The zen of Mac and Cheese

As you know, Theresa and I each entered the Tillamook Mac and Cheese contest with two recipes. To do this, we studies the past contest winners to get at the essense of Mac and Cheese for a base. Then we each added our own flourish.

Mac and cheese can be divided into four parts:

1) the mac
2) the sauce
3) the cheese
4) the flourish


The Mac
This is the boring part. Buy macaroni, prepare according to package directions.

The sauce
This is a fairly straight forward part of the recipe. You make a basic white sauce with 2 T each of butter and flour along with 1 cup of milk. Melt the butter, mix in the flour until the lumps are gone, then add the milk. Simmer until thick.

You can vary this with the type of milk. Also, you can add spices, but that really falls under flourish.


The cheese
Once you've made the sauce, add in the cheese you desire. Some cheeses melt better than others. You can really be creative in the types and amounts of cheese you add. Cheddar is my favorite. Gruyere never hurt anyone. Mix your cheese into the sauce slowly melting it until you have a delicious cheese sauce.

The flourish
This is your shot. Go for the gold. Everything from apples to lobster, herbs to ham; mix and match 'til your heart's content.

Check out this recipe to see if you can identify the four steps.

Mac and Cheese Mania

We decided to show our ambition last weekend. We entered the Tillamook Macaroni and Cheese recipe contest. This contest features a grand price of $5000 AND 25 lbs of cheese. (I hope they pay the cheese on the installment plan.)

Theresa and I got together this weekend and had a little Mac and Cheese throwdown. We each prepared two, two serving portion of a potential Mac and Cheese entry to the Tillamook contest. We had to follow all of the rules of the contest and present them to our panel of judges. (My poor family of guinea pigs.)

The list of contenders:

Team Theresa
Denver Omelette Mac and Cheese
Green Apples Mac and Cheese


Team Jason
Ham and Cheese Mac and Cheese
Cajun Shrimp Mac and Cheese

The tastes of my family varied so there was no consensus winner. We tweaked all of our recipes and submitted our entries Sunday night.

Photos and commentary to come.