Dressed up Annie's #2

The Goods:

1 box Annie's Mac and Cheese

1/4 cup unremembered Austrian cheese*

1/4 lb air-cured pork belly

1 small shallot

1 clove garlic

Place a medium saucepan three-quarters full of water on high heat. Dice the pork belly into 1 cm cubes. Place the pork pieces in a sauté pan on medium high heat. Finely dice the garlic and shallot. Cook the pork until all of the fat has rendered and the meat has browned. Add the garlic and shallot and cook for a few more additional minutes, taking care not to burn the garlic. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Cook the Annie's according to the package directions. Finely dice the unnamed cheese. After straining the pasta, add the milk (about 2 tablespoons, per the box directions), the cheese, the powdered cheese, and the pork belly**. Place the pot back on the burn and mix until the cheese has melted. Serve immediately.

Pork belly: massive chunk of bacon

*This, along with the pork belly, was purchased at Formaggio Kitchen in Cambridge. As often happens at Formaggio, I will taste a cheese that they have out for sampling and then immediately purchase some of said cheese. Unfortunately I cannot recall the name of the cheese in question, but it is made from cow's milk, hails from Austria, has an incredibly pungent aroma, and the name's Scrabble score would be easily over 80 (that is to say without any word or letter score modifiers).

**It is fair to say that one has added plenty of rich, fatty goodness with the pork belly and the butter that the box recommends can be skipped. In fact, it is highly recommended that this be served with a salad of some kind to offset the 400% of daily saturated fat present in this dish.