Fancy Mac N Cheese - Kitchen Creativity!

Ok, so the boxes are STILL sitting in my office untouched. In fact, I keep adding boxes to the pile and I can barely get in... but when I can, I stick my head in there just to smell my stamps and paper.

SO, instead of creating in my office, I felt the urge to create in the kitchen (something I rarely do and have only started doing lately because I'm feeling paper craft withdrawl). Truth be told, we had a Christmas party to attend and so I was forced out of necessity to create :)

Anyway, I made some ROCKIN' Fancy Mac-N-Cheese. After some thought, I figured Easy Mac-N-Cheese from a box wasn't going to cut it! I can truly say the recipe is almost all mine because I took a basic recipe and then modified most of it to our family's taste (and what I had in the pantry already).

Here's the recipe for happy tummies!

Ingredients

16 oz. (1 b0x) pasta shells
1/2 cup chopped green onions
ground black pepper to taste
clove garlic
8 pieces of thick sliced bacon (cut into 1/2" bits)
1 Tbsp butter
2 cans of condensed cream of Cheddar Cheese soup
1 can condenced Cream of Celery
1/2 cup milk
2/3 cups shredded Havarti cheese
1 1/3 cups of sharp Cheddar cheese
1/4 cup grated Parmesean cheese
Panko or Bread crumbs

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Slice uncooked bacon into 1/2" bits and fry. When almost done, add garlic (minced or crushed - I like my PC garlic press); drain excess oil from bacon and set aside.
3. While bacon is cooking, boil lightly salted water and cook pasta shells al dente (8 - 10 mins); drain.
4. Transfer pasta into casserole dish and season with pepper to taste. Mix bacon pieces with pasta. Stir in butter until it melts. Add Cheddar cheese soup, Celery soup, milk, Havarti cheese, 1/3 cup Cheddar Cheese and Parmesean cheese; stir well. Sprinkle remainder Cheddar cheese over the top. Sprinkle Panko or bread crumbs over the top of cheese layer.
5. Bake in preheated oven about 45 minutes. Change oven setting to 'Broil' and cook for approx 4 more minutes until top is lightly browned.
6. Enjoy!!!