My poor son....he is a mac-n-cheese purist.  And not just ANY mac-n-cheese, nope, it's Kraft or nothin'.  Yuck.

I have been working on him though.  I keep serving him variations of my homemade version and hoping for him to just take a bite, just one or two. 

Whew...he's stubborn.  He's learning that if he doesn't eat what is put in front of him, that's fine, we don't MAKE our children eat anything - but if you don't eat what is put in front of you, you'll go hungry.  We will NOT make you a separate meal just to cater to your wants.  If Lil' Man doesn't eat mac-n-cheese for lunch, well....dinner is at 6pm.

So today I tried this version.  I used garden rotini (you know, the tri-color stuff), shredded cheese, parmesan cheese, American cheese slices, flour (to thicken it up a bit) and S&P.  Amongst these layers, I added in just a few frozen peas and some left-over crisp bacon pieces.  Then I poured milk over everything and baked it covered for 30 min, then uncovered for 30 min.  Delicious!!

Other variations:  add in whatever left-over meat you have in the fridge, throw in some green veggies (mine are usually frozen), maybe some diced or stewed tomatoes - oh just anything that will go with mac-n-cheese.  I usually use little elbow macaroni (again, to try and get my son to appreciate the dish) but I was out so I used rotini.  Any fun shape is fine (I personally wouldn't use speghetti).

So there ya go.  Did Lil' Man eat it today - nope, not a bite.  And he whined a bit (got some time in our spare room to calm down and STOP WHINING - ugh) and told me he was hungry NUMEROUS times during the day.  I was strong though and he waited for dinner.  Dinner was Homemade Sloppy Joes (yummy!) on my honey wheat buns (a new trick I learned with my bread dough) and sticky cinnamon popcorn (The Pastor's fav) so rest assured, he did not starve.

Ya know, I *could* just feed my kiddos Kraft Mac-n-Cheese on a regular basis (and there have been times I've done just that, believe me) - but it's actually much more fulfilling and satisfying to know that I went to the trouble of being creative, making my own from-scratch foods, and feeding my family healthy and hearty meals.  Sometimes they are quite basic - but when it's all from scratch, when you KNOW it's good for them, even the simple, basic stuff is GREAT!!

~Tired~

MommaJoy