Category Archives: Toasted Cheese

Mini-Nano Challenge – Day 1

And we’re off!

The Mini-Nano Challenge is to write 5,000 words in 30 days (or 167 words per day). It’s 1/10th of NaNoWriMo. Easy-peasy, right? Well, word-count-wise, anyway. My personal goal is to actually write a complete story, as opposed to just writing 5,000 words of… something bigger… that I just abandon like an unfinished freeway on the 30th. Hmm, I just thought of that, but yes. That’s what my fiction writing is like. Unfinished freeways. I need to build more side-roads.

Anyway. Today’s word count: 180 words.

Toasted News

The September issue of TCLJ — Toasted Cheese 11:3 — is here. Go. Read. 😉

And… I think I forgot to mention my last Absolute Blank article, so here it is: “Running a Literary Journal, Part 1: Choices.”

Also, we’re having a mini-NaNo-warmup challenge at the forums — a 5k short story — and if you complete the challenge & post your story you get a critique from me, the elusive Beav. Value: priceless. It’s not too late to join! Here’s this week’s thread.

Macaroni & Cheese

This week at TC, our Daily Writing Thread (which is actually a weekly thread with daily updates) somehow digressed into a discussion of mac & cheese. Which got me wondering if I’d ever posted my recipe. I searched and it doesn’t look like it, so here it is:

Macaroni & Cheese

3½ cups macaroni
¼ cup butter
3 tbsp flour
¼ tsp salt
1¾ cups skim milk
1 tsp dry mustard
½ tsp Worcestershire sauce
2½ cups old cheddar cheese, grated (2 cups for cheesy mix, ½ cup for topping)
1 cup bread crumbs

  1. Preheat oven to 400°F.
  2. Boil macaroni for 7 minutes; drain.
  3. While macaroni is cooking, stir together butter, flour, salt, milk, 2 cups cheese, Worcestershire sauce, and mustard in a large bowl. (It’ll be lumpy/imperfectly combined. Don’t worry about it. The next step will take care of it.)
  4. Add macaroni and stir with wooden spoon until butter and cheese are melted and cheesy mix is completely blended.
  5. Pour into 7×11 baking dish. Top with bread crumbs and remaining cheese.
  6. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes.

Recipe adapted from The Absolute Beginner’s Cookbook.