Mostly Healthy Macaroni and Cheese

I'm actually not a fan of mac and cheese.  The Kraft Blue Box Mac and Cheese (known, for all you Americans, as Kraft Dinner in Canada).  The super orange color and the fact that it is made primarily from a powder sort of sicks me out.  In recent years, however, I've discovered homemade macaroni and cheese, made with real ingredients, not with powder.

And tonight I made some.

So, this is basically what I made the dish out of.  Whole wheat pasta, evaporated milk, cauliflower, onion, three types of cheese, and bacon.  There is a little more involved here and there.

 First, I mixed the evaporated milk and an egg together.  I added some salt, pepper, chili powder, and nutmeg.

 Next, I cooked the entire package of bacon.  My favorite (and the easiest option, in my opinion) way to cook bacon is in the oven.  Put some aluminum foil on a pan, lay out the bacon, heat up the oven to 375* and cook for 20-25 minutes.  No mess and no bacon grease jumping out of the pan and burning your arm.

 While the bacon was cooking, I sliced up an onion.  Melt some butter, olive oil, and just a bit of balsamic vinegar in a pan, add the onions and cook on low until the onions are limp and brown.  It's quite like caramelizing, but I'm not sure I did it quite right. I had them on the stove for almost 40 minutes.  They turned out delicious.  I also had the cauliflower boiling for that long.  I wanted it to be as tender as possible. Once the onions and bacon were done, I chopped them roughly.

While all this was happening I shredded up three types of cheese: a moist aged white cheddar, a dry parmesan, and goat cheese which was quite wet.  Yup, its a lot of cheese.

 After boiling and draining the box of noodles, I used the same pan to make the sauce.  The milk/egg mixture and the cheese take a while to melt when you keep it on a low setting, but the tastes blend together so delightfully. Once all the cheese was melted, I put the cheese mixture and the boiled cauliflower into my blender and mixed it all up until it was relatively smooth.

 I added put the mixture back into the pan, added the noodles, bacon, onions, and some frozen peas.  I put it all in a casserole pan, popped in the oven at 350* for ten minutes just to make sure it was all cooked.

All in all, it was delicious.  It also makes a ton.  I've got enough to make several meals of leftovers.  And it's got a pretty healthy dose of vegetables in it.  And who doesn't love anything that contains bacon?