Mac & Cheese Cupcakes

About a year ago, long before Liam was eating solid foods, I saw this recipe on one of those morning shows. I jotted down the ingredients and crammed it into one of my recipe books never to be thought of again. That is until Liam pulled all the cookbooks off the shelf and proceeded to shred the paper I had the recipe on. Sort of serendipitous. If you disregard the mess...

Around here mac and cheese is a favorite. Its one of the few foods Liam will consistently eat. Which means it my "go to food" when he's swiped all the other options off his tray onto the floor.
Now, Liam loves most veggies so its usually not a problem getting him to eat them but if some veggies are good more is better especially when they are replacing heavy cream and butter. Which is exactly what we are going to do here. And I promise, even you, knowing its in there, will have a hard time detecting it.

I first made these little babies for a memorial day BBQ we hosted. I figured the kids will love these: not only is it mac and cheese, but its mac and cheese you eat with your hands! Win, win.

What I didn't figure was all the adults loving them too. The antipasto pasta salad I made was very lonely on the buffet table.

Here is what you will need:

For the puree:
2 medium *sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
3 **carrot sticks, peeled and chopped

Steam potatoes and carrots until soft. Transfer to food processor and add 1/4 cup of water used to steam the veggies (it has some of the lost nutrients from steaming). Process until pureed.

For the mac and cheese:

4 large *eggs
1 cup orange puree
2 cups shredded *cheddar cheese
2 cups cooked whole wheat organic macaroni
Salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a muffin tin with paper liners. Lightly spray liners with oil.

In a mixing bowl, whisk the eggs and puree. Mix in the macaroni and 1 cup of the cheese, salt and pepper.

Divide the mixture evenly among the muffin cups:

Really pile it on there or else they wont come out looking like cupcakes...

Top each with about one tablespoon of cheese and bake for 20 to 22 minutes, until cheese is lightly browned and bubbly on top.

Kids will even enjoy them cold so you can pack them in their lunch box. Just make a big batch and put half in the freezer so you have them on hand.


* Product from our local Coop

**Produce from our CSA