Easy Way or Hard Way??

Tonight, I answered that question. At least, regarding mac and cheese. I made it the hard way. I used to think making it from scratch was the hard way. Now that food allergies and celiac have backed us into a corner on this formerly easy dish, I have found out it's not really that hard to make it from scratch after all. Except for tonight.

Here was the recipe I used:

1) Put 4 T. butter in pan to melt.

2) Do not melt butter. Instead, add arrowroot powder to cold pan.

3) Begin to panic that arrowroot powder might burn in a hot pan before the butter ever melts and attempt to remove arrowroot powder. Clean up resulting arrowroot cloud.

4) Remove butter and put in microwave to melt.

5) Blow up the butter in the microwave and spend 10 minutes cleaning out the microwave.

6) Re-melt the butter. Add to arrowroot. Add spices, being sure to add twice as much salt as needed so that you can spend a few minutes attempting to separate out excess salt and discard it. Also make sure to take the shaker top completely off of one of the spices so that it results in a mound rather than a sprinkle. Again, it will take time to remove excess spice.

7) Heat butter, arrowroot, and spices to smooth roux. Prepare to add liquid. Rapidly remove from heat once you realize you haven't grated the cheese yet. Grate cheese.

8) Put roux back on heat and add liquid. Taste test sauce as it's thickening and add slightly more onion powder. Be sure to dump the onion powder lid directly into the bubbling sauce and watch it sink.

9) After sauce is complete, pour over cooked noodles and put in oven.

That, my friends, is the hard way. It will still taste good. Homemade mac and cheese should be against the law. It's that good.