Measuring help Please

[Ancient1]

Well, my girlfriend says that Mac & Cheese is her favorite, so I want to give a shot at making it without using that little blue and yellow box.

2 questions if someone can help.

The recipie calls for 5 1/2 cups grated sharp white cheddar. How much cheese is that? (besides the obvious answer of 5 1/2 cups) How much do I buy? 1 pound?

Also it says to bake in a 3 quart dish. Which is best, a 3 quart round, which seems to me to be deeper, or should I use a flatter, rectangular baking dish?

Your answers are greatly appreciated.

[Mama Mangia]

Ancient1 - You can easily do this!

#1 - grated cheese (like Kraft for example) has the measurement on the bag of how much it is (by measurement cup) so that part is easy! Buy enough bags that will add up to 5 1/2 c.

#2 - the pan you choose - remember - it will take longer to heat through in a deeper dish than a shallower one so watch your oen temp and timing!! But it does not matter - it's your choice.

Hope this helps!

Mama

[oldbay]

I'm curious about a recipe using cheese that calls for cups of cheese and doesn't say 1 pound of grated cheese. I think it's odd. Cheese is bought by the pound, not the cup.

Oh, my tire was low, so I put 34 cups of air in my car tire today.

[Mama Mangia]

LOL - 34 cups of air.........................

but I know what you mean abnout the recipe - but like I said - most shredded cheese packages have a cup measurement on them

[aeiou]

I am curious as to how many servings your mac n cheese recipe will make since 5 1/2 cups sounds like a lot of cheese. I make a homemade mac n cheese for 2 people that uses 1 - 1 1/12 cups of cheese and the recipe is really cheesy.

[Mama Mangia]

5 1/2 cups of grated cheese for a 3-qt. casserole dish - hmmmmmmmmmmm

with that much cheese what do you cook the macaroni in???? LOL

[Ancient1]

The Mac & Cheese turned out fantastic.

It ends up that 1 pound of brick grates into 4 cups of cheese. I used a rectangular baking dish. The recipie called for 4 cups of cheese with four cups of milk. The extra 1 1/2 cups cheese went on top. It called for sharp white cheddar. I could only find extra sharp white cheddar and it turned out great!

I also cooked up 5 strips of bacon then tossed in a chopped sweet onion with some fresh tyme leaves. I spread that mixture on top after I baked it to an heavenly chunchy brown. Best Mac & Cheese I have had.

Got 6 good servings out of the dish. BTW, not exactly an inexpensive meal.

Thanks for your input.

[Mama Mangia]

Ancient1 - I'm glad it turned out for you! Homemade is the only way to go with mac and cheese.

No it is not an inexpensive meal - cheese is quiet pricy and in our newspaper last night they had a large article on the front page that pizzerias will be charging more for pizzas because of the increase in cheese prices.

But what's new??? Everything is going up for one reason or another!

[aeiou]

Glad to hear that your mac and cheese turned out great. I love to use an Extra Sharp White Cheddar Cheese from Cabot when making mac and cheese because it adds so much more flavor than just regular cheddar cheese.

If milk is white and cheese is made from milk how does it cheddar cheese turn orange?

[Ancient1]

Like many cheeses, the colour of Cheddar cheese is sometimes modified by the use of food colourings. In parts of the United States and Canada, Annatto, extracted from the tropical achiote tree, is used to give Cheddar cheese a deep orange colour. The origins of this practice have been long since forgotten, but the three leading theories appear to be:

to allow the cheese to have a consistent colour from batch to batch
to assist the purchaser in identifying the type of cheese when it is unlabelled
to identify the cheese's region of origin.


For more info check go to wikipedia and look up cheddar cheese or google cheddar cheese

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