This is a quick mac and cheese that has that diner-grade sticky gooey that can go toe-to-toe with my chili in my split dish Chili Mac Attack plating, and it’s a star in my scrambled mac sandwich, with scrambled eggs, ham and mac and cheese in a hoagie roll.

I do several mac and cheese recipes, depending upon how upscale I want to go with it.  You can either lovingly grate quality cheese and go A-game, “grandma” mac and cheese, or, if you have a need for speed, you drop to this Diner-grade M&C.

Yes, greasy spoon Mac is all about speed, which, if you’ve made this stuff, usually means Kraft’s Velveeta. Please don’t go there for your base.

I have no problem with whey, which is most of a “cheese food.” Whey may not be cheese, but it is high in protein, and, if the fats are kept under control, and they keep the other junk out of the product, there is nothing wrong with it, from time-to-time, as a protein in your family’s week.

Big K, though, still manages to work in some really cheap stabilizers and other ingredients that aren’t things that I choose to feed my family, and you shouldn’t feed yours, especially with any weekly regularity. One of these days they’ll get the hint.

Amazingly, Walmart, of all places, the Mecca of mass-produced foods, your Official Obesity Center, seems to be on a better path with more organic foods and its in-house generics.  Their reduced fat, Easy Melt cheese is far less full of junk than what is made by our friends at Kraft.  Always good to read the labels!

I put in a little good dijon and white pepper to add a little of that sharp-cheddar edge that a better mac-and-cheese would have from using a higher-grade aged cheddar.