Stovetop Macaroni and Cheese -- The Recipe Marcus Used to Ask for Every Single Wednesday

It is Wednesday evening, and Marcus has been home for exactly four minutes. I know this because the back door opened at 5:17 — I heard it from the bedroom where I was changing out of my church clothes — and by 5:21 he was standing in the kitchen doorway looking at me with those eyes that are exactly his father’s eyes except when they want something, and then they are entirely his own.

“Mama,” he said, “what’s for dinner?”

Now, baby, I want you to understand: I did not ask him what he wanted. I did not consult a menu or check the refrigerator first. I already knew, because I have known every Wednesday since this child was old enough to form a sentence, what Marcus Simms wants for dinner on a Wednesday. He wants macaroni and cheese. Not baked. Not the church version with the three cheeses and the egg custard and the crust you could knock on. The stovetop version. Twenty minutes. Velveeta in there whether the fancy food people like it or not. Enough black pepper to make your eyes water if you lean over the pot wrong. That one.

“Mac and cheese,” I told him.

He grinned, picked up his backpack from the floor where he’d dropped it, and went to do his homework. That is the whole transaction. That is Wednesday in this house, and I would not change a syllable of it.

Thanksgiving is ten days away, which means the next two weeks of my life belong to the church before they belong to my family. We are feeding eighty families this year through the holiday ministry — Calvin and the deacon board put together a food basket program that has grown every year, Lord have mercy, to the point where I’m now coordinating with three other churches to pool resources. My kitchen team is seven women strong, Sister Gloria and Sister Pat and young Tamika who just joined the church in September and can already debone a chicken faster than I can. We meet Thursday mornings to plan, and I will tell you honestly that those Thursday meetings are some of the best hours of my week. Grown women standing around a folding table arguing about whether the yams need marshmallows. The answer is yes. There is no argument. I don’t know why we keep having it.

My mother called me this afternoon, right before Marcus got home. Bernice, eighty-three years old and still in Bessemer, still in the house where I grew up, still cooking for herself because “nobody’s going to come in my kitchen telling me what I can and can’t cook, Loretta, I am fine.” She wanted to know if I was bringing the potato salad to my cousin Darlene’s the Saturday before Thanksgiving. I told her I’d bring whatever she needed me to bring. She said “potato salad” again, more slowly, the way she does when she suspects I was not listening the first time. I was listening. I just know that with Bernice, “what are you bringing” is never really a question. It’s an assignment. The question is already answered. She just wants to hear you say it back.

I’m bringing the potato salad.

Destiny is away — she’s at UAB now, second year, studying social work, and she comes home most Sundays for dinner, which she knows will be hot and ready and I will not hear a word about it not being a big deal. Calvin Jr. is up in Huntsville doing whatever it is IT specialists do, and he’s driving down for Thanksgiving with his friend from work, so I need to start thinking about sleeping arrangements and whether the air mattress in the study still holds air (it does not) and whether Marcus will give up his room without a four-day argument (he will not, but he will eventually, because he is Calvin’s son and Calvin’s children yield to their mother, even when they do it slowly).

But that is all ten days from now. Tonight it is just me and Calvin and Marcus and a pot of mac and cheese on the stove, and I want to tell you about this recipe because it is not the church mac and cheese. That one I will write about someday, but that one takes an hour and a half and a prayer and three cheeses and you have to start it at two in the afternoon to have it ready by six. This one is twenty minutes from cold butter to hot plate, and some nights — most nights, if I’m being honest — this is the one my family actually wants.

My mother would say Velveeta is a shortcut and shortcuts are for people who don’t love their family enough. I disagree. I have loved my family through four decades of fried chicken and collard greens and pound cakes from scratch, and I will love them through this block of processed cheese product and not one apology will be issued. What Velveeta does — and the fancy cooking people who have never fed a teenager at 5:30 on a Wednesday night do not want to admit this — is melt smooth. No clumping. No breaking. No sauce that separates into something that looks like it went wrong at the last minute. It melts into the sharp cheddar and the whole thing becomes this silky, glossy, coat-every-noodle situation that a sixteen-year-old will eat two bowls of before his father gets home.

I start with a roux, because Bernice started with a roux and I start with a roux and someday maybe Destiny will start with a roux and the line will hold. Butter and flour in the pot, cooked until it smells nutty, just past raw. Then the milk — whole milk and evaporated milk, because the evaporated milk gives it a richness that regular milk alone can’t achieve, and this is not a diet recipe, sugar, this is a Wednesday recipe, and Wednesday asks something of you. Then the cheeses go in, sharp cheddar first in handfuls, then the Velveeta in cubes, and you stir and stir and watch it come together, and then you put in the mustard powder and the garlic powder and the black pepper and a whisper of cayenne if you’re in a mood, and then you toss in the cooked macaroni and you coat every single noodle, and you taste it, and you add salt, and you taste it again, and then you call your son’s name and tell him dinner is ready.

He ate two bowls. Calvin ate one and a half and then looked at me over the table like I had done something to him specifically. Marcus told me about his history test (he thinks he did well) and his basketball practice (the coach is running them harder this week because of the tournament coming up) and some situation with his friend Darius that I only half understood but nodded along to because being present at the table matters more than understanding every word. Calvin told us about his sermon preparation — he’s preaching on Ruth and Naomi this Sunday, the part where Naomi says “call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me,” and I listened to him talk about bitterness and return and the women who stay when they don’t have to, and I thought about Bernice, eighty-three years old in Bessemer, holding down that house by herself, stubborn as a cast iron skillet and just as enduring.

Ruth said: where you go, I will go. Your people shall be my people.

Bernice would say: I’m not going anywhere, Loretta Mae, mind your business.

Same thing, if you know how to read it.

After dinner, Marcus did the dishes without being asked, which either means he wants something or he’s maturing into a responsible young man. Probably both. That’s how sixteen works. I’m not complaining either way — the dishes got done and my kitchen is clean and the pot is soaking and I have ten days before this house turns into a full production and my kitchen becomes a staging area for eighty turkey baskets and a Thanksgiving dinner for twelve.

Tonight, though, it was just the three of us, and the mac and cheese was hot, and my family was fed, and that is the whole story. Sometimes the whole story fits in twenty minutes and a pot on the stove.

Here’s how to make it, baby. Pay attention.

On a night like that — quiet, just us three, the kind of ordinary that turns out to be everything — there was never any question what I was making. Stovetop mac and cheese is what this family comes home to, what Marcus has been asking for since he could point at a pot, and what I’ve made so many times my hands don’t need the recipe anymore. But I wrote it down anyway, because someday he’s going to be sixteen somewhere that isn’t my kitchen, and he’s going to need to know how to feed himself something that feels like home.

Stovetop Macaroni and Cheese

Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 25 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 1 lb elbow macaroni
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 cups whole milk
• 1 cup evaporated milk
• 2 cups sharp cheddar cheese, freshly shredded (do not use pre-shredded)
• 8 oz Velveeta, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard powder
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, plus more to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional, but recommended)
• Salt to taste

Instructions

1. Cook the pasta. Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a boil. Cook the elbow macaroni one minute less than the package directions — you want it just shy of done, because it will finish in the sauce. Drain and set aside. Do not rinse it.
2. Make the roux. In the same pot (or a large, deep saucepan), melt the butter over medium heat. Add the flour and whisk constantly for two minutes, until the mixture smells nutty and looks pale golden. Do not rush this step. A raw roux makes a pasty sauce and that is not what we’re doing here.
3. Add the milk. Pour in the whole milk slowly, whisking as you go to prevent lumps. Then add the evaporated milk. Continue whisking over medium heat until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon, about 5 minutes. Keep the heat at medium — you want a gentle bubble, not a rolling boil.
4. Melt the cheeses. Reduce heat to medium-low. Add the shredded cheddar in three handfuls, stirring after each addition until fully melted before adding the next. Then add the Velveeta cubes and stir until the sauce is completely smooth and glossy. If it looks stringy or broken, your heat is too high. Turn it down and keep stirring.
5. Season the sauce. Add the mustard powder, garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, and cayenne. Stir well. Taste it. Add salt. Taste it again. Adjust until it tastes right to you. The sauce should taste a little too strong on its own — it will mellow when the pasta goes in.
6. Combine and finish. Add the drained pasta to the sauce and stir to coat every noodle thoroughly. Let it cook over low heat for two to three minutes, stirring gently, until the pasta finishes absorbing some of the sauce and everything is hot through. The sauce will tighten up as it sits — if it gets too thick, add a splash of warm milk and stir.
7. Serve immediately. This mac and cheese does not hold well — it is a make-it-and-eat-it dish, not a make-it-ahead dish. Get your family to the table before you start this recipe. They should be waiting on the food, not the other way around. That is the rule in my house and it can be the rule in yours.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 610 | Protein: 26g | Fat: 26g | Carbs: 68g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 640mg