The Introducteroni
An inside joke with my friends and I is that I occasionally drop "aroni", or "eroni" as a suffix into words with a similar vowel. For example, the, uh.. header up there.
It's become so ubiquitous with me, that my friend TJ and I wrote a song about it, which you can listen to here, on my SoundCloud.
Recently, they mentioned to me how I have "The Sandwich" as a signature dish, but I have no signature "aroni", I.E, Macaroni and Cheese.
So, I plan to change that. Starting today, I'm going to be making some special aronic dishes, based on original recipes, and posting the preparation and results here. This series will keep going until I've perfected Stray's Aroni.
So, let's get started, shall we?
To the kitcheroni
Today was my first attempt making my aroni. As a base, I'm using a box of Annie's Shells & Cheese, prepared with almond milk and margarine instead of cow's milk and butter, as I hate the taste of cow's milk, and prefer the easily spreadable margarine to butter.
I started by putting a skillet on the stove at medium-high heat, and placing three strips of applewood smoked bacon in it. I cooked them to be still a tiny bit chewy, with just a bit of crispiness, enough to give it a little bit of a crunch. About halfway through the cooking, I started preparing the mac and cheese itself, putting a pot on the stove with 6 cups of water in it on high heat. After that, I diced a slice of onion, and a jalapeño pepper.
After the bacon was done, I placed them on a paper towel, then rested one on top, to ensure they're not super greasy going forward. Leaving the grease in the pan, I used it to caramelize the onions and jalapeños, putting them in paper coffee filters after to soak up some of the grease, and make it easy to dump into the mac when it finished. By this time, my water had started boiling and I'd already added the pasta to it.
While waiting for the noodles to finish boiling, I cut the bacon strips by laying them out horizontally, then cutting vertically, making a lot of little strips, combining all of the ingredients into one coffee filter, keeping it on standby.
As soon as the pasta was done to my liking, I strained it and left it in the strainer for a bit while preparing the cheese sauce, doing so by adding 2 tablespoons of margarine, and 3 tablespoons of almond milk, along with the cheese mix and mixing over medium heat. Once it was combined properly, I dumped in the mac, and all of the toppings, stirring and letting it sit for 30 seconds or so on the heat, just to make sure everything's warm. And, I got this..
Let's have a taste, hm?
The conclusioroni
View attachment 274844
I quickly served myself a bowlful and dug in, aaand... I'm a little disappointed. The toppings add a lot of dimensions, but I don't think I added enough. I think another strip of bacon, another two slices of onion, and another jalapeño would do it a lot of good. However, I think a different cheese will work better with these- Probably a sharp cheddar. Next time, I'll be making my own cheese sauce, which I'll try with and without some toppings.
Welp, that was mediocre and anti-climactic. Hopefully something'll be more interesting, whether it be radically awful or radically good, next time. If there's any suggestions you guys have to incorperate into my next attempt, feel free to let me know- and if you make it for yourself, let me know how it goes, and what modifications you made if any. 'Till next time!
