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Spelt macaroni and cheese

In my quest to revive some of my favorite dishes with wheat alternatives, I set my eyes upon an American classic: macaroni and cheese. I used to make this quite a bit (never the boxed stuff!), and while in Whole Foods last week, I saw a box of spelt macaroni elbows. I just had to buy them.

At first, I thought I would use the classic mac 'n cheese method, which involves making a roux and a bechamel sauce. This issue has been that a roux is equal parts flour and fat (butter, oil, whatever), so when I tossed out the all-purpose flour a year ago, I also tossed out my mac 'n cheese recipes. But this past week, I also bought spelt flour, and was determined to give this a shot.

In the end, I chose not to make a roux. Why?

1. Making a roux is difficult. I often mess it up.
2. Making a roux takes time, and I wanted to get lunch on the table ASAP.
3. I couldn't find much information about whether spelt works in a roux.

So instead I opted for a the Cook's Illustrated stove-top recipe. Of course, I made a few modifications:

1. As usual, I halved the recipe.
2. I ran to the store to buy evaporated milk, and bought a 5 oz. can, even though I theoretically needed 6 oz. To compensate, I poured in a little regular 2% milk.
3. I threw in the cheeses I had on hand -- some American slices, some sharp Wisconsin cheddar, and some lite Trader Joe's 3-cheese blend.
4. To save time, instead of making and toasting breadcrumbs using spelt bread, I grabbed two rye crackers and crushed them up, and sprinkled them on top at the end.

The recipe was easy enough to make, so I won't harp on it. I do, however, have some observations:

1. There seemed to be too much sauce. I like sauce, especially cheese sauce, but ended up not using all of the egg mixture. I recommend not pouring it all in at once, in case you experience the same.
2. It needed more hot source. I used Frank's, and gave it about 10 shakes at first. But after tasting the sauce when it came together, I gave it another 5-10. Personal preference, I suppose.
3. The crackers did not work. They looked all right, but did not maintain their texture after sitting in the sauce for a few moments. In the future, I might try toasting or browning them, as I would breadcrumbs.

The taste was good. Most casual eaters would have never known that this recipe was made without any wheat ingredients (compared to a standard roux recipe using wheat-based macaroni).