I don’t know what it is about winter, but it’s next to impossible to avoid calorie-laden comfort food… My personal achilles heel is macaroni and cheese. Right now on the magazine newsstands, you can see multiple magazine covers (Real Simple, Eating Light) all with images of macaroni and cheese on the cover… All these recipes promise “light” recipes (i.e., low-calorie). Being a fan of the indulgent, cheesy pasta bake, I’ve scoured these recipes only to find them filled with verboten ingredients such as “light sour cream” and “cauliflower”. Hello? Cauliflower in my mac n’cheese? 
At Home & Country, comfort food has been a common theme for our food section. We work with an incredible recipe developer (Claire Stubbs used to be the head chef at the now-defunct Mildred Pierce on Niagara St.) and she has come up with a few cheesy recipes to update the basic mac and cheese. On a recent photo shoot for our from scratch section, she developed a recipe for Baked Pasta with Mozzarella, Tomatoes and Turkey Sausage. Now, not exactly macaroni and cheese, but this dish was decadent. I’ve enclosed some (albeit not-flattering) shots of us at the food shoot. 
In the photos you can see Claire, executive editor Suzanne Moutis (an equally serious proponent of all pasta and cheese combos) and myself. You can also see photographer Edward Pond’s assistant at the head of the table. We usually fight about who gets to take the leftovers home from a food shoot - in this case, everything got eaten! The recipe is in the Feb/March issue of Canadian Home & Country and I encourage you to make it… If you’re up for a BASIC mac and cheese recipe, I’m going to include mine here. There are no measurements (I do it from eye) but it gives you the basic idea. I start with making a basic bechamel sauce. The special flavour trick I use is to add some ground white pepper and a tablespoon or so of dijon mustard. Then you have to use a combination of grated cheeses (a great way to get rid of leftover bits and pieces in your fridge). Several cheeses I always try to make sure I have on hand for mac n’cheese are emmenthal and/or gruyere. They both add that bit of a kick that takes a basic mac and cheese and turns it into something special. Add as much as you want to make it extra cheesey (at this point, there’s no need to worry about calories).Cook your macaroni noodles to al dente and then stir them into an oven-proof dutch oven with the bechamel and grated cheese. Bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees. Later this week, I will include a link for one of Claire’s unbelievable recipes for mac and cheese. Enjoy
