Slow Cooker Mac and Cheese with Ham and Peas

Wow, I haven't posted here since October 6, 2007, which happened to be my husband's birthday...but not this year. Last year. Whoops!

Quite honestly, I have not been doing a ton of cooking. However, my New Year's resolution is going to be to cook at least four meals per week. And as a precursor to that, I am trying to get a little cooking under my belt now so I can get used to it.

This morning, when I got home from work, I put into my slow cooker the ingredients for macaroni and cheese. I created this using a recipe I adapted from allrecipes.com. Here is the recipe, with my edits in italics:

Slow Cooker Macaroni and Cheese (with Ham and Peas)

1/2 pound elbow macaroni
1 1/2 cups milk
2 eggs
1 can evaporated milk
4 cups cheese (divided)
1 t. salt
1/2 t. black pepper
2 ham steaks
1 box frozen peas

Coat crock of slow cooker with nonstick cooking spray (I used a slow cooker bag...I love them, even though they are totally unnecessary.) Combine milks and eggs in a large bowl and mix thoroughly. Add 3 cups of cheese and mix together. Add salt and pepper (I didn't measure this...just threw in some salt and did some twists of the pepper mill.).

It was at this point that I mixed in the ham and peas.

Sprinkle remaining cheese on top. Cook on low for 5 to 6 hours. Avoid stirring or removing the lid during cooking time.

My slow cooker cooks very hot, I think. It has a "keep warm" setting that I use almost like a low setting. I worked last night, so I was sleeping for about eight hours today and didn't want to have to worry about checking on it. Therefore, after heating the slow cooker up on high, I switched to the keep warm setting and let it go for eight hours.

This was a really good recipe! The flavor of the sauce was really good, and the ham and peas added a nice touch. The only change I would make from what I did is that I would add an entire pound of the pasta. The sauce was more than enough to handle it, and when I was eating, I had a lot of fork fulls with no pasta at all.

A keeper!