A Soul To Remember

My grandmother was the queen of soul food. Every year we would go to her house for a New Year's day celebration where she would make collard greens, cornbread, black eyed peas, fried chicken, and of course her famous mac and cheese. I always looked forward to this event and hoped that one day I would be the keeper of these secret recipes. Sadly, my grandmother passed after contracting Covid 19. My boyfriend, suggested that we pay tribute to her by recreating one of her iconic soul food dishes.

My grandmother's mac and cheese was my favorite so I decided to put my own twist on it by using Joy Food Sunshine's Mac and Cheese recipe, which is listed below. I was initially put off by this recipe, because it calls for 1/4 cup of sour cream or Greek yogurt. I have never heard of putting these items into a mac and cheese dish but decided to give it a try. There's always a debate about which cheese combination works best. Sharp cheddar cheese is most commonly used in mac and cheese dishes because of its strong, robust flavor. The original recipe calls for 2 cups of cheddar cheese. However, I decided to incorporate some fresh Parmesan cheese into mine. I doubled this recipe and used 2 cups of sharp cheddar cheese and 2 cups of Parmesan. Please be careful and pay attention when grating the cheese for the recipe. Let's just say I learned that hard way.

Some other changes that I made to this recipe include using whole wheat pasta and incorporating some baked seasoned chicken. The seasoned chicken was baked in the oven at 350 degrees for 15 minutes and was seasoned with salt, pepper, paprika, Italian seasoning and garlic powder. Although this recipe is for a stove top mac and cheese, I decided to bake it. After the mac and cheese was ready and assembled, I poured it into a greased baking pan. I then sprinkled the baked chicken, panko (breadcrumbs will work too), and some grated cheese over the top. I baked it on 400 degrees until the panko was crispy and the cheese was nice and bubbly.

Despite my initial reservations about this recipe, this was absolutely delicious!! I will definitely be making this again for my friends and family. Also a big thanks to my boyfriend, for encouraging me to use my passion to keep my grandmother's legacy alive.