Activate avg pc tuneup. Baked mac and cheese: If you have a little extra time, you can bake the macaroni and cheese to give it a golden crust. Pour the prepared mac and cheese into a casserole.

​There are few things more American that macaroni and cheese. If our nation's lore is correct the dish's origins. Jefferson, apparently, was so in love with pasta dishes from a trip to Europe that he brought home a pasta machine to make his own, eventually putting the dish on the menu for a state dinner in 1802. Though the genesis of mac and cheese is decidedly American, when most think of the famous cheese and noodle dish, most reach to the boxed variety Kraft foods introduced in 1937. Which is fine for most. But Brandon Fletcher thinks you can do better. For over a decade, Brandon has honed his homestyle mac and cheese recipe into something resembling the perfect delivery vehicle for cheesy goodness.

And you should make it. Sure, boxed mac and cheese will work in a pinch, but there's so much potential here. Homestyle mac and cheese allows for experimentation with flavors and textures that you miss when trying to whip something up in an instant. It's the very nature of mac and cheese — an unabashedly indulgent dish — and the unspoken emotional weight of making it from scratch, that makes it a perfect dish to bring to potlucks. 'I would help my mom make mac and cheese during the holidays,' says Fletcher. 'She hurt her back, so I would help out cooking. It's a lot of work cooking for me, my dad and my two bothers.'

It's not exactly considered a main, so the entire gathering isn't exactly riding on your one dish. That said, the carb influx of pasta suspended in a pool of thick cheesy goodness is just the perfect base to pile on anything and everything on offer. What's more, the added effort in preparing an elevated version of this comfort food staple reads to guests as just a big, warm hug on your plate. Layer It Up And Bake It Now, what you have right here could definitely be considered mac and cheese. You could scoop some into a bowl and that'd be fine. But we want more than fine. We want a firm crunchy top hiding a bubbling reserve of cheese underneath.

For that we're going to bake this stuff. Grease your baking dish, and then layer in about a third of the mac and cheese mixture. Then, take about half of your reserved cheddar and add a layer of cheese on top of the macaroni. Add another layer of macaroni on top of that, then the rest of the cheddar, and then finally the rest of the macaroni. Now, here's the crucial step. In a bowl, beat one egg with two cups milk, and then evenly pour that on top of the mac and cheese. 'You get these bits of egg in the cheese sauce when it's done and it's good,' says Brandon.