Campfire Mac and Cheese With Jimmy Kennedy

Hey, everybody. Jimmy Kennedy here. Go outside once again. We still got a bunch of ice and we probably got almost a foot of ice on Lake Champlain. We’re going to cook up some mac and cheese for everybody of all the recipes, all the dishes. This is the one I probably cook the most. This is the simple go to easy to do version.
And we’re going to do it in the cast-Iron Dutch oven today. And what I do with this campfire Mac and cheese. I just cook it right in this. Put a lid on it. Put it right in the coals and on the fire and it kind of gets a nice crusty top on it. It’s so, so good start out.
We have one stick of butter, which is eight tablespoons. And any anytime you’re making a roux unit, use equal parts fat to flour. And so today’s fat is butter is one delicious salty. I got eight tablespoons of flour you just kind of mix it in a little at a time it’s a pretty hot little stove. This is cool it down a little bit you just kind of go a little at a time till you get it all mixed in and this is basically just a roux
And what you add the milk to, it becomes the béchamel sauce and then the cheese, some mornay sauce if you want to get fancy with it. But basically we’re just making the cheese sauce. So All right. So we’ve added some milk, added a quart of milk to this. And when I add the milk, I like to get it up to room temperature so it’s not too cold when you add it to the hot roux
Just kind of like tempering a little bit at that point. We’ll add our cheese, four cups of milk and four cups of cheese. Keep it simple. Here, and I don’t use the whisk after this because it just gets all cheesy and gooey and work. So all we’re doing now is just melting in this cheese and, you know, use any kind of cheese you want.
I like to use the sharp cheddar and maybe sometimes I’ll use half of that amount, two cups of that and then two cups and the carbonara, garlic herb, dill or gruyere or anything like that. You can mix it up. Find out what your family likes. Go with that it’s nice and thick. I mean, this is going to be yummy.
Okay, so we got a pretty much pretty good cheese sauce. Still needs a blend a little bit, but then we’ll add herbs. I got my favorites, black pepper some thyme and some basil, and that’s all I put in there. I don’t really add to salt because the cheese is salty enough. I think you can add some if you want to, but just blend that in.
And this is what it’s going to look like. It’s going to have nice specks of herbs and pepper in there and look how smooth it is now it’s looking like now we just add our pasta and sometimes if I’m at home, I’ll put the pasta and like I said, a glass casserole dish or something. Like that. But since we’re doing this campfire style, we’re just going to add the pasta right to it.
Blend it up. And I like to use penne pasta. You know, you can use any kind of shells or whatever, but I like the tubes, the penne, because I think the cheese gets inside. It’s it’s really good. Okay, we got mac and cheese. Pretty much all done. I also like to add a little bit of breadcrumbs on top, especially when we’re going to bake it.
You don’t have to do this, but these are really good seasoned bread crumbs too kind of gives it one more layer flavor and it looks good when it starts getting nice and toasty brown and if we’re on the campfire at this point. I would just put the lid right on this thing. Sit this right in the coals here, right on the fire and it’s going to bake and you’re going to get that beautiful crust right on top.
And we’re just going to eat this just like it is though. This is smelling and looking really good. And that’s all it is to it. You can make the best mac and cheese you’ve ever had with this recipe right here. I promise you. It’s so good and we’ve made it thousands of times. Beats the box I promise. Try it out see you next time