Remember that blog excerpt comparing cooking and baking the other day? So, last week, I determined to relive the experience and do my own cooking. First time in a few months, really.

For days, I had been craving for Macaroni Schotel (partly thanks to Bu Didi and her pasta-caserole dish thingie) . Finally, on Sunday, I went grocery shopping for the ingredients from my made-up-on-top-of-my-mind recipe.

Onion, got it, garlic, got it.
Ground beef, wait, 80/20, 90/10, or 95/5? Aha, the more fat, the better, I thought, 80/20 it is.
Cheese, what about the cheese? Cheddar, American, Swiss? Hey...this quesadilla cheese look tasty. Then, a package of elbow macaroni and a pint of milk got tossed into the cart and I was all set.

In the kitchen, I started with tossing liberal amount of the garlic and the onion and browning the whole pound of ground beef. The milk was next with a couple of eggs, followed by dashes and dashes of nutmeg and black pepper. And it started to taste good. By this time, there was water overflown from the boiling macaroni pot. I should start cooking more often, I forgot all about this water thing.

Something still missing, though. The salt. I started with some sensible amount, but it never got salty enough. I put more and more of it, until my common sense finally knocked and I stopped.

Then, the pastas were drained and immediately tossed into the liquidy part and baked. Well, not after I sporadically put some of the cheese on top.

30 more minutes and that would be it. The apt started to get infused with the cheesy nutmeggy smell. "It's gonna be good", I said, and emotionally patted myself for achieving something that night.

But sometimes, you set too much expectation on your liberal way of cooking. The schotel turned out tasted nothing but the salty part. It was still edible --with a lot of help of sambal botol. I ended up consuming it for the most part of the week.