Dangerously Cheesy Mac and Cheese

Hi there,

So I asked on my facebook for people's favorite comfort foods...the food that takes you home, when you are feeling a little down in the dumps, or even a special food that just makes you feel the warm fuzzies.  I got several ideas of things to cook in the near future, but today I was excited. I got several suggestions of homemade mac and cheese, and one person said that she loved it with bacon over the top. Today I have a new oven, and I had to get it set up to use it!  This is my Dangerously Cheesy Mac and Cheese.  I stole some ideas from Emril, although didn't follow his directions exactly.

The first thing I did was cut up a package of Low Sodium Bacon from COSTCO.  After I let it thaw I used kitchen sheers to cut it in to small pieces and threw it into a frying pan.

I fried it until crispy, and took the meat out and set it aside.  I let the pan cool a bit, and poured out the grease.  This is part of the deviation from the original recipe, my next step was adding back four tablespoons of the grease into the pan (instead of butter), put it back on low heat, and added four tablespoons of flour.  

I whisked it together, and another of my variations was adding my almond milk instead of a dairy base like cream or milk.  I was surprised how quickly it thickened up.

I grated parmesan cheese, and threw it in (maybe 1/2 a cup), along with seasonings to taste.

I whisked them all together and set the bechamel sauce aka rue, to the side for the bit, once it was nice and thick and all the cheese was melted.  

Next I grated four types of cheese in my food processor and mixed them together in a bowl.  I used Parmesan, Medium Cheddar, Pepper Jack, and Provalone.

Next I set those aside, and boiled my organic pasta from COSTCO.  

After the pasta was cooked to aldente, I added in the bechamel sauce and some of the bacon and stirred until coated.  

I stired it all together, and put a layer of noodles in my pan, and the cheese mixture sprinkled on top.  then I put another layer of noodles, and another layer of cheese, and did that one more time.  I layered it like lasagna.  Looking like this when I was done.

Then it went in the oven for about 20-30 minutes.  It goes in until the top is nice and crunchy brown.  Mine came out just a little too soon, but it turned out looking like this:

   

I opened two cans of green beans and nooked them.  Then served... 

Doesn't that look incredible?  It tasted even better...

Honestly, I had enough pasta to fill another pan half way up, and enough cheese to put on top.  I only used half of the bechamel sauce though, and unfortunately didn't do anything with it.  

It is even good for lunch today.  

Okay, now back to healthier stuff...last night ooey gooey mac and cheese just sounded amazing!  <3