Kale Mac and Cheese

I have been craving mac and cheese for weeks, so this weekend, I finally decided to make a batch.

My thoughtful husband bought me two tickets to see Giada's cooking demonstration at the Metropolitan Cooking and Entertaining Show this past weekend. My friend, Allison, came with me and we had a great time sampling cupcakes, cheese, granola, iced coffee, flavored olive oil and vinegars, peanut butter - you name it! After watching Giada's presentation, I was starving and started to work on this mac and cheese as soon as I got home.

I followed a recipe from a blog named The Kitchen Sink Recipes. I didn't have any goat cheese on hand (or any cheese other than a block of extra sharp cheddar and a tiny bit of Parmigiano-Reggiano for that matter), so I just used a larger quantity of cheddar. The resulting cheese sauce was (unsurprisingly) pretty one-note, and I was too impatient to get the sauce to thicken (I was whisking for 10 minutes!), so it wasn't thick and creamy. But, the kale worked wonderfully with the baked pasta and because I am all alone, I got to pick out each and every bit of browned crispy rigatoni sticking up out of the pan. Actually, I have been wanting to try this baking sheet mac and cheese from Food 52 because the crunchy pieces are my favorite!

Ultimately, this fulfilled my craving, but in the future, I think I would find a different mac and cheese recipe I liked and just add kale to it.