Macaroni with Four Cheeses

Today we are making a slow cooker recipe for Macaroni with Four Cheeses.  This is a splurge recipe, because of the cheeses it calls for.  Gruyere is an expensive but delicious cheese that melts wonderfully and since this is our first time making it we didn't want to skimp.  Many homemade mac and cheese recipes will just call for Cheddar, and so I think this can be adapted to be a lot cheaper.

Here's the breakdown with the grocery store costs of what we bought:

Tools:

A pot

A slow cooker

Ingredients

1 lb elbow macaroni  $1.59

half a stick of butter ~$0.50

4 tbsp of flour

4 cups evaporated milk (the kind from a can, about 3 cans worth)  $3.75

1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 tsp mustard

1 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp  ground pepper

12 oz (3/4 lb) of sharp Cheddar, shredded (I like the higher end kind) $6.00

8 oz (1/2 lb) of Gruyere, shredded $9.00

1 can (14 oz) diced tomatoes, drained $1.00

8 oz fresh mozzarella $4.00

1 cup breadcrumbs

1 oz (1/4 cup) grated Parmesan   (or get bread crumbs with parmesan already mixed in)

Okay so right off the bat you're looking at this and thinking "$20 of cheese ain't exactly cheap!"  And it isn't, but the cheese part of this is the 'spare no expense' element of the recipe.  We can substitute less expensive cheeses (Swiss for Gruyere for example, and buy lower end Cheddar, a bag of shredded mozzarella instead of fresh, etc) and the price can come down.  But today we wanted to go big since it's Sunday dinner.

The other thing is, this makes TWELVE CUPS (!!) so we are going to have leftovers for sure.  So this is dinner tonight for two plus two or three lunches, assuming I keep to my New Year's resolution of eating more reasonable portions...  Break it down and we're talking $5 a meal, even after making some kind of vegetable side (Caramelized Brussel Sprouts sound pretty good).

So all in all this is a flexible recipe in terms of cost and it will keep on giving in the form of leftovers, which is budget-friendly.

On to the instructions:

Boil the macaroni until it's just getting al dente.  Rinse it off with cold water and drain it off to the side.

Melt the butter in the pot and stir the flour in, letting it cook for a couple minutes.

Then add the evaporated milk and stir until it boils (the recipe calls for evaporated milk because regular milk would curdle in the slow cooker).

Add the Worcestershire sauce, mustard, salt and pepper.

Turn off the heat and stir in the Cheddar and Gruyere.  KEEP STIRRING!  If you let it sit for even a little bit, the cheese can start to burn and you get black chunks that although they remain delicious are not appetizing.

Mix the macaroni in with the cheese sauce.

Spray a light coating of cooking spray on the slow cooker pot.

Add half the macaroni and cheese mixture to the slow cooker.

Layer the drained diced tomatoes on top.

Layer the Mozzarella on top of that.

Put the other half of the macaroni and cheese mixture on top of that.

Mix the Parmesan and bread crumbs together and sprinkle it over the top (we added some extra bread crumbs to make it extra crunchy).

Set the slow cooker on Low for 4-5 hours, and then eat!

Update:  This turned out tasty (although I might add some spices next time) and we've got probably 7-8 servings packed up in our fridge now, which I am about to eat one of for lunch. So plenty to go around, which definitely cuts down on the cost factor.