I guess I got fooled by April Fool’s Day, because it was only after it that I realized what I should have written about.

When I thought about my column for that week, my first instinct was to have a recipe that turned out differently than the reader expected it to. But that’s a terrible idea! Besides, I thought, that happens all the time.

I’ve made plenty of recipes that touted themselves as being delicate, creamy and awesome, but instead came out flat, dry and overpowering. As luck would have it, these recipes usually involve an expensive or rare ingredient, or you were making a giant batch of it.

How to deal with the disappointment? The key is to pay attention, trust your instincts and improvise. If the recipe is in a cookbook you own, it also helps to write really nasty things in the book in red pen about why exactly you didn’t like the recipe.

Pay attention to what’s going on in the kitchen. If a recipe for cookies says to bake them for 20 minutes and they look done after 10, take them out of the oven. Usually you’ll know when something is starting to go wrong, and you can avoid a crisis.

Trust your experience and use common sense. If you’re making dough and it doesn’t seem to be coming together, add more liquid. A recipe should be thought of as a living document. It can be changed. Ingredients can be crossed out, added, increased, or decreased.

Tired of making the same lasagna? Add pesto, or sprinkle feta on top. Sometimes simple changes can make a big difference. And don’t be afraid of substitutes. Need to make cookies but don’t have the time to get eggs? Eggs can be replaced by bananas or apple sauce.

Even if you stay on your toes and use your smarts in the kitchen, sometimes things just don’t turn out right and there’s either a reason or there isn’t. You might have forgotten an ingredient, added one that made the flavor off, or used a substitute that didn’t quite match up to the original. Maybe you didn’t grease the pan enough, or didn’t knead the dough enough, or stirred the batter for too long. Shit happens. The more time you spend in the kitchen and the more dishes you make and ingredients you use, the more comfortable you will become. Expect to make mistakes, just make sure you learn from them.

This week I feature a recipe introduced to me by a good friend. If you’re like me, you have macaroni and cheese at least once a week, so it’s fun to change it up a bit. This recipe will make a generous amount for one person, but it would be very easy to double or triple it. I’ve made it with enough sauce for two bags of pasta before. As far as timing, I would recommend making the sauce while the pasta is cooking, so that they are ready at more or less the same time.

Green Chile Mac and Cheese
½ regular sized bag of the pasta shape of your choice, cooked
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons sifted flour
1 cup milk
1- 1 ½   cups grated cheese
1 4 oz. can diced green chiles
Yellow food coloring (optional)

1. Melt 3 Tbs of butter in a medium saucepan over low heat
2. Gradually add sifted flour, stir to combine
3. Gradually add milk, continue stirring
4. Let mixture simmer a little bit, stirring more or less constantly
5. Add as much cheese and chilies as you want, any other spices that appeal to you and yellow food coloring
6. Stir and continue to heat until all the cheese is melted and pasta is ready
7. Pour cheese sauce over precooked pasta