Lobster Mac and Cheese

Here we sit. Straddling the edges of winter’s crustyiness and the cheery hopefulness that this past weekend’s gorgeousness delivered.

This weekend was a blink of spring that had all of us who’ve been shuttered inside heading to the great outdoors to stretch our legs, breathe in deep and realize that summer is just one hopscotch jump away.

But, there’s still a bit of cozy comfort food I’m craving, that I’ve yet to have my wintertime fill of. I’m not quite ready to put away my braisers, or break out the grill. Yet.

Which leaves plenty of room for a thoroughly decadent dinner. Comfort food with a swath of luxury. Lobster Mac and Cheese. It’s what’s on this girl’s menu.

Lobster, shrimp, scallops, crab. Give me a shellfish paired with pasta and you’ve just made me a very camper.

Pair it with a creamy sauce and cheese and you’ve just sent me to the moon. A very lush moon. Where I smile a lot in between savory, happy bites of cheese drenched macaroni.

The mention of lobster shouldn’t put you in a tailspin with dollar signs replacing the corneas of your beautiful baby blues. With this dish, just one large lobster tail—or 2 small ones—will do the trick for the entire feast.

So that when you tell guests you’re having lobster for dinner, they think you’ve really gone all out.

When really, you’ve only gone half out.

There are three things you want to be sure to do with this recipe.

1. Don’t overcook your lobster meat. Some stores carry it already cooked (Whole Foods sometimes offers it in their seafood section) but if you cook your own, steam it whole in the shell for about 7 minutes. That’s really all you need. Any longer and you’ll have a tough little crustacean.

2. Great cheese is the secret to a great Mac and Cheese. While gruyere is commonly paired with Lobster Mac and Cheese, I wanted to create a lighter, more silky sauce so I chose a meltable fontina with creamy Mascarpone (an Italian style cream cheese) with an edge of super sharp cheddar.

Other cheeses that would be good alternatives to fontina or gruyere are gouda, havarti and monterey jack. Just make them melty and make them good. I usually save mozzarella for my pizza or lasagna since it can become a tad stringy.

3. The final secret to this sauce is a dose of cayenne pepper. I add it right to the butter and flour roux and cook it into the mix as the flour browns. It adds a depth and almost a sweetness you’ll really love.

It’s Mac and Cheese Mania, come on and join in.

This whole Mac and Cheese Mania shebang is the brainchild of Rachel of Rachel Cooks and Brandy of Nutmeg Granny and is sponsored by Door to Door Organics and OXO.

In their infinite wisdom, Rachel and Brandy spearheaded a food blogging campaign to inspire new Mac and Cheese recipe creations, to inpsire you to toss your recipe into the macaroni and cheesy hat.

Head over to Rachel’s site here and Brandy’s site here to link up your favorite / your best / your most craveable mac and cheese recipe and you could randomly be chosen to win one of a plethora of prizes listed on their sites. Like, there are some serious prizes to be had, so check them out.

Bonus: You don’t have to be a blogger to enter. Just a mac and cheese groupie. And really, who isn’t?

Now, those are some Mac and Cheese flavors that would hightail any winter into reverse and put springtime light flavors on definite hiatus. **Hold, please.**

I hope you take the time to visit them all, and also, my recipe for Lobster Mac and Cheese.

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