July is a big Birthday month around here and the Boyfriend requested homemade Mac-and-Cheese for his Birthday meal.

Being that it was a celebration, we decided to leave our cheesy carby guilt at home and off we went to the priciest grocery store to find all the overpriced cheese we could lay our hands on!  We came home with Gouda, Parmigiano Reggiano, some sort of fancy name-less spicy pepper cheese, and (of course) Cheddar.

We also picked up some broccoli, shallots and crimini mushrooms, found the cutest little elbow macaroni, and grabbed a loaf of rosemary lemon bread since I wanted to make a crispy breadcrumb crust on the mac-and-cheese.

I cooked it all in a skillet.

It was the cheesiest, fanciest rustic weeknight birthday dinner ever.