This time I used two different goat cheeses for about half the cheese and various cheddars for the rest.  Goat cheese is too dry to use alone, swiss cheese also works well, mozarellas are too stringy.

1 pound macaroni cooked until just barely done.
3 cups grated cheeses
1.5 cups of milk or cream
1 large tablespoon of flour
bread crumbs
1/2 stick of butter

Add the flour to the milk and mix well.

Add the milk mix and cheese to a sauce pan and cook over a very low heat until the cheese is melted stirring occasionally.

Drain the cooked noodles well and put them back into the pot.

Add the melted cheese to the noodles and mix really well.

Put the noodles and cheese in a casserole dish. ( 9″x13″x3″ works well )

Melt the butter and add the bread crumbs, a couple of large heaping spoons of grated Paremsan work well in the topping also.

Sprinkle the butter and bread crumbs over the top of the macaroni.

Bake at 350′ about 30-40 minutes until heated through ( shallow pans will cook faster than taller ones.

I also add cut up leftover ham, and or cut up sundried tomatoes and roasted peppers if I have any left in the fridge.

Macaroni and cheese dishes are listed in Italian cookbooks as early as the mid 1200s.  It has a long history in Massachusetts and in Connecticut as cheese pudding.  You’ll often see it listed in older New England cookbooks as cheese pudding.

Later Thomas Jefferson encountered it in Europe and brought it back to Virginia.

Kraft brought us their Kraft dinner macaroni and cheese in 1937. During WWII mac and cheese became a staple in the US diet.

Preheat oven to 350′

3 pieces cooked white fish (~1 lb) (I just microwaved frozen white fish for 5 mins )
Cooked white rice ( 1 cup white rice, 2.5 cups water microwave for 20 mins.)
2 Tbls butter melted
1/2 cup milk
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
1.5 tsp curry

Oil the bottom of a casserole dish
Spread white rice over the bottom of the casserole dish
Mix fish, butter, milk, soup, cheese, curry in a bowl
Spread fish mixture over the rice
Bake for 30 mins.
Serves two as a meal, 4 or more as a side dish

A casserole originally meant a molded rice dish filled with meat and baked, later it came to mean many different things depending on the local cuisine.

Mix 1/2 cup wild rice and 1/2 cup white rice in a bowl
Add 2.5 cups water and microwave ~20 minutes until tender

1/2 – 3/4 of a leftover roasted chicken

Separate meat from bones and cut into bite sized pieces
Put meat into large bowl

Add one can cream of mushroom soup
Add 1/2 bunch diced celery
Add 1 cup sour cream
Add some diced scallions or onions
Add 2 Tablespoons mustard
Add 1 Tablespoon capers
Add 1 Tablespoon dill
Mix well

Oil a 9×13 pan well
Layer rice on bottom of pan
Layer chicken mixture on top of rice
Sprinkle 1 cup almond slivers over top

(may be refrigerated a few days before cooking/serving)

Bake at 350 ~45 minutes until warm throughout.

In 1950 80% of chickens were ‘free range’ today only 12%, but this is up from a low in 1980 during which only 1% of chickens were ‘free range’.