Nicole, I was talking about your recipe. Since you have potatoes and bean salad, I think you need less macaroni, but personally I would take eat the potatoes and bean salad and leave the macaroni. Will it be self service? If so, there will be a lot more waste, and so you may want to make the full recipe. If you have a server, then you can control the portions more rationally. The people I know would never consume such large portions, but that may be different for a different crowd. Be prepared to deal with leftovers - maybe you will want to give them away. Lars

Hello! I freeze cottage cheese as well as cream cheese. But as the first person said the cheeses do change texture. They can still be eaten but will not have that smooth creamy feel in your mouth. It will be slightly granular. I use cottage cheese in my lasagna sometimes in place of the ricotta if I can't get it in the shop. I use the frozen cream cheese to make cheese cake and it is fine. You will have to mix the cheeses once thawed, but I find they freeze fine. I freeze milk, butter, soured cream, bags of grated cheese and sometimes blocks (grated freezes better) buttermilk. I freeze egg whites if I make a custard and use the yolks only. My daughter calls me the freezer queen lol

So many good recipes here! If we make it again I'll try them. I didn't have a chance to check in before making it this morning. I started at 6:15 and at 8:15 after showering (oven turned off after baking at 350, not broiling, and burner for cider turned off) I was running to pour the cider in the 5 gal Igloo and get the pans in the cooler. But we made it - drove up to Springfield and found they'd pushed start to 11AM instead of 10. So it sat longer than expected but was still warm and the cider was so hot we had to add cold cider in. I did have a little problem with the sauce - I made a double batch (for 2 lbs of pasta) at a time, poured it in with about 1 lb diced ham (decided that was enough) and yes 1/2 package of peas. Then put the pan (which still had cheese sauce in it) back on burner to add more cheese sauce (I had almost 1C from last night) and more cheese, I didn't think I needed more roux. Burner was off but sauce burnt to bottom so I only poured a little over the 2nd pan before I realized, put 2nd lb of pasta in with just lots of shredded cheese, melted a stick of butter and some milk in the MW and poured over, mixed in, stuck in oven, mixed some more then topped with more cheese. Guess which one they went for first? But they said it was all good, they were going back for the ham & pea version even before the plain was gone. I think teenagers will eat anything (of course DD wouldn't touch it). I think we ate 3/4 of it (so 3 lbs of pasta) and there were 23 kids and 4 adults counting the bus driver (who said she didn't like peas but liked this and took the leftovers home). Next time I'm not going to get so involved making the sauce - I'll melt butter, milk and cheese together and if it's not thick enough I'll add roux but I'd definitely add more cheese, less milk and flour than CI calls for (I used less than 3 quarts b/c I wasted some in the burnt sauce, so 1/2 gal was probably enough for 4 lbs of pasta, but I used 3 sticks of butter, 2 in the roux and 1 in the last pan). The cayenne wasn't noticeable and I did heavily salt the water, and put about 1 tsp of salt in the first cheese sauce but none in the 2nd pan (butter/milk) and I don't think they missed it. I forgot to bring salt and pepper but I've got some plastic shakers I'll throw in the box with cups and flatware so we have it with us.

Is this the same one? Here is a link that might be useful: mac and cheese