Mac and Cheese by Sarah Weeks

Skill Level: Intermediate

The story this week is one of the I Can Read books from Scholastic.  This is a beginning reading level so I thought it would be a lot of fun to see just how much the eldest grandson could read.  He did a great job sounding the words and if I had to help with a word, he recognized it the next time it showed up in the book. 

 
Mac and Cheese is about two cats who are so different that you wonder how they ever became friends.  Not only friends, but the best of friends.  By the end of the story, you understand that it isn’t always necessary to be the same, if you enjoy being together, you can be friends.

 The menu was so obvious that I thought I should really try to show the moral of the story with this one.  I wanted to show how mac was good, cheese was good, but together, they were really good.  It worked.

I made up a portion of a recipe of pasta dough (1 cup flour, 1 extra large egg, some salt, about a tsp of water) and set that aside to rest.

 One of the fastest melting cheeses is Velveeta.  I needed a fast melting cheese because I was making Cheese (the cat) out of cheese, Mac (the cat) out of pasta, and then pouring a hot sauce over them to help melt it all together into a friendship.

So I took pre-sliced Velveeta since it’s much thinner than I could ever slice it and then dredged the slices in flour to keep the Cheese (the cat) from sticking together.  Just to add a bit to the flavor, I added some sweet Hungarian paprika and some smoked Spanish (hot) paprika to the flour.  Using a cat shaped cookie cutter, I cut 3 slices of Velveeta cats for each plate. This might be a good activity for your grandchildren, but knowing mine, I know I’d never have any Cheese (the cat) for any plate. They’d eat them as soon as they cut them.

 I saved the “voids” or uncut cheese parts and the dredging mixture for the sauce. 

 

Next came the salad.  I wanted to make sure the boys got a lot of protein so I topped some beautiful red leaf lettuce with some light red kidney and black beans as well as some shelled edamame.  I added some crumbles of boiled egg and topped the whole thing with a very light sprinkling of soy sauce and rice wine vinegar.

 

I wanted a crispy garnish that tied to the story, so I made some baked Parmesan crisps in the shape of cat’s heads and added chive whiskers.  Using my largest biscuit cutter (3” diameter), I filled the round shape with about 3 tablespoons of pre-shredded Parmesan. I added a bit more to shape some ears once I removed the biscuit cutter and then added my chive whiskers.  These baked in a 350 degree oven for about 5 minutes.  Keep an eye on them, though, they burn quickly.

 

 

Now that my pasta dough had rested, I rolled it out as thin as I could and using my smallest round biscuit cutter (about 1” diameter), I cut a bunch of pasta circles.  Then, holding the pasta disc in one hand, I dampened an edge, about 1/3 of the circumference of the circle with water.  I then pinched two ears on that dampened edge.  This leaves a little cup shaped depression to collect sauce, while looking somewhat like a cat (Mac).

 

While the water boiled for the pasta, I started the sauce, melting 3 tablespoons of unsalted butter, adding 3 tablespoons of the dredging mix (safe because it only touched the cheese, no meats), and stirred, creating a roux.  The paprika that was added made this a nice orange/red color.  I then added about a cup of milk and the cheese voids to let those melt.

 

 

Once the Mac (the cat) and sauce were done, I finished the plates.  I added the Mac (the cat) so the Mac (the cat) and Cheese (the cat) were clearly distinct on the plate, but then as I poured the sauce over them and had the boys stir, it all came together in a story.

 

Our dessert was our normal standby – fruit (strawberries, bananas),  nuts (pecans) and pie crust cinnamon cookies.

 

 

Title	Mac and Cheese
Author	Sarah Weeks
Illustrator	Jane Manning
Publisher	Scholastic Books
Highlights /Tie in	Cats, Title (Mac and Cheese), Not the same, but together = GREAT
Reactions to the Book	·         So Mac and Cheese are friends Grummy.  They sit together. ·         That’s like at lunch Grummy.  We sit together at lunch with our friends.  It’s better that way. ·         That’s another blue hat
Meal	·         Mac and Cheese – Pasta “Mac” and Velveeta “Cheese”, beschamel ·         Salad, multi bean and egg protein salad ·         Dessert – Strawberries, bananas and pecans with Cat piecrust cookies
Reactions to the Meal	·         The boys loved watching me pour the sauce over their cats, then they had to mix them ·         SCHEEEEZE ·         The dressing on the salad wasn’t that big a hit (soy sauce and rice wine vinegar), but the beans were. ·         We need a book called Tuna Salad, Grummy.

 

It feels good to cook the books!