mac and cheese

I've noticed a trend emerging in my posting, food.

Gramma Claire's Macaroni and Cheese
from Ruth's Diner in Salt Lake City

Ingredients:
3 cups uncooked macaroni noodles
1 cup diced onion
1/4 cup melted butter
1/4 cup flour
3 cups milk
2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon paprika
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
2 1/2 cups grated Cheddar
2 1/2 cups grated Monterey Jack
1 cup cottage cheese

topping:
1/4 cup melted butter
1/4 cup bread crumbs

Cook macaroni, drain do not rinse.

In a large saute pan, saute the onions in butter. Add the flour to make a roux and cook for 1 minute. Add the milk, bay leaves, paprika, salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer, stirring often. Mix the 2 cheeses together in a small bowl. Once the mixture is at a simmer, add 3 cups of cheese mixture and the cottage cheese. Stir well, remove from heat, and remove bay leaves from mixture. Add macaroni noodles to milk mixture, mix well.

Pour 1/2 of macaroni mixture into an 8 x 8 baking dish, cover with 1/2 of the remaining grated cheese, add remaining macaroni mixture and cover with the remaining grated cheese mixture.

In a small bowl mix together the topping ingredients and top the macaroni. Place into the oven and bake until golden brown, about 45 minutes.

*** Rytting's version- for the bread crumbs I used Panko and I ended up using closer to 1/2 cup. and I added some grated parmesan cheese in to the topping, cuz a little extra cheese is a good thing. The recipe says to cook it for 45 minutes. We like our pasta saucy so we cooked it for about 30 minutes to keep it from drying up and then turned the oven to broil to toast the crumb topping.
This is yum.