Bacon Mac

I am loving MyRecipes.com! I used to be an allrecipes.com girl (well, I still am) but this site includes recipes from several major publications including Cooking Light magazine, which I LOVE! It also has tons of food slide shows for inspiration and ideas. It's easily searchable and I have tried several recipes from it. This macaroni and cheese is one of those recipes. It came from Cooking Light and it lists the nutritional information, but it does have pasta and cheese so it's not exactly low calorie and I doubled the amount of bacon it called for so, I am not including this as a "diet" meal. But it was delicious, leftovers were good, and the picky baby ate it! I served it with the butternut squash soup for a very wholesome, well rounded meal.

Bacon Mac

This is the recipe exactly from the website. The only change that I made was I used 4 slices of bacon instead of 2. Otherwise, I followed it exactly. You can find the original posting of the recipe here. For the pasta, I used Barilla Piccolini Mini Penne.

3 1/4 teaspoons salt, divided

12 ounces strozzapreti or penne pasta

4 teaspoons all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups skim milk, divided

2 cups finely shredded sharp cheddar cheese, divided

1/4 cup sliced green onions

1 teaspoon hot sauce

1/4 teaspoon pepper

2 slices center-cut bacon, cooked and crumbled

Cooking spray

1. Preheat broiler.
2. Bring 6 quarts water and 1 tablespoon salt to a boil. Add pasta; cook 8 minutes or until al dente; drain.
3. Combine flour and 1/2 cup milk in a saucepan over medium heat. Gradually add 1 cup milk; bring to a boil. Cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat; let stand 4 minutes or until it cools to 155°. Stir in 1 1/2 cups cheese. Add 1/4 teaspoon salt, onions, hot sauce, pepper, and bacon; stir. Add pasta; toss. Spoon into a 2-quart broiler-safe dish coated with cooking spray; top with 1/2 cup cheese. Broil 7 minutes.

Milk, cheese, green onions, flour, hot sauce, salt and pepper.
The track lights in my kitchen make for a lot of shadows. I do try to avoid them as much as possible.

The cheese sauce on the stove.

Mixed up with the pasta in the casserole dish.

Topped generously with more cheese.

Out of the broiler.

Ready to eat!
I really love the crispy crust on top from the broiling process.