Healthy Bite: Homemade Cheese and Macaroni

My Healthy version of Homemade Cheese and Mac.

The brand of veggie "bouillon"
It's excellent

Every Saturday I gather my family together at 4pm to do cleaning for Sunday prep. While the kids are doing their various chores I fix dinner. Homemade cheese and macaroni is quickly becoming our traditional Saturday dinner. In an attempt to make our diet more healthy I've been figuring tricks to make certain recipes more figure friendly. For this recipe instead of using a whole 1/2 cup of butter I use 1/4 cup of butter and a 1/4 cup of olive oil. Instead of using all milk I substitute 1/2 with veggie stock. I wasn't quite sure what my family was going to react to the new recipe. I didn't tell them what I did differently and just served it as is. You can definitely taste the veggie stock, but adds a lot of flavor. To my relief it was a huge hit!! I will be making this way from now on. Only on special occasions will I do the full fat version. Plus I spread the sauce over two pounds of pasta instead of one which reduces the amount of calories as well.

Special Cheese Sauce

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup flour
1 cup veggie stock
1 cup 1% Milk
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp powdered mustard
1/4 tsp paprika

1. Melt butter and olive oil in a sauce pan
2. Add flour and cook for about 3 minutes to cook off flour taste
3. Add veggie stock and milk all at once and whisk till thickened. This can take up to 8 minutes. You might also find that you need to add more milk. You don't want it super thick.
4. Remove from heat and add the cheese.
5. After the cheese has melted add the spices. Pour over pasta

This sauce is also good over broccoli or cauliflower.