Homemade Goodness Mac and cheese Salad

I few months ago I went out to lunch at New Season's with my best friend Dulcimer. I just love that place because they have creative food's in their deli area.  I have never been a fan of deli macaroni salad but when I saw this one I had to try it out. Oh my goodness is this so yummy.  When you order food they will put it on a glass plate and give you a paper with the price on it to give the cashier when you go to pay. I was excited to find the ingredients because that meant that I could try to make it myself. Yeah!  At $5.99 a pound I know I can make it myself. Off I went....

Mac and cheese salad

1 cup of sour cream
1/2 cup of mayo
1/4 cup of crumbled feta cheese ( we used blue cheese)
1 minced fresh garlic clove ( I used 1/2 tsp powder had no fresh)
1/2 tsp of salt
1/4 tsp of pepper
1 tbsp of organic milk
1 box of frozen spinach
1/4 cup of chopped shallot (I used regular white onion)
1 tbsp of fresh dill chopped (I used 2 tbsp dried dill)
6-7 cups of whole wheat flour noodles

Serves 6 people plus with extra left overs

Open up your spinach and set it in a strainer inside a larger bowl full of hot water. After about 10 minutes it will be defrosted and look like this. Take the bowl away and let all the water strain out of the spinach. I squished all the water out with my hands. Set aside.

 Next get your 6-7 cups of whole wheat noodles boiling in water. You can do the sauce while the noodles are boiling. Don't you love this glass container? About 8 years ago I bought this container full of really really large noodles for my mom as a Christmas gift. She finally used up the noodles and gave me this back. I can get a few pounds of noodles in it. Love the shape of it.

Next gather up your ingredients.  Chop the onion up into tiny pieces. As you can see I didn't use all organic but my sour cream is hormone free and my milk is organic.  Mayo and cheese were not.

Mix all spices, sour cream, mayo, cheese, milk and onion together until smooth.  Set aside until noodles are done.  Once noodles are done give them a cold bath in the sink.  Either set them in a ice bath or just put the strainer under the faucet with cold water running. Strain and make sure all water is off the noodles.  At this point add your spinach into your wet ingredients.

Plop all the wet stuff into the noodles and mix away.

And here is your end result. Yummy cold mac n cheese salad.

My girls are used to eating mac and cheese hot and were very thrown off by it being cold.  They ended up putting theirs in the microwave and said it was better hot. I prefer it cold. How great would this be during the summer on a picnic?

All in all this cost me maybe $2 to make. Next time I want to use feta cheese and have fresh garlic. Tomorrow is my $50 a week shopping day so I will pick those items up.  Today I basically did nothing exciting.  Caught up on laundry, did dishes, and fun stuff like that. For dinner we used a $25 gift card to Papa Murphy's Pizza to order some pizza's. FREE is always good! Wish the would offer the option of whole wheat but oh well.