“Dang it! I just bought that cheese 2 weeks ago! How did it already get moldy? I had it in the fridge!”

Does this sound familiar? How about this:

“WTF? These chips are already stale? I hate fucking stale chips!” (Even when you bought them on the clearance rack)

Fret no more. We’ve got a great recipe to put those annoying stale and moldy leftovers to use. It’s called “Zesty” Baked Mac.

Prep Time: 15 min
Bake Time: 20 min
Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients

• 1 block of moldy cheese
• 1 1/2 cup stale chips
• Some kind of macaroni. Don’t be picky
• Splash of milk or soy milk (unflavored)

Preparation

OK, so you’re not sure whether you that moldy cheese is good for you. I did your homework for you and hard cheeses are safe if you cut the mold off. If you’ve got a strong immune system (like you’re from South America or some other diseasy place) and you feel like adding some extra “zesty” to the recipe, don’t cut the mold off. But I don’t condone this (even though I just dared you to do it).

1. Pre-heat oven to 350°
2. Prepare the pasta very al dente. Drain well. If you don’t know how to cook pasta, I’m sorry. While the pasta is cooking, continue to the following steps.
3. Shred your block of cheese. Be your own judge on how much. Use your whole block if you’ve got enough pasta
4. Put the stale chips in a bowl and crush them. I happen to have a meat mallet in my kitchen. Find something blunt and go to town. Avoid rusty hammers.
5. In a casserole dish or pie plate or something else shallow and bakeable, dump the drained pasta. Pour in the milk and then most of the cheese (you want a good layer of cheese on top, so don’t use all of it) and mix it up.
6. Once you’ve got it all nice and even, put the rest of the cheese on top in an even layer and then sprinkle the broken chips over the top.
7. Place in the oven for 20-30 minutes until the cheese is melty and a little brown on top.

Verdict

Sweet! (And by sweet, I mean totally awesome)

This dish came out great for me with Fontiago cheese from Trader Joe’s and those roasted red pepper chips. I also happened to use whole wheat pasta which is ordinarily pretty gross, but it seems baking it after boiling it helped. Also, it was surrounded by cheese, so that probably helped. The prep is super easy (unless you can’t cook pasta). Cleanup is a snap. It’s delicious, but too much cheese and stale chips may one day permanently clog your arteries, so beware.

I give it 4 toilet seats up! (Our rating system explained)