Doing Dishes – Baked Macaroni and Cheese

From a very young age, my siblings and I – three boys, about two years apart – were forced to do dishes. Our parents, in their great wisdom, told us the sprayer on the kitchen sink hose was broken. Perhaps they feared a flood or wanted to keep the peace among us, or maybe it really was broken, but in our naiveté we, or at least I, never tried it while scrubbing. Their strategy worked.

I must have been about five or six or seven when our parents decided that we needed to earn our keep around the house by doing dishes every night after dinner. (I was young enough that my brother remembers me doing them while I stood on a chair at the sink.) But being the baby I immediately saw the inequity. My eldest brother was four years my senior, and thus starting this chore four years later than me. I threw a fit; I would have to do dishes so much longer than he. I was only placated when told that it would even out because I would likely live four years longer than him. Of course I didn’t realize at the time that this meant I would actually have to do cumulatively eight years more dishes than he, 12 if you count the fact that he would eventually leave the house before me to attend college.

Over time, and likely after many battles, my brothers and I settled into a nightly routine. The way I recall it one of us would set the table (if you can call putting dishes and silverware in a pile in the middle of the table setting it), another would clear and wipe the kitchen counters, while the third did the dishes, often timed so we could watch reruns of M*A*S*H on TV. We did rotate jobs so everything was fair. Of course all of this would have been easier had we had a dishwasher. Come to think of it, there actually was a dishwasher and we were told it was broken as well. Hmm.

A few years after we were initiated into the ranks of kitchen help, our parents decided we needed to do more; our burden was too light. They added sweeping the kitchen floor to our nightly tasks. This was far too much for us to take. We were furious. Having been raised by good, liberal, labor-activist parents, we immediately knew what to do…we went on strike.

A petition was drawn up and we all signed it, all three of us. It was displayed in the most prominent place in the house, the front of the refrigerator. We stopped doing our chores. One hundred percent participation in any job action is unheard of. We had numbers on our side and were certain to be victorious; we would never have to sweep the kitchen floor again.

But management can be persuasive. Perhaps they threatened to stop paying us our allowance – 25 cents per week. Or maybe they actually negotiated with us and increased our allowance by a pittance. I can’t recall. I doubt they threatened to stop feeding us, our parents weren’t cruel after all, just mean when it came to making their children do chores. It simply could have been that they waited us out, as stalling is often a way to keep workers from getting their way. But in the long run, we were unsuccessful; it was a victory for management. We resigned ourselves to sweeping the kitchen floor and we resumed doing dishes.

We continued doing dishes and sweeping the floor nightly until one by one we went off to college, me being the last. It wasn’t until many years later at a party we held for our parents to honor their 40^th wedding anniversary that our father revealed his secret to doing dishes…and more importantly, to a happy marriage. “The key if you can’t do dishes right away,” he said, “is to soak your dishes until the next morning.” The food would not harden onto plates and bowls, pots and pans, they’d be easy to clean. I would argue that the other key is simply to get your kids to do the dishes.

Baked Macaroni and Cheese

I don’t recall ever dining on macaroni and cheese as a child at home – either the homemade variety or that boxed stuff. But it is a dish that requires you to have fortitude when doing dishes. Crispy bits of dairy get burned on to the baking dish and when the gooey cheese hardens on your plate, it requires your kids to do some serious scrubbing, unless, of course, you soak the dishes.

This recipe is one my wife found on the internet at Mimi’s Cyber-Kitchen and we adapted over the years. Unfortunately, health food, it is not. On those rare occasions when we make it, we usually split it into two portions – each in separate 1¾-quart Corning Ware baking dishes – and cook one portion one night and the other the next. That way you get fresh, hot macaroni and cheese with a perfect panko crust on top two nights in a row.

1½ hours, 1 hour unattended, serves 8

2 cups uncooked elbow macaroni

½ cup (1 stick) butter

½ cup all-purpose flour

1 cup milk

½ cup half and half

1½ cups sour cream

1 tsp. kosher salt

½ Tbsp. fresh ground black pepper

10 oz. Cheddar cheese (about 2½ cups), grated, divided

cooking spray

1 cup panko breadcrumbs

1. Preheat oven to 350 ^oF.
2. Cook macaroni according to package directions. When done, drain and rinse with cold water. Set aside in a large mixing bowl.
3. Melt butter in a 2–quart saucepan over medium-low heat. Add flour a tablespoon at a time, stirring constantly for about three or four minutes. Gradually add milk and half and half, stirring constantly. Mix in sour cream, salt, and pepper. Reduce heat to low and cook, stirring constantly until sauce bubbles and thickens.
4. Toss all but one cup of grated Cheddar cheese with the macaroni. Pour sauce over macaroni and mix thoroughly.
5. Spray the inside of one 3-quart or two 1¾-quart baking dishes with cooking spray. Add macaroni mixture to one or both baking dishes. Sprinkle surface evenly with remaining cheese. Just before cooking, top with panko breadcrumbs. (If you are saving one baking dish for the next day, wait to add the breadcrumbs until just before cooking.)
6. Bake in oven for one hour, until bubbly and brown on top. Serve hot.

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