Baked Macaroni and Cheese

Everyone should know how to make a good Macaroni and Cheese. And I'm not talking about the Kraft box kind. As my numerous followers know, I like food with a little kick to it. This Mac and Cheese recipe has just that. Plus, broccoli adds vitamins or nutrients... or whatever you call that healthy stuff I'm not getting out of my nutella jar. This recipe, like 80% of my blog, is based on a recipe of my Mom's. I just started adding cherry tomatoes which I think adds great color and flavor. I figured tomato slices are delicious in grilled cheese sandwiches... so they would taste just as good in Macaroni and Cheese.

The prep time for this dish is a little longer than my usual items but because of that this recipe leaves leftovers. What you do tonight you don't need to do tomorrow.



Before getting out anything, start boiling water because you need cooked macaroni elbows for the recipe.

1. cook about 10oz of elbow macaroni.
2. While cooking the pasta add the following ingredients into a large mixing bowl:
16 oz container of onion dip (I usually end up only adding roughly 10oz, I don't like it overly sour)
12 oz of cottage cheese
2 whisked eggs
8-16 oz of once frozen now thawed broccoli spears. I break it into smaller sections.
2 cups of FRESHLY grated cheddar cheese. I did this once with the easy stuff already shredded in a bag--big mistake. The fresh stuff makes a big difference.
1-2 tsp of crushed red pepper, depending on how hot you like it
more than a handful of rinsed cherry tomatoes.

Once the macaroni is cooked, start preheating the oven to 350 for baking and drain the pasta and add it to the above mixture. Mix everything all together and place into a glass baking dish. I actually use two dishes when I do this. We eat one the night we make it and the second dish is for leftovers.




Melt a tablespoon or so of butter and sprinkle this on top with some bread crumbs.

Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes. If you fill one dish to the top you may want to cook it longer, but if you have two dishes with a thinner amount less time would be fine. You want the dish to still be soft.

Enjoy!