How to make simple mac and cheese

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease the inside of a 2 quart baking dish and set it aside. Slice the cheese. If you can, use the best cheese (cheeses) you can get.

Grate it.

Put a large pot of water on to boil, add a dash of salt. Heat 2 cups of milk in the microwave on high for about 1 and 1/2 minutes.

Melt the butter in a large skillet. When it's melted whisk in the flour. Whisk, whisk, whisk.

When it's all whisked together, slowly, a bit at a time, add in the heated milk. Keep whisking all the while. Don't stop as you don't want lumpy roux. Whisk the roux until it thickens.

Meanwhile put the pasta into the boiling water. Cook the pasta for 7 minutes. It should still be al dente as it's going to be cooked further in the oven. Then drain it and set it aside.

Stir the cheese into the thickened roux along with the salt and pepper.

Mix it together well until it's nice and smooth, then add in the pasta. Stir everything together.

Put the cheese and pasta mixture into the greased baking dish. Pop it into the oven to bake for about 20 minutes . It should be hot and bubbly when done.

Here's where it gets tricky. I wanted to show a picture of the finished dish, but before I could get Alan and his camera...It was all gone. That's him with a plate of Mac and cheese in his hand.

So that we'd have a picture, I made another batch a couple of days later and we had it for lunch. I did manage to get one picture of that. It's a tough job but somebody's got to do it.