(in my kitchen) My basic Baked Macaroni

I love making and eating anything that has cheese on it. Read my post about  Chili's cheesy broccoli soup.

Our baby just turned another month, so I decided to make something special today.
My baked macaroni is very basic and anyone can do it.

all you need is ground beef, pasta of your choice, spaghetti sauce, button mushrooms, bechamel mixture (by Knorr) and mozzarella cheese.

Bechamel is widely known as white sauce. this is a cheese and milk sauce. Similar to Mornay sauce. Mornay uses Gruyere and Parmesan cheese while Bechamel uses quickmelt cheese.
If you don't have Bechamel you can make one from scratch just by melting quickmelt cheese with milk over a low heat pan.

note that this is very basic. No veggies added such as celery, carrots or bell pepper usually found in baked macaroni. I usually make this when I crave for something with cheese.

THIS IS HOW I MADE MINE

I prefer cooking the meat sauce before the pasta

Heat the pan, then butter, add minced onion then stir.

Ground beef is usually used. I don't know anyone from my family or friends who used ground chicken or pork. do you? When they starts to look translucent, add your ground meat.

Add some salt and pepper to taste. I like adding some beef cubes to enhance the taste of the meat. 

after seasoning your meat add your mushrooms then your choice of sauce. I used Filipino style spaghetti sauce.

Baked Macaroni is a tomato based pasta, however I made another version of this by adding white cream sauce in the past. It just made them more creamy.

After preparing your meat sauce. Set them aside. Then cook your pasta. I like picking penne out of them.

Set them aside.

that's my husband :)

Now prepare your Bechamel mixture.

Knorr's Instant Bechamel Mix

Preparing your Bechamel sauce (cheese sauce) is very easy but demand one to be cautious. 

Make sure that your pan is on low heat, as it thickens over time. It was a disaster the first time I tried to make this one myself, and that leads me to making a cheese mixture out from scratch.

pour the milk before the bechamel mixture

Pour 2 cups of milk over a low heat pan.

then add your Bechamel mixture. Just keep on stirring until you achieve that thickness that your aiming for. 

pour them generously

You have to mix the bechamel to coat the pasta evenly. Mix well until the pasta is coated with the sauce. 

top it off with lots of mozzarella cheese

after coating every pasta with your bechamel sauce. Top it off with loads of mozzarella cheese. Place them into the oven and heat them until the mozzarella cheese have completely melted.