Another less than exciting Monday’s Menu for you today. Here’s what I had for dinner:

Cheddar brats, mustard potato salad and amish macaroni salad. Usually I like my brats more grilled than that, but that can be a little difficult to accomplish on a George Foreman grill. Someday I’ll have a house, and therefore I’ll be ABLE to have a REAL grill. *sigh* The salads are from the deli counter at a local grocery store. It was some nice summery food which helped out a little bit with the winter blues. Certainly not very carb friendly though!

This week’s Monday’s Menu is nothing too exciting… just the fixings for taco salads. What you see there is tortilla chips, cooked taco meat, cheese, lettuce, tomato, sour cream and salsa. I make taco salads a lot because they are highly customizable! Got someone who doesn’t like lettuce? That’s fine, just leave that off of their plate. You can use salad dressing instead of sour cream and salsa. You can put as many veggies on top as you’d like– lettuce, tomato, green pepper, onions, black olives… You can make taco salads using chicken instead of ground beef. You can add refried beans, which I would have done if I hadn’t forgotten to buy refried beans at the grocery store yesterday! You can scale up the amount of meat and fillings to fit the group you have. Easy peasy!

The best part of taco salads for me is that because I live by myself, there’s always leftovers. They heat up really well, and I don’t have to worry about figuring out dinner for a couple of days!

It’s Monday’s Menu… on Tuesday! I could waste time giving you the reasons I’m posting this today and not last night, as promised, but why waste valuable time? No, let’s get on with the mac and cheese!!

You’ll need milk, elbow macaroni noodles, butter or margarine, two eggs, cheese, and paprika. Easy, right?

First you’ll need two cups of macaroni noodles. I enjoyed playing with them… in fact, I just had to keep playing with them until I managed to get a picture with some of the noodles falling into the bowl. What? Water? Oh, right…

Boil salted water…

Cook the macaroni noodles according to package directions.

When the noodles are done, drain them well and return them to the pan.

Add 4 tablespoons, or 1/2 stick of margarine or butter and stir until melted.

Stir in 2 cups of your cheddar cheese.

In a separate bowl, combine 2 eggs and 1/2 cup of milk.

whisk them together…

Then add the mixture to your noodles and cheese in the pan.

Stir it all together until well combined.

Spoon your macaroni and cheese mixture into a greased 8×8 pan.

Sprinkle 1/2 cup of cheese on top (or however much you feel like!)

Sprinkle paprika on top of the cheese.

Bake uncovered at 350 degrees until the cheese is melted and the casserole is cooked through. And forever be annoyed that I didn’t notice my camera strap was in the picture.

The Recipe
Macaroni and Cheese Casserole

2 cups uncooked macaroni
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter or margarine
2 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
2 large eggs
1/2 cup milk
Paprika

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8 inch square baking pan.
Cook macaroni in boiling salted water, following package directions. Drain well, return to the pot. Add butter and stir until melted. Add 2 cups of the shredded cheese.
In a medium bowl, whisk eggs with the milk. Add milk mixture to the macaroni and stir until well combined. Spoon into greased pan. Sprinkle 1/2 cup cheese on top. Sprinkle with paprika. Bake, uncovered, for 30 minutes or until the cheese has melted and browned and the casserole is cooked through.