Homemade Cheesy Noodles

I’ll confess that since we went off of eating gluten, some meals seem especially tricky to plan for. Especially lunch. My kids are still kids and still enjoy having fun “kid” food.  I need to give props to them for being such good sports all the time and being okay with not having the same foods we used to have all the time.  When I was growing up, lunch was either a sandwich, top roman, soup from a can, or mac and cheese (if I was lucky, I got leftovers from dinner the night before which with seven of us kids, rarely happened).  That thought process, was pretty much how I planned lunch until this past year.  So now that I have been trying to think out of the box (and the can) because of my daughter’s trouble with gluten, I have come up with a few ideas that are super easy as well as very fast to make for lunches.  This is my four-year-old daughter’s most favorite lunch and she begs for almost every. single. day. If you try it, let me know what you think of this recipe. Also, if you have any tips and ideas for what you serve for lunch each day, I would love to hear!

GF Homemade Cheesy Noodles

Ingredients:

6 oz Rice elbow noodles

2 Tablespoons butter

1/8 cup arrowroot powder

1 cup milk (almond, rice, cows, goat…whatever suits your fancy)

1/4 - 1/2 tsp salt

1/8 – 1/4 tsp pepper

a dash of garlic powder

a dash of onion powder

a pinch of nutmeg

4-6 oz Cheddar cheese (Usually I do cheddar though works just as well with parmesan)

Directions: Get two saucepans.  Fill one saucepan with 2 quarts water to boil. Grate cheese and set aside. Gather other Ingredients. Place other saucepan on stove, place 2 Tablespoons of butter, place on medium heat.  When butter is melted, quickly whisk in arrowroot powder.  When combined, pour in milk.  Whisk until combined.  Add salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and nutmeg.  Whisk again.  With a wooden spoon, stir in cheese.  When cheese is melted and well combined, set aside.  Add noodles to boiling water in other pan.  When noodles are to the desired texture, drain noodles (I actually pour cool water over mine because I have two little girls at this point pulling on my legs and dancing around in excitement that I am making cheesy noodles…plus I think it makes the texture less starchy).  Add noodles to the cheese mixture and fold with the wooden spoon until combined.  Enjoy!