The Joy of Making Time for Yourself: A Velveeta Story

As I sit here, surrounded by the chaos of my kitchen, I am reminded of an important lesson: making time for myself. It's easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of daily life, but taking a moment to focus on oneself is essential for growth and happiness. And what better way to do that than with a good ol' fashioned mac and cheese? My love affair with Velveeta began when I was a child, devouring boxes of Stouffer's Macaroni and Cheese in my school cafeteria. But as I grew older, I began to appreciate the versatility and magic of this iconic dairy product.

Tearing Velveeta into manageable pieces is a game-changer. Unlike regular cheese, which can be grated with ease, Velveeta's soft texture requires a gentle touch. I've seen people tear it with their fingers, and I must say, it's a technique worth mastering. When working with kids in the kitchen, this is an excellent opportunity to let them take charge of the labor. Boil pasta, drain it, and then use the same pot to make your sauce – it's as easy as that! The key to a successful mac and cheese is cooking the pasta al dente, which ensures it will hold its shape and not become mushy.

Cutting the pasta in half (or quartering it for smaller portions) may seem like an insignificant step, but trust me, it makes all the difference. This simple act allows the pasta to cook evenly and prevents it from becoming too soggy or overcooked. By cooking the pasta until it's plump and curly, you'll achieve a creamy sauce that coats each piece perfectly.

Making the Sauce: A Matter of Temperature Control

Now, on to the fun part – making the sauce! The first step is melting a stick of butter over medium heat. You want the butter to be quiet and still, with only a faint sheen to it. This tells you that it's ready to receive the flour, which will thicken the sauce beautifully. Adding half a cup of flour, cooking until smooth for about a minute, and then gradually introducing milk is the magic that creates this velvety texture.

The next step is reducing the sauce slightly by simmering it over low heat. This helps to intensify the flavors and prevents it from becoming too watery. I like to lightly coat the back of my spoon with the sauce as it cooks – a sign that it's ready for the next stage. Adding cheese, onion powder, dry mustard powder, and a pinch of cayenne pepper gives this mac and cheese its signature flavor.

Finishing Touches: The Secret to a Perfect Mac

The final step is adding the Velveeta, followed by a generous helping of grated cheddar (I like to use a mix of white and orange for that authentic Stouffer's taste). This may seem like a lot of sauce, but trust me, it's essential. By serving the mac and cheese straight from the oven, you'll achieve a creamy, bubbly top layer that complements the soft pasta perfectly.

As an adult, I wanted to recreate this beloved comfort food in my own kitchen. It was a fun challenge, as I got to experiment with different ingredients and techniques to get it just right. And let me tell you, it's worth it! This mac and cheese is a perfect blend of creamy and cheesy, with just the right amount of seasoning. When served alongside a side dish like steamed broccoli or roasted vegetables, it becomes an indulgent treat that's sure to satisfy even the pickiest eaters.

For those who grew up on Stouffer's Macaroni and Cheese, this mac and cheese may feel like a nostalgic trip down memory lane. But for me, it represents a new chapter in my culinary journey – one where I get to experiment with flavors and techniques while still honoring my childhood favorites. So go ahead, give it a try!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enit came with a spinach souffle those who love stouffers know that that's a deep cut that spinach souffle is so good um this is not about the spinach souffle though it's about the mac and cheese hi i'm eric kim i'm a cooking writer for the new york times food section today i'm making a stouffer style creamy mac and cheese if you've ever had stouffer's mac and cheese it's the wonder of it is that it stays creamy and as you're scooping it it's like still gooey it's not runny but it's not a hard set either nothing wrong with those mac and cheeses i like those too but this mac and cheese is very very very creamy and that's what's special about it i think the question might be like why am i trying to recreate this specific style of macaroni and cheese for me it does come from a pretty like emotional personal place which is just that i grew up eating this and i think it was always my idea of what a mac and cheese should be i think what makes a store for style mac and cheese really special and different from you know the regular baked mac and cheeses or even a stovetop mac is that it kind of exists somewhere in this like notional territory between the two so it's creamy and it stays creamy but it's also baked it's like a little baked at the edges and so you get the best of both worlds i think and let me tell you this is not easy to achieve i have to give credit to my food stylist friend jesse chefchek i had baked maybe like 10 mac and cheeses that day and losing my mind and i was like they're all splitting my friend jesse was like well food stylists use sodium citrate to like stabilize a mixture like that so what we're going to do is shred a bunch of cheddar and a little bit of pecorino romano but the key to keeping that voluptuous like creaminess even after the oven is is velveeta that creaminess comes scientifically from an ingredient in this product which is sodium citrate i'm going to start grating the cheeses i have a cheddar here you want like a young creamy cheese get an orange cheddar i know or not it it really doesn't matter for me it's really just i like recalling that like yellow stuffer's cheese oh my god there's so much that yeah this is like a pound of cheddar it's my favorite dish in the thanksgiving you know menu i wonder if like cooks can relate to this if you are in charge of the thanksgiving you tend to let other people's favorite dishes you know take up more space in the cooking time and so this year was about um making time for myself the velveeta it's so soft anyway you can't really grate it so you should just tear it with your fingers people always say this but if you're cooking with kids this really is the moment where you just make the kids do the labor i like to boil the pasta and then drain it and use the same pot to make my sauce i won't call this like a one pot whatever but it's um it's just i think it's easy like that so i have a pot of boiling water here and i'm gonna salt it pretty heavily like you know you really do want your pasta to be well seasoned i'm using a capitapi i love this shape i love this texture i don't know about you guys but regular elbow macaroni from the box this never never cooks up as big as a mac and cheese that you would get from a stuffer's box when this cooks up it'll be like really plump and like luscious and like uh and curly another thing that really helps you with your creaminess is making sure that your pasta is cooked all the way it's plump enough and it won't soak up as much sauce and your end result will stay creamy the next step is to cut each one in half just kidding perfect this is perfect because now i'm going to go and you know work on some other stuff but this is drying out right now which i think is really important so there's no like water in your mac and cheese now we're going to make the sauce we start with a stick of butter over medium heat you're not browning the butter you are just letting it go until it sort of like quiets down and stops sputtering so you will hear when it's ready okay that's nice and foamy quiet so now i'm gonna add the flour this is half a cup of flour and you're just cooking this until it's smooth for like a minute that looks good i'm gonna add the milk now and that's just going to bubble up and thicken a little bit this will take about two to five minutes once it comes up to a bubble so there's a funny story like the stuffer's people told me that a lot of people don't realize that their family mac and cheese is stuffers that's so funny you know when you get that family style one if you know if you know you know it comes in that aluminum tray and so it kind of just kind of looks like a church potluck dish you know but it's actually something that you got from that freezer aisle came to a simmer reducing it a little bit keep it at the simmer i think that's pretty good lightly coating the back of the spoon i would say that's lightly coating this is ready i'm going to turn it off i really want this to be off the heat when i add cheese a little vita first all that cheese regretted this will seem like way too much sauce but again like noodles or sponges and what makes a stover's mac is all the sauce so i have some onion powder dry mustard powder and a pinch of cayenne thanksgiving was a really special holiday in my family because it was the time when the parents kind of sat back and it was the time when the kids got into the kitchen and made the entire dinner you know korean kids children of immigrants we we wanted this food that we were seeing in all our coloring books and at school and on tv the stouffer's mac and cheese was the one thing that we didn't have to cook from scratch because it was already perfect you know perfect but that said as an adult i wanted to recreate it in my kitchen and i think it's like fun to as a cook to figure out why something tastes the way it does you could just serve it like this actually it'd be really delicious but um we're gonna finish it off in the oven keep in mind this is feeding it crab there's like this extra sauce on the bottom that i'm gonna spatula out and i want to pour that in there and this just goes in the oven for 15 minutes that's it 350 degrees you're not gonna see like a crusty edge browning if you want that you can it's just a really creamy mac and cheese that's like what i'm after the texture that i want i eat it with a spoon not with a fork oh yeah see that i just love how saucy that is can you see that i'm really happy with this this is exactly what i wanted so good it's super comforting and saucy and it's just so exactly what i think of as a platonic ideal of mac and cheese your family's mac and cheese might be different my family came from a box and that's still special to me you guys want to try something youit came with a spinach souffle those who love stouffers know that that's a deep cut that spinach souffle is so good um this is not about the spinach souffle though it's about the mac and cheese hi i'm eric kim i'm a cooking writer for the new york times food section today i'm making a stouffer style creamy mac and cheese if you've ever had stouffer's mac and cheese it's the wonder of it is that it stays creamy and as you're scooping it it's like still gooey it's not runny but it's not a hard set either nothing wrong with those mac and cheeses i like those too but this mac and cheese is very very very creamy and that's what's special about it i think the question might be like why am i trying to recreate this specific style of macaroni and cheese for me it does come from a pretty like emotional personal place which is just that i grew up eating this and i think it was always my idea of what a mac and cheese should be i think what makes a store for style mac and cheese really special and different from you know the regular baked mac and cheeses or even a stovetop mac is that it kind of exists somewhere in this like notional territory between the two so it's creamy and it stays creamy but it's also baked it's like a little baked at the edges and so you get the best of both worlds i think and let me tell you this is not easy to achieve i have to give credit to my food stylist friend jesse chefchek i had baked maybe like 10 mac and cheeses that day and losing my mind and i was like they're all splitting my friend jesse was like well food stylists use sodium citrate to like stabilize a mixture like that so what we're going to do is shred a bunch of cheddar and a little bit of pecorino romano but the key to keeping that voluptuous like creaminess even after the oven is is velveeta that creaminess comes scientifically from an ingredient in this product which is sodium citrate i'm going to start grating the cheeses i have a cheddar here you want like a young creamy cheese get an orange cheddar i know or not it it really doesn't matter for me it's really just i like recalling that like yellow stuffer's cheese oh my god there's so much that yeah this is like a pound of cheddar it's my favorite dish in the thanksgiving you know menu i wonder if like cooks can relate to this if you are in charge of the thanksgiving you tend to let other people's favorite dishes you know take up more space in the cooking time and so this year was about um making time for myself the velveeta it's so soft anyway you can't really grate it so you should just tear it with your fingers people always say this but if you're cooking with kids this really is the moment where you just make the kids do the labor i like to boil the pasta and then drain it and use the same pot to make my sauce i won't call this like a one pot whatever but it's um it's just i think it's easy like that so i have a pot of boiling water here and i'm gonna salt it pretty heavily like you know you really do want your pasta to be well seasoned i'm using a capitapi i love this shape i love this texture i don't know about you guys but regular elbow macaroni from the box this never never cooks up as big as a mac and cheese that you would get from a stuffer's box when this cooks up it'll be like really plump and like luscious and like uh and curly another thing that really helps you with your creaminess is making sure that your pasta is cooked all the way it's plump enough and it won't soak up as much sauce and your end result will stay creamy the next step is to cut each one in half just kidding perfect this is perfect because now i'm going to go and you know work on some other stuff but this is drying out right now which i think is really important so there's no like water in your mac and cheese now we're going to make the sauce we start with a stick of butter over medium heat you're not browning the butter you are just letting it go until it sort of like quiets down and stops sputtering so you will hear when it's ready okay that's nice and foamy quiet so now i'm gonna add the flour this is half a cup of flour and you're just cooking this until it's smooth for like a minute that looks good i'm gonna add the milk now and that's just going to bubble up and thicken a little bit this will take about two to five minutes once it comes up to a bubble so there's a funny story like the stuffer's people told me that a lot of people don't realize that their family mac and cheese is stuffers that's so funny you know when you get that family style one if you know if you know you know it comes in that aluminum tray and so it kind of just kind of looks like a church potluck dish you know but it's actually something that you got from that freezer aisle came to a simmer reducing it a little bit keep it at the simmer i think that's pretty good lightly coating the back of the spoon i would say that's lightly coating this is ready i'm going to turn it off i really want this to be off the heat when i add cheese a little vita first all that cheese regretted this will seem like way too much sauce but again like noodles or sponges and what makes a stover's mac is all the sauce so i have some onion powder dry mustard powder and a pinch of cayenne thanksgiving was a really special holiday in my family because it was the time when the parents kind of sat back and it was the time when the kids got into the kitchen and made the entire dinner you know korean kids children of immigrants we we wanted this food that we were seeing in all our coloring books and at school and on tv the stouffer's mac and cheese was the one thing that we didn't have to cook from scratch because it was already perfect you know perfect but that said as an adult i wanted to recreate it in my kitchen and i think it's like fun to as a cook to figure out why something tastes the way it does you could just serve it like this actually it'd be really delicious but um we're gonna finish it off in the oven keep in mind this is feeding it crab there's like this extra sauce on the bottom that i'm gonna spatula out and i want to pour that in there and this just goes in the oven for 15 minutes that's it 350 degrees you're not gonna see like a crusty edge browning if you want that you can it's just a really creamy mac and cheese that's like what i'm after the texture that i want i eat it with a spoon not with a fork oh yeah see that i just love how saucy that is can you see that i'm really happy with this this is exactly what i wanted so good it's super comforting and saucy and it's just so exactly what i think of as a platonic ideal of mac and cheese your family's mac and cheese might be different my family came from a box and that's still special to me you guys want to try something you\n"