Comfort food at its best

I enjoy cooking. I guess that is a pretty darn good thing because we currently have 5 people to feed in this household each day, and one day sooner than I can imagine it will be six - and most of them will only start eating more than less over the next few years. I also enjoy really really good comfort food. I crave it. I think if it wasn't for really good wine (which doesn't go as well with comfort food), I would likely never wander from the comfort food or casserole recipe books.

One of the best recipes I came across in the past year was a good down-to-earth version of homemade Mac & Cheese. It came curteosy of the New York Times last January in article entitled 'THE WINTER COOK; Macaroni and Lots of Cheese' by Julia Moskin. We bookmarked the page and have made this darling several times. Must warn anyone interested in making this recipe, this is comfort food, not LOW FAT FOOD!!! This is critical as you read the recipe - the 'not low fat' milk or cottage cheese (keep going) are for a reason.

The key point to the article, in my humble opinion ... 'The moral of the story: When in doubt, add more cheese.'

Creamy Macaroni and Cheese
Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup cottage cheese (not lowfat)
2 cups milk (not skim)
1 teaspoon dry mustard
Pinch cayenne
Pinch freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 pound sharp or extra-sharp cheddar cheese, grated
1/2 pound elbow pasta, uncooked.


1. Heat oven to 375 degrees and position an oven rack in upper third of oven. Use 1 tablespoon butter to butter a 9-inch round or square baking pan.

2. In a blender, purée cottage cheese, milk, mustard, cayenne, nutmeg and salt and pepper together. Reserve 1/4 cup grated cheese for topping. In a large bowl, combine remaining grated cheese, milk mixture and uncooked pasta. Pour into prepared pan, cover tightly with foil and bake 30 minutes.

3. Uncover pan, stir gently, sprinkle with reserved cheese and dot with remaining tablespoon butter. Bake, uncovered, 30 minutes more, until browned. Let cool at least 15 minutes before serving.

Yield: 6 to 8 servings.

Of note, I hated one thing about this recipe. I see it in a few recipes, typically American-sourced, and it causes me massive confusion (and delay). Why do recipes have to say 1/2 pound of macaroni? I don't know how much 1/2 pound of macaroni is - I understand cups, I don't understand pounds. I do know a pound of rice would be a heck of lot less volume than a pound of macaroni so you can't even determine a benchmark weight/volume for one type of pasta/grain and apply it across the board. Your recipe would fail miserably.

So, to save all of you a bit of hassle. I determined, based on the serving size on the back of my macaroni package, that 1 serving size of macaroni is equivalent to 85g or 175ml of pasta. Now, of course, in Canada we measure metric so that meant you had to convert the 1/2 pound to grams ... which is approximately 225g. Applying a bit of math (I am an accountant), I decide that a factor of 3 (i.e. 3 x 85g) would yield slightly more than my require 1/2 pound of pasta and thus, 525ml would be an approximate volume. Of course, the clean 'cupper' in the closet was only an Americanized version so to translate that 525ml back to my cupper, would mean an aggressive 2 cups of macaroni should yield the required 1/2 pound for the recipe! Please, next time, just tell me 2 cups of macaroni. It would require a lot less energy.

PS - as a note, I am missing something? Is there an easier way to figure out the pound to volume conversion for macaroni?