Panera Mac and Cheese

Have you ever had the mac and cheese at Panera?  If not, you must!!  It is SO so so SO good!  One of my favorite things and one of the 6 year old's favorite things as well.  I saw a pin for Panera's Mac and Cheese this weekend and immediately put it on the menu for this week.  I hyped it up big time, getting the 6 year old all excited and telling the 3 year old that I was going to make the yummiest mac and cheese ever.

The end result was just....eh.  I modified it slightly, using GF flour instead of regular flour and elbow pasta instead of the shells (I divided the sauce after it was made for the regular pasta and the quinoa gf pasta). It was super cheesy and creamy, but it was not sinfully delicious like the real stuff is.  I thought the Dijon mustard taste and smell was overpowering and it was hard getting past that. It also wasn't a really smooth cheese sauce, although that could have been from the gf flour so it may work better with real flour. 

 The 6 year old is my crazy mac and cheese fan.  It's his all time favorite food and he likes it in many different flavors and forms.  He liked this, said it didn't taste like Panera's, but does want me to make it again and he had 2 bowls.  The 9 year old took a bite and said he didn't like it but then said it was because he wasn't expecting that flavor.  Once he knew what to expect, he said it was good and ate his whole bowl.  The 3 year old, who's almost as big of a mac and cheese fan as his brother, ate most of his but didn't finish it and didn't ask for seconds which is unusual for him and mac and cheese.  He helped himself to a whole banana and a yogurt after that, though, so it wasn't because he wasn't hungry.

 For the amount of time and cost this was (who knew the cheapest block of white cheddar Target has is $5 for 7oz??) I'd much rather just go to Panera and have the real thing.