Mrs. Rowe

This is one of my favorite cookbooks.  There really was a Mrs. Rowe, she was born in 1913 and died in 2003.  She and her husband opened a restaurant called Mrs. Rowe's.  This book tells all about her life as a young girl and her married life and about her restaurant.  It is basic food, comfort food.  It is in Staunton Virginia.  So...here is my tale of woe.  In February Doey and I went to North Carolina to visit Kody and Austin and to help them drive back home.  I thought yay me for two reasons.  1) I was hoping we could go through Kentucky and I could make a pit stop in Pike county Kentucky to look for dead people and 2) we could also go through Virginia and stop to eat at Mrs. Rowes.  Sadly we did neither...the daughter - in - law vetoed my pit stops.  Some excuse of 'you'll thank me later for not taking your pit stops when you are ready to be done driving'.  She was right.  So we ate at a Cracker Barrel in Tennessee and the food was awful, and we crashed a Wendy's grand opening party that was for family and friends only.  They told us it was for friends and family and I whispered to Kody, Austin and Doey just tell them we are from the neighborhood.  Then when they realized that we obviously weren't getting the 'friends and family grand opening' thing they fed us for free!    I bet Mrs. Rowe's would have been delicious!  I want to share my favorite recipe from her book but I was concerned about the copyright thing...so I called Mrs. Rowe's.  Her son, Mike, is in charge now and was out of town.  I explained to the lady in charge who answered the phone that I wanted to share a few recipes and she said since I owned the cookbook I probably could!  She sounded nice and had a cute accent but she probably didn't know any more about copyright stuff then I do!
This is my favorite macaroni and cheese...no more box stuff for us!  It is so quick and easy..I hope you enjoy it.  As you can tell the page is well used and part of the mac and cheese recipe is stuck to the baked apple recipe on the opposite page.  If I ever want to make her baked apple recipe I will have to wing the how to section as it is covered up with the mac and cheese directions! 

 Mrs. Rowe's Baked Macaroni and Cheese
2 cups macaroni
3 cups grated cheeese
3/4 cup milk
2 tbsp butter
Preheat oven to 350.
Cook macaroni according to package directions.  Drain.  Spray a 9x9 inch pan and put half the macaroni in the pan, top with 2 cups of cheese, add the rest of the macaroni, the rest of the cheese and dot with the butter.  Pour the milk over the top and bake 20 minutes. 
This is the 'real' recipe.  This is my version:

I boil some macaroni, depends on how many I am feeding and I never measure.  I spray a 9x13 pan and put half macaroni in, cover with 2 good handfuls or cheese, more if it looks skimpy.  More macaroni, more cheese, and about a half a cube of butter, sliced.  I pour about a cup and a half of milk over all and bake til we are ready to eat.  I have never timed it.  I do however bake it at 350!  You can never go wrong with extra butter and extra cheese!
It is truely most delicious!  And what do we always have it with?  Hot dogs...duh!