Please, everyone – stop what you are doing and go make this. I try not to say that about every recipe I post, even though I do feel that way about most of them – if I don’t love them, I don’t share them. But if you like mushrooms and fresh herbs, you must try this. This is the brilliant creation of my pal Chelle for the 30 Days, 30 Ways of Mac and Cheese we participated in earlier this year. You may remember my contribution, the spicy mac and cheese. This event has given me many fantastic reasons to keep eating mac and cheese weekly for quite a while (not that I even needed a reason.) There are so many great variations and I’m planning to try several but this was a great one to start with.
With all the mac and cheese recipes I’ve been trying lately, I’ve found that I prefer to use less liquid in the cheese sauce that the recipe usually calls for. This makes for a thicker, more gooey cheese sauce and I’m all for that! Don’t be put off by the pound of mushrooms called for in the recipe. It may seem like a lot and I was tempted to use less, but remember that mushrooms lose a ton of liquid when they cook. It ended up being the perfect amount. As for herbs, I used a combination of basil, thyme and rosemary because that was what my store had available that sounded good together. I’m sure there are tons of other equally wonderful combos so feel free to experiment.