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Lunch. Making lunches exciting is always a challenge. One thing that thrills LM is homemade mac and cheese in a thermos.

Here's my recipe. You can adjust the amounts of cheese to your taste. It's really a very forgiving recipe. Same with the noodles - we like the elbow noodles but you could use anything (this makes it a frugal recipe too since you can just use what's in your pantry.)

1 box whole wheat elbow macaroni

1 lb (or so) sharp cheddar cheese,shredded

1/4 cup of milk

10 ritz crackers, crushed

pepper, to taste

paprika, to taste

Boil macaroni until it's al dente (since you will be putting it in the oven it doesn't have to be boiled more). Rinse macaroni. Using a 9" square baker: put a layer of macaroni on the bottom of the pan, pour about a third of the milk over the macaroni, sprinkle with cheese. Repeat this twice. Top the mac 'n cheese with the crushed ritz, pepper & paprika (mix those together).

Bake @ 350 degrees for about 30 min or until cheese is bubbly.

If you don't have ritz crackers, I have used goldfish & cheezits in the past. Like I said it's a very forgiving recipe and always tastes good.

I usually make this for dinner and then use the leftovers for lunch. For a larger family it could be made the night before specifically for lunches. It freezes well, too.

Head on over to Life as Mom and see what others are cooking up for lunch.