Holiday Potluck

It was 9 degrees F. on my thermometer when I woke up (this was later verified by the TV Weather). To put that in perspective, the average low temperature for the whole month of December here in Southeast Michigan is 22 degrees F.!

I took the inner part of the slow cooker from the fridge and put it back in the outside. I set it on the floor by the passenger front seat of the car and off to work I went (thanking God for the seat warmers, lol!) (Hey, wait a minute.. Do you smell bacon?)

So, here's how a little thing called work did me in... I plugged in the slow cooker in my office and turned it on low at 7:30 AM. It needs to cook for 3 1/2 hours. In spite of my having 11:30 to 1:00 blocked off in my calendar (which anyone can view), a guy in Manufacturing sets up a meeting with me at Building 28 at 10:30 AM. A scrap dealer will meet us in the lobby and we will travel to Building 50 to inspect some parts from a program I ran a few years back. He said it was really important I be there, (true, I am probably one of the few people left who worked on that program) but assured me I would be back by 11:30 AM.

So, macaroni will over cook by 1/2 hour. Will that be a problem? I dunno. But, work comes first, so I head over there. Our guy's there, scrap guy's not. He calls; he's caught in traffic and will be 15 minutes late. He finally shows and we head over to Building 50. This stuff is in an unheated, unlit warehouse, on the second floor. So, I'm walking all over hell and creation and up and down concrete steps. Now my knees start aching...

He finally get all the information from me and I leave Building 50, heading back to Building 47 to pick up the slow cooker and then to Building 12 for the luncheon. It's noon, the mac & cheese has overcooked for an hour now and by the time I get there, everyone has already filled their plates and is eating. I know that if I would have had it on the serving table when people started, a LOT more of it would have gotten eaten. All I can do now is rely on the people who get seconds and/or people who are curious about the taste (a lot of folks near my office came in and asked about the wonderful cooking smells this morning). But, I know, I KNOW, I am gonna get stuck with a LOT of leftover mac & cheese!

But, let's talk about taste and texture. Taste was fine (I got a LOT of thumbs up from the staff who tried it). Texture, hmmm, well, the noodles were not soggy (thank God I undercooked them initially). But the sauce was too wet. As Jake pointed out, in the oven recipe, you remove the tinfoil during the last stage to brown the cheese on top, right? Well, that allows the sauce to reduce some. With the slow cooker, the lid trapped all the steam. I should have removed the lid for the last 1/2 hour or so. Or, used the new technique I learned tonight!

You see, after the luncheon, I put the slow cooker in my car and left it in there for the afternoon (the high was only 34 degrees F. so the car became, in fact, a fridge). When I got home, I plugged it back on low to reheat for dinner. Then, I went and changed my furnace filters and started the wash. I decided that, after Wednesday night's cooking marathon, those are the only two chores I am doing tonight.

So, I take out some ham and slice it, then warmed it in the frying pan. Then I dig out some mac & cheese and, guess what? The sauce is perfect! Although, the elbow macaroni is now overcooked. So, I think the lessons learned here is to cook it, say, 3 hours the night before, refrigerate it, and then reheat it for another half hour before serving. See, this is why I HATE to make and serve something without having previously made it before.

Anyway, I watched "The Ninth Gate" with Johnny Depp (a horror movie) again until 10:00 PM, then switched to reading until I fell asleep. I'm pretty sure my nightmares were caused by watching a scary movie, but it may have been an overload of mac & cheese, too.