I based this recipe very loosely on Ina Garten's recipe which I would love to try sometime. I basically used her recipe as a guide for making the cheese sauce and tweaked the ingredients a bit depending on what I had on hand at home.
Melt a stick of butter, minus 2 tablespoons. Add 1/2 cup flour and whisk.
Pour in a quart of warm milk.
Whisk.
Put in six cups of grated cheese. I used half fontina and half sharp cheddar.
Season with garlic salt and pepper.
Take a cup of sun dried tomatos packed in oil and chop after draining. You can skip this part or substitute with something else like bacon or shrimp.
I used a pound of gemelli, boiled 2 minutes under the suggested time. I also used Xuan to transfer the pasta from the colander to the baking dish.
Mix the pasta and cheese sauce.
Top with breadcrumbs. I made whole wheat breadcrumbs using leftover bread I had.
Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until hot and bubbly.
I had it with baked scallops and roasted veggies for dinner. Even after serving four people I had more than half of the baking dish left over. If you're not planning on eating a whole pound of pasta (although there's no shame in that) I would cut the recipe in half to avoid having too much left over.
