Macaroni + Cheese + Sausage = You Building Temples To Me And My Glory

Here’s the deal. I give you this recipe, you gotta give me something in return. We’re not talking like, a handshake and a high-five here. This is too good. Your gratitude must be measured in sexual favors and hymns sung to my nascent godhood. I want blowjobs from celestial figures. I want a pegasus made of chocolate and gold. I want a leprechaun I can saddle up and ride across all the world’s rainbows.

You want this recipe, you gotta pony up. This is quid pro quo, Clarice.

You will literally have to dance for your dinner on this one. You will also have to kill for your dinner. Upon the completion of you reading this recipe, you will receive a list of all those who have ever slighted me.

What I’m trying to say is, damn did I make a kick-ass macaroni and cheese the other night.

Here’s the sitch.

I thought, “Mmm, macaroni and cheese.” I have a recipe I use, and lo, it is good. But then I thought, “What would make this recipe double-awesome? What would make this recipe do keg-stands on my taste-buds? Sausage.” And then I was like, “Ha ha, it’s going to be a real sausage party in this kitchen!” And then I was like, “Hey, I should really zip up my pants and get my manhood out of the lunchmeat drawer.” And then I was like, “Ha ha, lunchmeat. That’s what I’ll call my penis from now on! Lunchmeat!”

Then I high-fived a ghost.

Moving on.

I went to the local butcher (Saylor’s, Hellertown) and bought their psycho-delicious Provolone and broccoli rabe sausage. You may buy whatever sausage tickles the reptilian pleasure centers of your brain.

With this mac-n-chee recipe, you have to do a bunch of things at once. I hope you played a lot of video games as a kid and are subsequently good at multitasking.

We’re going to start with the sausage.

Brown it on both sides in a hot pan. Five minutes or so on each. I used just under a pound of the stuff.

Then, normally, you would finish the sausage by pouring in a half-cup or so of water into the skillet, and then let the water cook the sausage. Except, I had a different idea.

In the fridge lurked about 1/4 cup each of chicken broth and veggie broth that I had to use up. I thought, “Hey, those are liquidy. I use those, maybe the Flavor Gods will shine down upon this pan with their favor.” So, instead of using water, I poured the remainder of the broth in with the sausage.

I let that start to cook down for about 20 minutes or so, turning the sausage every five minutes.

About halfway through (10 minute mark, in case your math skills are that of a mule-kicked billy goat), I put just a splash of water — maybe 1/4 cup. Probably not even that.

Meanwhile, time to cook your pasta. Despite this being called macaroni and cheese, you don’t actually need to use macaroni. Don’t be pinned down by such Draconian thought. Express yourself with some fusili or some bow-tie pasta. Someone tells you that you have to use macaroni, call them a “food racist” and then stab them in the kidneys with a carrot peeler.

While the water is boiling, might I recommend you grate some cheese?

The cheese combination you choose is up to you, but I like a good mild white cheese paired with a strong, assertive “kick to your reproductive widgets” cheese.

In this case, I used 8 oz of colby longhorn, and 8 oz. of Beemster, which is really just a brand of kick-ass Gouda. You could also go with Prima Donna, which is fuuu-huuu-huuuu-cking phenomenal. You can tell how good it is by all the extra syllables I had to jam into the word “fucking.”

Anyway, grate that stuff up, set it aside.

By now, pasta should be boiling. Boil it. Boil it like you’re boiling the flesh off a severed head.

Mmm. Human head cheese. But that’s not in this recipe, so shut up, you pesky cannibal.

While the pasta is boiling and your sausage is almost done cooking (cook to 160 degrees internal, which is the temperature necessary to kill off, I dunno, syphilis and Space AIDS or whatever), it is time to attend to your cheese sauce. You were thinking, “But I just attended to the cheese!” and I’m like, “Whose recipe is this?” And then you complain and whine some more, and I am forced to spray you with bear mace.

Here’s what you do with the cheese sauce.

First, a roux. You know what a roux is, right? Goddamn you try my patience. Were you born this way, or did your parents feed you drain cleaner or something? Dang. Roux = flour + fat in equal proportion. Adds thickener, adds flavor. Just like elk semen. Except, the guy who sold me my elk semen, well, he was arrested. Not coincidentally, he was arrested for chasing down elk and molesting them.

Anyway, roux: 3 TBsp melted butter (clarified helps but is not necessary), 3TBsp flour. Cook it over medium heat for 3-5 minutes, until it turns golden, or “blond.”

Add into that: 2 cups of milk.

And 4 oz. of cream cheese.

Whisk like you’re trying to conjure a tropical cyclone.

Now, here is the piece de resistance. I don’t actually know what that means. “Piece of resistance?” What the fuck is that? Let’s revise, because, y’know, psshhh, the French.

“Now, here is the piece de awesomesauce.”

Much better.

Anyway, remember that sausage you were cooking? Remember that broth? By now, that should’ve reduced down to about a 1/4 cup of meaty brothy saucey, erm, sauciness. Here, then, is where happy accidents can sometimes help change a meal: I was going to dump that stuff. Just dump it right out. But I thought, “Well, let’s see what it tastes like.” Took the back of a spoon, pressed it into the reduction, then tasted it.

I immediately shellacked my pants with joy. Liquid joy.

I thought, “Hell with it,” and I dumped that into the cheese sauce.

This is the best mistake I ever made. Except for that time when I went to my ex-wife’s Christmas party and saved her and her co-workers from a handful of German “terrorists.”

Put cheese sauce on low, cook till thick(er).

Now: cut up the sausage into little “sausage coins.”

Ding! Pasta’s done. Good, because all this talk of elk semen and German terrorism has made me hungry!

Real quick: getcher oven going at 350.

Get a casserole dish. (Did you know that on the FX airing of Pineapple Express, they exchanged the word “asshole” with “casserole?” That’s kind of awesome.) What size? 9 x 13.

Pour the pasta in there.

Pour the sausage coins in there.

Pour the thickened cheese sauce over it.

Dump in all that grated cheese.

Stir gently (lest you fling goopy pasta overboard).

Then, top with one sleeve of pulverized butter crackers. I don’t use Ritz because I am now a High Fructose Corn Syrup Nazi. I go with the Pepperidge Farms ones that look like butterflies. Added bonus, it makes me feel like a powerful monster, crushing poor little butterflies between my godlike palms.

Into the oven goes the dish (uncovered) for 20 minutes.

Take it out.

Eat it.

Roll your eyes in pleasure.

Then go and build a temple to my glory. Tear out your eyes with a melon-baller. Fill the sockets with cheese sauce. Become my oracle. Prophesy the doom of all who oppose me. Sing prayers to my neverending divinity with your moist, tongueless mouth. The End.