I wasn’t always a cook. But like a lot of us I was cooking long before I learned how to cook. Does that make sense? Let me put it this way: today’s Macaroni Pie comes from a time in my life when I didn’t cook, but I had to eat and I had to do it cheaply.
Back in the day (you know, college) I often threw together some version of Macaroni Pie. I never used a recipe when I cooked it, but it turned out perfect every time. Oddly, now that I do cook, I still don’t always use a recipe. I guess I’ve come full circle.
Macaroni Pie.
Macaroni Pie played a big part in my younger years so I think this humble pie deserves a place on this blog. I’ll include a recipe, in case you prefer to use a recipe when you cook. But you have to promise you’ll read the story about my days of not cooking.
I think we need to start with a definition. When most people say Macaroni and Cheese, they mean that rich and creamy baked pasta dish. It’s usually served piping hot with a molten Béchamel-based cheese sauce (known as Mornay in France). The famous Mac & Cheese in the blue box is a simplistic version of that iconic creamy noodle dish. In fact many of my college-aged peers survived on the boxed version. Not me however.
When I think of the Macaroni and Cheese I preferred when I was in college, I think of Macaroni Pie. A dish introduced to me by a woman in Georgia named Aunt Delores. She wasn’t my aunt, but I visited her more regularly during the first 18 months of my college career than just about anyone else I can think of.
That’s because I had this girlfriend in college. Pam was a local Tallahassee girl. She was always dragging me by her relatives’ houses for meals. Her particularly favorite dining destination was her Great Aunt Delores’ house.
Aunt Delores was a character, and I sometimes had trouble abiding her, but man could she cook. She lived just over the border in Georgia. She had lived there her whole life and never once ventured an hour south to visit her mostly relocated family in Florida. When asked to come and visit she used to say, “I can see Mars from my front porch, that don’t mean I’m going there”. Whatever that means…
On one particularly scorching Georgia afternoon we pulled up in my little Toyota. Sure enough, there was Aunt Delores sitting on her porch watching her programs. She kept a TV on her front porch, never worrying that it might get stolen.
When she saw us coming she said, “Stop right there you kids. If I told you once I told you a million times, I don’t cook when it’s hot”. Well she certainly never told me once (let alone a million times). So the shy kid in me turned on his heels to leave. But Pam was undaunted and plopped herself down on the sofa. Yes, there was a sofa on the porch too.
Eventually I joined them and we watched Aunt Delores’ program. It was General Hospital during the peak of the Luke and Laura craze, so there was no talking allowed.
Once Luke and Laura had finished their cooing for the day, Aunt Delores stood up and said, “Grab that skillet” – which even I knew was kept under the sofa. I also knew that though I may be grabbing a skillet, we’d be making pie. Macaroni pie, and by we I mean me.
The thing about Macaroni Pie is this: sure it’s good when you make it, but it’s way better the next day (or even the day after). This was of course Aunt Delores’ plan. She always wanted to send us home with food.
Let me try to describe Macaroni Pie. When it’s done right it’s closer to quiche than the standard Mac & Cheese. That’s because the cheese in Macaroni Pie is held together with egg rather than Béchamel. It’s easy to make too. There are only three or four essential ingredients and it’s okay to “eyeball” them, as Aunt Delores would say. Once chilled it can be turned out of the skillet forming a pie. That way, when the urge strikes a slab can be carved off. You could reheat it if you want to be one of Delores’ fancy boys, but it’s actually best cold, slapped in hot sauce and served on top a big pile of crunchy iceberg lettuce. It can also be eaten out of hand on the go. You don’t even have to be going to class to enjoy a slice. GREG
Once it is well chilled this pie can be turned out of its skillet or baking dish for ease of slicing if you like.
Ingredients
- 8 ounce dried elbow macaroni
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter (plus more for skillet)
- 16 ounce cheedar cheese (coarsely grated)
- 1 large egg
- 1 cup milk
- 2 teaspoon garlic powder (optional)
- 1 teaspoon dried mustard (optional)
- 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
- freshly cracked black pepper
- hot sauce (to taste)
Directions
Place the oven rack in the center position. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Butter the bottom and sides of a 10-inch cast iron skillet or similarly sized shallow baking dish.
Cook the macaroni in a large pot of salted water according to package directions until al dente, about 8 minutes. Drain the noodles very well. Transfer the noodles to the prepared skillet or baking dish. Add 1 tablespoon remaining butter, stirring until completely melted. Add half the grated cheese; stir to combine. Don’t worry if the cheese is stringy or clumpy.
Whisk together egg and milk in a medium bowl, add garlic powder, dried mustard and cayenne (if using); stir to combine. Pour the milk mixture over macaroni. Top with remaining cheese. Press mixture down with the palm of your hand, compacting it uniformly.
Cook in the heated oven until nicely browned on the top, 45 to 50 minutes. Remove from oven, if it looks a little oily gently pour off any accumulated liquid. Sprinkle with black pepper and let rest at least 30 minutes before slicing into wedges. Serve with hot sauce– warm, at room temperature or chilled.
Love the idea of this dish and your description of Aunt Doris had me in stitches. The sound of it eaten cold, wrapped in lettuce with some hot sauce sounds perfect!
Yessssssssssss! And I can’t really think of anything else to say. But yes. On this dish.
Loved the story, and I think my kids will love this easy version of Mac and cheese.
You had a girlfriend?
I don’t cook when it’s hot, either, Fancy Boy! So if I had any macaroni in the house right now, which I don’t, this is what I’d be “not cooking” today. Gotta love a Southern woman with a cast iron skillet under her couch on the porch!
Fancy boy! I bet you had this not only well heated but also well garnished for your aunt!
i probably would have loved Aunt Delores. I have relatives that sound just like her. I make a spaghetti pie in an iron skillet similar to this, but I really like your version. Going to have to try this version with egg. BTW, I’m in you neck of the woods this week. Wasn’t expecting 100 degrees tho.
Yes. The weather is entirely unfair. LA is supposed to be 76 and sunny ALL the time. 96 and blazing is not my thing. It gets better on Friday. Hold out and hope for the best. GREG
Aunt Delores sounds like such a hoot!! Love this post Greg — it’s fun to get a glimpse into your younger years 🙂
Okay. Aunt Delores and the skillet under the sofa. Watching her “program.” Such a stage you set. Mark still rues the day when I forbade him (yep, forbade…) to bring Kraft ANYthing into the house, much less his beloved mac and cheese… I will try the pie (maybe Mark will like it?) and I promise to eyeball it…
I love a woman who keeps a cast iron skillet under he couch. I will make this and lose my “vegan” cred, and I’m so okay with that. And the stomach pains, it’s going to be SO worth it.
Love the hot sauce garnish! And this looks like a fun dish. I can definitely see this as excellent leftovers. Although in my younger days, I’d have snarfed the whole thing. 😉
Great story and somehow it remind me of one of my aunts. I would prefer this over mac and cheese.
Love the story, Greg. I would hang out with Dolores any day!
P.S. I spy Valentina hot sauce… The best.
Luke and Laura were definitely in the 80s. I remember them well! I would eat frozen Stouffer’s pizza while watching them. Or Coco Pebbles. And I love the skillet under the couch — and that you knew it was there. Awesome. I will have to make this and think about your Aunt Delores as I eat it! Thanks for sharing!!
What a great story. Your Aunt Delores sounds like one terrific lady. And this macaroni pie looks awesome too.
Aww, you had a girlfriend in college. What I like about this is you don’t have to be bothered with making a roux and then stirring ’til it gets thick enough to add the grated cheese. I love the “pour ‘n bake” method much better, and the ingredients are pretty much the same, so it’s just as good — maybe better; I’ll find out after the heatwave passes.
Love your stories — I feel like I know Aunt Delores. Very retro post — charming.
Ten years in the South and I never heard of this…how could that be! Probably because most of my friends were transplants too; I didn’t have my own Aunt Delores; what a shame too since I love characters like her!
My grown children would go NUTS over this; it will be done.
Well, I don’t know which is better, the story, the recipe or the retro setting. Aunt Delores sounds like she was hoot, and I think I could go for a slab of the Macaroni Pie.
This is obviously on my to-do list of things to make this week. It looks like a quiche too!
I think I’d prefer this over mac & cheese!
Greg, you do crack me up ! Wasn’t Luke and Laura in the late 1970’s ? It seems to me I watched them when pregnant for my first child. It makes me wonder if you’re a geezer like me. I lived in Florida for 10 LONG years in the 1980’s and truly one of the only things I did love about it was my education of Soul, Creole, Cajun and Southern cooking from elderly women that remarkably sound a lot like Aunt Delores. This one sounds like a simple but tasty pan o’mac & cheese.
1982 or 83… is probably the year I am recalling. GREG