustard and sriracha and used whole wheat fusilli pasta. I loved how the pasta shape has crevices for the sauce to stick to. I don't care too much for the texture of whole wheat pasta, but if I'm eating it with a sauce so rich, might as well get something relatively healthy in there. Or maybe since I'm eating something so rich, might as well go all the way and use regular pasta? haha. Oh well, doesn't really matter! I halved the recipe and froze a couple of servings.

Pre-Halloween party. My cousins have the cutest kids! This is seconds before I scared the crap out of them

I was afraid that I'd get a grainy texture in my sauce, but I simmered it long enough and it turned out smooth. I also got to use my Harzler Dairy milk which is great because we don't drink that much milk and I needed to use it up somehow. For the past couple of months, I've started to drink locally produced, non-homogenized milk which is supposed to be better tasting and better for you than mass-produced homogenized milk. First I tried Snowville Creamery's milk and that was pretty good. But I'm going to stick with Hartzler because I like their glass bottles. The only thing I don't like about the glass bottles is the spout...it does a messy job of pouring.

Oh yeah, I got 3 more finches to keep Petrie company. Each of them are a different mutation. Only Petrie has the normal gray mutation. They're only a few months old, so I'm pretty sure once I put them together with Petrie, he'll make sure that they'll know who's boss.




I've also learned how to shoot a gun. It's SO loud!! Yeah, my posture is horrible, haha.