Food Friday: Pepperjack mac 'n' cheese

I used to have a cooking blog, Kimberly Cooks.  I posted like five times before getting pregnant with Olivia and cooking pretty much stopped.  My domain expired over a year ago, and suddenly I couldn't look up this recipe on line anymore. . . I finally dug up my old wordpress account information and pulled off those five recipes so I can post them here and give them new life. (Never occurred to me to write them down somewhere else)  This was the recipe I was most excited about.  

This fun grown up macaroni and cheese recipe starts with one of the five French mother sauces, a bechamel.  A bechamel sauce is essentially a white sauce.  Then I added some yummy pepper jack cheese and Worcestershire sauce.  Pour this onto some fully cooked pasta shells and it is divine!

Ingredients: 

• 2 T white flour
• 2 T butter
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1 c milk
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp white pepper (if you have it, if not, black pepper will work just fine)
• 4 oz pepper jack cheese, shredded.
• 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 1/2 c uncooked pasta shells, cooked to your desired firmness.
• 1/4 c Parmesan cheese (optional)

Directions:

1. Cook butter and flour on medium heat, about five minutes to remove the floury flavor and texture.  Be sure to stir constantly.
2. Wisk in onion powder, milk, salt, nutmeg and pepper.  Stirring constantly, cook until thickened and then stir in cheese and Worcestershire sauce.
3. Add cooked pasta to the sauce and serve immediately.  Or, place in an oven safe dish, top with Parmesan cheese and bake for 10 minutes at 350 if you prefer a crusty mac and cheese.

A couple of notes:
-I call this a grown up mac n cheese and it really is.  Olivia helped make it, she was so excited to eat it and sadly it turned out to be too spicy for her.   Any cheese can be substituted for the pepper jack cheese.
-Since I wrote this recipe before having kids, the fact that it only feeds two didn't bother me.  But when Olivia couldn't eat hers, both Adam and I were eager to help her out.  Maybe double it, especially if you like leftovers.
-I like making this with pasta shells, but I totally blanked on buying pasta when I was at the store.  Luckily we had some actual macaroni in the cupboard and that (obviously) was great.  I just like the way the cheese gets trapped in the pasta shells.