Triple Cream Mac and Cheese (the recipe that will ruin all other mac and cheeses for you)

Oh man. This thing is like creamy, cheesy heaven.

We were all tasked with bringing a homemade dish for our lab manager's retirement party, so this is what I ended up bringing.  I was running so late, the pans came right out of the oven and straight into the car (hence no decent just-out-of-the-oven pictures).

Recipe (miraculously) stumbled upon via Babble on foodgawker.

This picture doesn't look particularly appetizing as I was in a hurry to eat my lunch while it was still hot, but I can assure you that it smells and tastes so amazing.

I mostly followed the recipe, but I did substitute the bacon topping for little cubes of baked ham actually mixed into the pasta and cheese.  Plus, I may have had a bit of heavy hand in adding garlic to it.  I used jarred minced garlic instead of a fresh clove of garlic, and I was informed I had added much more than the equivalent of 1 clove.  I heard no complaints, though ;) And, somewhat surprisingly, I was able to find a nice 2 lb. block of extra sharp aged white cheddar at my local supermarket.  I was sort of dreading having to make a substitution. 

And another thing about cheesy dishes, they don't tend to reheat well.  The cheese tends to lose a lot of oil and the whole thing just looks so oily and gross.  But, we put this into a sauce pan and heated it over medium-low heat until the whole thing melted into this wonderful gooey consistency.  Served with some fried asparagus on the side, it was a thing of beauty.

Trust me when I say this is one recipe you have to try.