Story and recipes by Darryl Postelnick
My son, David, is the mac and cheese connoisseur in my family. He’s the one who encouraged me to make it in the first place and still requests different variations all the time. His famous mac and cheese bar at home has become a staple in our house. Homemade mac and cheese is so different from the store-bought form, which I used to love when I was a kid. My mom would buy it in bulk as an easy way to feed the hungry family of eight we had in our house. It was an easy side dish to many meals or an easy-to-prepare snack for us kids after school. I only started making it homemade a few years ago when my kids requested it, and there are so many ways to make it. After a while, I believe I’ve perfected the recipe to my family’s liking.
The best thing about mac and cheese is that there are so many different things you can add to it to enhance the taste and flavor: pulled pork, lobster, brisket, bacon, jalapeños, and more. Making it with bacon and jalapeños has become one of our absolute favorites.
The key to a great mac and cheese at home is the creaminess of the sauce along with the crunchiness of the topping. I like to make mine with an assortment of cheeses with the right mixture of milk or cream. For me, that means needing to start with the béchamel. Béchamel is made while whisking butter with flour and then adding milk or cream to make a sauce. I like mine with a thinner consistency. It can absorb all the cheeses while keeping the final product creamy and saucy instead of dry and thick. Once you get to the desired consistency, add your favorite seasonings or barbecue rubs.
“His famous mac and cheese bar at home has become a staple in our house.”
When it comes to cheese, this is where a lot of recipes differ. I often add American cheese (I order a 2-inch hunk at the deli to shred at home), Gruyère, Cheddar, and Parmesan. I use about a cup of each, but the key is to shred it yourself and not buy the store-bought shredded cheese; it’s all loaded with anti-caking agents and doesn’t tend to melt well. The secret cheese I add to all my mac and cheese recipes is—believe it or not—Velveeta. It helps make it perfectly creamy. Add in some cooked bacon bits, mix in your favorite pasta, and you could be done right there. Or you can add a bread crumb topping and thinly sliced jalapeños and bake it for about 25 minutes for a crunchy topping. Sometimes I add any leftover cheese shreds to the top before adding the bread crumbs. It makes things even cheesier!
The great thing about mac and cheese is that you can add any leftover proteins you made the day before to it and make a delicious meal with it. I like experimenting with short rib, crab, lobster, brisket, pulled pork, and bacon. Have fun and get creative with it—you’ll like what you come up with.
Smoked ribs are a favorite summertime barbecue meal for me. I love the different ways you can make them and how the texture, cooking methods, and seasonings can change the flavor every time. I grew up with ribs that were grilled over charcoal, but they turned out very tough, making it hard to pull meat off the bone. In my family, I found that my wife enjoys a rib that’s more tender and would fall off the bone. While I like that, I also like a tender rib that needs a little tug. This is one of the big debates with ribs: fall off the bone versus tug off the bone. I have a method: I bake them in the oven with some water or beer in the pan, covered with foil tightly, for two and a half to three hours. Once that’s done, load them up with your favorite barbecue sauce, and let them sit for another 30 minutes, covered with foil. Steaming the finished product with foil ensures all the sauce soaks in and makes them oh so tender. These truly fall off the bone but lack the smokiness of the grill.
The method I use for my Smoked BBQ Ribs is the 3-2-1 method. The entire cooking process takes about six hours on the grill, and you can use your favorite smoke-flavored chips to enrich the flavor profile. I start by getting my grill to 225° before rubbing the ribs down with a seasoning rub and going on the grill, unwrapped, for three hours. After the three hours is up, I lay out a piece of foil and add a mix of butter, honey, brown sugar, and apple juice to it. The ribs go on that foil upside down and are rewrapped loosely. All these flavors will absorb into the meat when I place the ribs back on the grill at 225° for two more hours. I then unwrap them, apply my favorite barbecue sauce, and place them back on the grill for one more hour. These will come out tender, smoky, and delicious.
No matter which way you prefer to cook ribs, these are two surefire ways to enjoy them, either in the kitchen or out on the grill!
Darryl is a loving husband and father and an Illinois native with decades of experience in sales at the executive level. With inspiration from his children, in the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Darryl turned his love for cooking at home into a thriving following on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, where he cooks both in his kitchen and outdoor on the grill for his more than 3.5 million followers.
