I was in Porter Square Books yesterday; I never buy anything, but I like to pretend I might. I was looking at Jessica Seinfeld’s Deceptively Delicious, which had made it to the discount section. Most of the recipes seemed to be ‘puree something that’s close in colour and blend it in; using pureed carrots as the moistener in meatballs, for example, one that kept on my mind was her original ‘recipe’, a couple spoonfuls of butternut squash in some macaroni and cheese. It just stuck in my brain, so I decided to try something similar.

I am not a child, and I am actually very fond of roasted squash, so in this case, I wasn’t trying her method (which was, basically, to mix in very small amounts of squash so that kids wouldn’t taste it. I went all out; the mac and cheese sauce started with a dark roux (non-traditional, but I really like the nuttiness that it brings over a light roux). I made it with bread flour instead of regular flour, and it was great; the finer texture made it much smoother much faster. Then I melted half a block of cream cheese into it, and added maybe half a cup of roasted, pureed acorn squash (butternut squash, while delicious, and technically cheaper than acorn, all weighed at least 4lbs, while the acorn was under 1lb. I like squash, certainly. But I’d be eating it for 4 days if I’d gone for that).

That got whisked until smooth (I added a small bit of pasta water when it seemed it needed it), and then I added about a cup of sharp cheddar, and a few sprinkles of ground cayenne (my paprika is missing).

I reflect that when I was a child, I thought that recipes were astonishing, and I remember, being 9 or 10, and thinking to myself that I hoped when I grew up, I’d be able to write just one recipe. I didn’t even think of the idea of making more than that - recipes were obviously *hard*, and I just wanted to create *one*. Now that I can create recipes, including pastries and such, from my head, I never measure anything. It’s *awful*. People ask me for my recipes for things, and I haven’t the foggiest (I can’t give you the recipe for my baitcon frozen custard- it all just got made up on the fly). I’m also terrible at how I measure; the only reason I know the cheddar amount is because I put it into a 2 cup measuring cup while it was waiting. I shredded it ‘until I have about a fist sized lump.

This is totally useless as a measurement to anyone who doesn’t have access to my fist at time of shredding.

anyway, it was AMAZINGLY good. Probably the best mac and cheese I’ve made. Eben had a bowl and said it was quite good, so I’m definitely going to do it again.