Out-of-milk Macaroni & Cheese

What a busy day! We went to the NC Zoo for the afternoon. It's about 1 hour 20 minutes away, which is a very comfortable distance for me because from the little town where I grew up, the nearest "big" city was pretty much 1 hour 30 minutes away. And for a while up in Cleveland, my commute was 1 hour 20 minutes each way...on a good day.

We arrived home after 5:00 and I was too hungry to go shopping, so I had to make do with what was on hand. This is actually my favorite time to cook, because according to Hub it forces my creative juices to flow. If I ever get any more readers/commenters in this forum, I plan to do a sort of "Stump the Cook" thing like Splendid Table does. It would be fun to see if I could come up with something delicious given five ingredients any given someone has on-hand.

I had corn on the cob. Husked it, broke it in two, covered with cold water, put on to boil. Check.

I had a leftover piece of grilled London Broil that Hub sliced thinly and we ate cold, sort of more as a side dish.

I went to make Macaroni & Cheese, and immediately noticed two problems - 1) out of milk. 2) no regular cheddar. Plenty of cheese in the house, but all a bit more esoteric. This is how I managed to do the dish, and it was honestly some of the yummiest mac & cheese we have ever tasted.

2 T butter
2 T flour
6 T light sour cream
1 cup shredded goat cheddar
1 cup shredded feta (really, 2 cups of whatever cheese you have on hand will probably work, but go easy on bleu cheese)
1/2 lb macaroni

1. Put the water on to boil for the macaroni
2. Melt the butter over low heat in a large saucepan
3. Add the flour to the butter and cook over low heat just until it starts to turn golden. Stir constantly to remove lumps. I like a wooden spoon for this.
   
4. Add the light sour cream gradually, stirring, stirring, stirring. This will be very thick.
   
5. Add the cheese 1/2 cup at a time, stirring, stirring, stirring
6. It's much too thick at this point, but here comes the magic - add 2 tablespoons of the hot pasta water and stir, stir, stir. Voila!
7. Drain the pasta and add it to the cheese, stir (once more) and serve.

Just as we were finishing up, Ms C. called and offered us tickets to see a circus/dance performance. Unfortunately, she wasn't feeling well. So we up and went (luckily the venue is only about 5 minutes away) and it was very fun.

Plus, so far, potato vodka isn't making me ill. It's probably only a matter of time, but at least there's one option still open.