The other day I randomly got a copy of the magazine “Cuisine at Home” in the mail. Basically they are trying to get me to subscribe by sending me a free copy. I’m pretty sure that they use this issue strictly to bait people into subscribing because it doesn’t have a month/year listed on it. I actually used to subscribe to this magazine but I let the subscription run out. I really do enjoy the magazine but since we moved into an apartment in the city we just don’t have the storage space that we once had. 
I chose the recipe for Mac n’ Cheese Soup for yesterday’s Souper Bowl Sunday feature. I thought it was something that was a bit different, and I happen to love Macaroni n’ Cheese. So I figured why not try it? I served it along side of some chicken strips that I made. We felt that there needed to be something else to go with the soup, so that’s what I chose. The recipe suggests serving Buffalo Chicken “Fries” but we don’t like hot sauce or anything buffalo style.
INGREDIENTS:
- 1 1/2 cups dry elbow macaroni (6 oz)
- 1/2 cup minced onion
- 1/4 cup minced celery
- 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
- 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup dry white wine
- 2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
- 1 tsp. dry mustard
- 1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg
- 1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper (I left this out since we don’t like cayenne pepper)
- 2 cups whole milk (I used mostly 2% milk – but I did have a little half & half that I needed to use up, so I added that in first and added the milk to get to 2 cups)
- 4 cups shredded sharp Cheese
- 1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
- Salt to taste
- 1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese
- 2 Tbsp. minced fresh chives
PREPARATION:
Cook macaroni in a pot of salted water according to package directions; drain and set aside.
Sweat onion and celery in butter in a large saucepan over medium heat until soft, about 5 minutes.
Stir in flour to coat and cook 1 minute. Deglaze with wine and simmer until nearly evaporated. Stir in broth, mustard, nutmeg, and cayenne. Simmer until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes, then whisk in milk and warm through. Do not let boil or base may become grainy.
Add cheddar, 1 cup at a time, allowing it to melt completely before adding the next cup. Stir in macaroni, lemon juice, and salt; remove from heat.
Combine blue cheese and chives in a small bowl. Garnish each serving with blue cheese mixture.
MY THOUGHTS:
I thought this soup was very good. You really feel like you’re eating Mac n Cheese instead of a soup. I love the tang that the blue cheese gave it. I am still not really sure how I feel about the celery yet – it had a little bit of a crunch and I don’t think I liked that. Next time I may be inclined to leave the celery out. I’d love to try it out with a little bit of carrots because I think it would give it some nice color, but since I didn’t like the crunch of the celery I probably wouldn’t like the crunch of the carrots. At at any rate, this was a pretty good soup that I’d definitely make again. Give it a try!
Related posts:
yum! looks delish!