sunday night dinner

Hubster and I have opposite work schedules which essentially means Monday thru Friday we see each other for 5 incoherent minutes in the morning when I kiss him good-bye and 15 sometimes coherent minutes when he gets home and tucks me in for the night.  That being said, it's not very often that we get to sit down to have dinner together, so when the weekend comes around, I'm cooking up a storm.
This morning, hubster turned to me and asked what I was making for Sunday Night Dinner - and then proceeded to say that we were like the cast of Jersey Shore because of this new tradition (hmmm....not sure how I feel about that).  Since it's sunday and rainy the first thing I thought of was comfort...and nothing says comfort more to me than Mac and Cheese..with some lobster thrown in to make it a little more special.

Lobster macaroni and cheese recipe adapted from here


Ingredients
1lb whole wheat elbow macaroni
3 lobster tails
8 tablespoons room temperature butter
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 pint whole milk - room temperature
2 cups fat free milk - room temperature
2 1/2 cups extra sharp cheddar cheese - shredded
3 cups Gruyere cheese - shredded
1 small onion diced
1 shallot chopped
1 small garlic clove minced
5 slices of whole wheat bread with crusts removed
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
salt

pepper

Preheat the oven to 375.

Remove crusts from bread and use a small food processor to make breadcrumbs.

In a small fry pan, melt 2 tablespoons of butter and combine with breadcrumbs.  Set aside.

Wash the lobster tails and cook for about 15 minutes (depending on size of tails) in a pot of salted boiling water.  While the lobster tails are cooking, prepare the ingredients for the roux.

Dice the small onion, chop the shallots and mince the garlic.  Proceed to curse yourself out about your inability to properly dice an onion despite having watched this video numerous times.

If you're like me with the onion dicing issue, your lobster tails will be ready.  Remove the tails from the boiling water and put in an ice bath to stop the cooking.

Use the reserved water from cooking the lobster tails to cook the elbow macaroni (I find this helps to infuse the pasta with some of the lobster flavor).  Cook the pasta until al dente and drain.



De-shell the lobster tails and coarsely chop the meat.

 Stop for a moment to take a picture of the scavenger who found her way into the kitchen.

Something dropped? I'll get it!

Shred your cheeses and set aside.  At this point as well, you should have your milk, flour, and spices measured out because you will soon be too busy whisking to do this later.

In a small saucepan, sweat 1/2 of the onions with 1 tablespoon of butter for about 2 minutes, then add milk, shallots, garlic and some fresh ground pepper and reduce heat to low, you want the milk mixture to be hot, but not boiling.

In a medium sized dutch oven or casserole pot, melt the remaining 5 tablespoons of butter on low heat.  When butter stops foaming, add the flour and cook for 2 minutes.
Whisk in the milk mixture and continue to cook until smooth.  (this is the part where you'll be whisking...and whisking..and..you get the idea).

Turn off the heat and in batches start adding your cheese..and whisk..then cheese..and whisk...

After you've added all the cheese, add your spices and some salt to taste.  Whisk away!

 

Add the cooked pasta, chopped lobster meat and remaining onions to the cheese and stir (oohh, variety!) well to combine.

Oooey, gooey, cheesy yumminess!

Top with the breadcrumbs and pop in the oven uncovered for 30 minutes.  Let sit for 5 minutes (or as long as you can hold out), serve it up, sit in front of the couch and watch a marathon of Chopped (if that's how you do dinner) and enjoy!

This is totally an inaccurate representation of how much I actually ate

Speaking of Chopped...is anyone else as excited as I am for Chopped All-Stars premiering tonight?!

{ cindie }