Mama's Mac + Cheese // Recipes

    Moving away from my mom has been hard for so many reasons, but one of the biggest is that I miss her home cooked meals more than I can even put into words. My mom is a genius when it comes to food. Living with her cooking for almost 20 years was the greatest, but then having to cook for myself every night is the biggest pain in my butt. Thankfully my mom is wonderful and taught me how to cook from a very early age and she also shares all her recipes with me, and I thought I would share some of my favourites with you over the next little while. This week I made mac and cheese, which honestly tastes like actual heaven and it's also pretty cheap to make which I definitely appreciate now that I live on my own.



What you need:
5 strips of bacon
1 small onion
1 can of Campbell's condensed cheese soup
2 cans of mushroom soup
1/2 of whole tomatoes
1-2 tbsps of black pepper
2-3 drops of liquid smoke
1 bag of macaroni
2 cups of shredded cheese
750 ml of milk


   First of all, preheat your oven to 400F (does anyone else forget to preheat every. single. time?!) In a large pot, boil water for the macaroni. Then in a pan, fry your bacon, and while it's cooking, chop up your onions - the size depends on how you like them, I like onions so I chop them up pretty small, but my mom usually leaves them a bit bigger so that my sisters can pick them out. When the bacon is cooked, take it out and lay it on some paper towel and put your onion in the pan and fry it with the bacon grease.

     In a large bowl, mix together the cheese and mushroom soups, the tomatoes (you can cut them in half if the you think the whole tomatoes are too big!), and the liquid smoke - this can get super overpowering so make sure you use 3 drops max! When the water has boiled, add the macaroni and cook it, probably around 8 minutes. While that's cooking, you can cut up the bacon and add it and the onions into the bowl. After the mac has cooked, strain it and pour it into the bowl. Mix it all together while adding in the milk slowly. You want it to be a bit milky when it's done because it will soak up in the oven. Add in the pepper slowly and taste as you go so you don't add too much.

     After everything is mixed, transfer it all into a casserole dish and sprinkle cheese on top. Bake covered for 22-25 minutes. The cheese should be melted and golden brown. Let it sit covered for about 15 minutes and then it's ready to eat!

     If you try this out please send me photos and tell me how it went! This is probably in my top 5 favourite recipes so I really hope y'all enjoy it.