Mac & Cheese
One of my absolute newest obsessions in food right now is the Panera Mac and Cheese. Now this is kinda a big deal. One because I grew up with the blue box and fell in love at the first bite. Even on my blog I have made some scratch mac and cheese, but still nothing beat the blue box for me. I think it is just one of those shaming culinary moments for me because I know it is all artificial, but since I have been having it for years and years, its just very dear to my foodie heart. But the moment has come when the blue box mac and cheese has been trumped by none other than a chain restaurant! CRAZY! I first got my hands on some of this mac and cheese when there were leftovers from Panera catering a meeting at school and there was just one little dish of mac and cheese sitting there, asking to be eaten. Now you couldn’t see what it looked like because it was in one of those fancy carry out containers, so I was skeptical. My first reaction was, eh, I don’t need that. But it was a particularly cold recess duty that day and the hot mac and cheese just felt right. So I go for it. I take the lid off and I was happy to see it was shell shaped mac and cheese. My favorite shape because you get more cheesy goodness with each bite. But then I noticed it was a white cheddar sauce and I got nervous… but I grabbed a fork and dug in. Words can not describe what kind of cheesy heaven I was in. It was silky, smooth, creamy, and just the right amount of tang. I was hooked. I still am! This stuff is wicked. What’s even crazier is that Panera posted the recipe so that EVERYONE can recreate it! YAY for me! So that is exactly what I did, and my results were perfect! Just like it came from the restaurant itself. Thank you Panera!
Can you see the perfect cheesy goodness? It’s like liquid gold…