Home-Style Baked Shells & Cheese

Foodista Cookbook Entry

Category: Main Dishes | Blog URL: http://chambersmade.blogspot.com/2010/02/family-motto.html

This recipe was entered in The Foodista Best of Food Blogs Cookbook contest, a compilation of the world’s best food blogs which was published in Fall 2010.


Photo: Kiera Chambers
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Ingredients

10 ounces Shells (or macaroni, whatever you have on hand or your kids like better)
1 chicken bouillon cube (optional)
1 recipe Alfredo sauce
3 cups Cheddar Cheese
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup bread crumbs
Alfredo Sauce Ingredients
2 tablespoons Butter
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese (the cheap stuff)
1 cup cup half and half (or milk will do in a pinch)

Preparation

1
Preheat oven to 375 & grease a 2 quart casserole dish.
2
Bring water to boil add chicken bouillon and shells, cook following package directions. Reserve 1 cup pasta water before draining shells.
3
Prepare Alfredo sauce (recipe follows) while shells are cooking. Melt butter in a saucepan add cheese and half and half, stir until all is melted...3 minutes.
4
Transfer the shells to the casserole dish, add the Alfredo sauce, 2 cups of the cheese, the reserved pasta water and salt & pepper, and stir until the ingredients are will combined. Cover the shells with the remaining cup of cheese, scatter the top with bread crumbs.
5
Bake until the shells and cheese are bubbly and the bread crumbs are lightly browned, 25-30 minutes, serve at once.

Tools

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About

"Everything's Beddar with Cheddar"
...("Better", for those of you who don't read "Wilson")...

And really, most everything could use some more cheddar, when a recipe calls for 1 cup, 2 cups will be better...
With a motto like this you can assume that we eat a lot of cheese over here at the ChambersMade household, and you would be correct...
We love cheese on eggs, cheese on English muffins (thanks to my college roommate, Susan), cheese with nuts, cheese with fruit, cheese on veggies, cheese and crackers, grilled cheese, and of course Mac and Cheese. With all the cheese in our life/menu you'd think I would have discovered the best mac and cheese recipe. But, you'd be wrong, the kids still prefer the kind in the blue box (oh, don't judge, you know you have a box in your pantry!)
So how come I can never find a homemade Mac & Cheese that we all like...

Well, the search for the ChambersMade Shells & Cheese is over...
I found the recipe and I'm sticking to it. I took a different recipe that called for 1 jar of store bought Alfredo Sauce and modified it, changing a few ingredients, making my own Alfredo and I found it...
the best Shells and Cheese that we as a family have EVER had...
and sadly, no leftovers! It was THAT good...I really wanted some the next day for lunch and we had scraped the pan clean the night before...possibly a ChambersMade first!

Yield:

4.0

Added:

Friday, February 19, 2010 - 7:53am

Creator:

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