Crock Pot Macaroni and Cheese

Ok, so anyone who knows my husband knows that he is a macaroni and cheese addict. When we first moved here to Bahrain, the NEX was out of Velveeta Shells & Cheese for like 2 months and so when we finally moved into our flat, we had my mom mail us a package of like 6 boxes of it! Needless to say, as soon as we got the box open, the water was already boiling because someone just happened to have a craving for some macaroni and cheese.

I do like a good macaroni and cheese every now and then as well. I can pair it with so much and it is such an easy thing to make. Well, I generally like to make mine from the actual block of Velveeta and milk instead of using the little packet of cheese inside the pre-made stuff, but macaroni is macaroni in my eyes. As long as it doesn’t taste all gross and powdery that is.

The recipe on the blog today did not actually come from Pinterest. I know, I know. We are all surprised. Now, I am sure this recipe is on Pinterest now and I actually pinned it to my crock pot board so I know for a fact that it is at least on there now, but I did not go looking for it on Pinterest.

I was actually watching The View. Yes, we actually get that over here on the normal cable and it generally shows the episode that aired in the States the day before. So it has become one of the few ways that I stay up to date on news stories. Well, Trisha Yearwood happened to be on this episode and I have loved her ever since I was a kid. I mean, what is there not to love about a woman who does not try to fit into a size 0 pair of jeans all the time and can belt out an awesome song. (Yep, that’s right there is nothing not to love about her.) She was talking about her cooking show, which was news to me since my Food Network feed doesn’t work here, and her cookbook. She made this macaroni and cheese for the co-hosts on The View and told them it was made in the crock pot. Yep, as soon as she said those words, I was on Google looking for the recipe.

Well I found the recipe here: http://fullbellies.blogspot.com/2010/04/crockpot-macaroni-and-cheese.html and made a few variations of my own.

I made this for dinner last night and I am pretty sure my husband has found a new recipe for me to make for Command cook-outs and stuff. He was even caught a few times sneaking tastes from the crock pot itself.

I apologize now that there are no pictures for this recipe. You can see how yummy this recipe looks after it is done if you go to the source that I linked you to on here. (I promise to get better on this whole taking pictures thing eventally.)

Crockpot Macaroni and Cheese

Ingredients:

*8 ounces elbow macaroni, uncooked (Yes, I said uncooked and yes, I said only 8 ounces of macaroni. I didn’t think this would be enough when I looked at all the other ingredients, but it wound up being perfect.)
*1 12 ounce can evaporated milk
*1 ½ cups whole milk (I am sure you could use other milk if you want, but it will not make the cheese mixture as thick)
*2 large eggs, beaten (A great way to sneak in eggs if you can’t get your kids to eat eggs normally.)
*1/4 cup butter, melted
*1 8 ounce brick sharp cheddar cheese, grated
*1 12 ounce brick medium cheddar cheese, grated (Yes, I am aware that 12 ounce bricks of cheese are not common, but I used a 16 ounce brick and chopped off a quarter of the brick before I started grating the cheese.)
*Cooking spray

Directions:

In a crockpot that you have sprayed with cooking spray, mix the macaroni, both types of milk, eggs, butter, and almost all of the grated cheese. (The original recipe calls for you to leave out ½ a cup of the grated cheese, but I just eyeballed this.)

Sprinkle the reserved cheese over the top of the mixture. Cook on low for 3 hours and 15 minutes.

**NOTE: You will notice that the original recipe calls for salt, pepper, and paprika and my recipe does not call for any of that. I do not generally cook with salt and pepper and I am not actually a huge fan of paprika so I decided to omit all that from the recipe. You may think that this would make it bland, but it did not affect the taste of the macaroni at all.**

Turn off the crock-pot after the 3 hours and 15 minutes, cut into the mixture and serve hot. 

**NOTE: The original recipe says to stir the mixture, but my husband and I found that it was very easy to just slice through the top layer of cheese and fill up the serving spoon with the macaroni mixture that was at the bottom.**

My thoughts on this recipe:

This recipe was amazing and was so good. Yes, it is still quicker and probably a little easier to make macaroni and cheese on the stove-top (especially if you are making the boxed kind.) This recipe just tasted so much better! I will definitely be making this recipe more often because of the fact that it tasted so much better than the stove-top macaroni that I normally make.

This recipe would be great to take to a potluck event. The eggs and all the milks that are inside of the macaroni mixture actually make this into a bulkier meal than it would normally be and that would help this meal to spread to more people!