New Year's Resolutions - new recipe, week 9 - Macaroni Beef Casserole

Nothing like a good bit of work travel to put a little bit of stress on the ability to keep up with resolutions. For the recipe from a couple of weeks ago, I needed something easy that would work for a weeknight dinner as I was headed out for the entire weekend for a work function. No leisurely cooking in my future in week 9!

Enter, Macaroni and Beef Casserole, promising 30 minutes to get dinner on the table. Pasta; beef; cheese. How could I go wrong?
Pretty simple stuff, with some dicing and prepping but nothing crazy. Vegetables in the skillet first, add the meat, brown until done.
The learning opportunity for me in this recipe: making the cheese sauce! I think the key piece was to control the heat and not let anything scorch on the bottom of the pan, then let the cheese melt slowly after it was off the burner.
before adding the cheese
Since I was in such a hurry to get dinner on the table that night, I got a picture of the final product but nothing on the plate! Everyone ate it, though nobody had much to say about it one way or the other, so I suppose this one won't become a favorite. It was something new and different, though, and easy enough to get on the table on a hurried weeknight when we're all going a million miles an hour in a hundred different directions. It was a nice sense of accomplishment in service of staying on track for my resolution!

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