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.
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.
