Macaroni & Cheese - My Way

The other day, I was hungry and sat mulling over what to have for dinner. I thought, what about macaroni and cheese? I had never made it from scratch before but I knew it wasn't a complicated process. Just a basic  cheese sauce and pasta. So why not try it?

Okay, before I go on, I have a confession to make. I like macaroni and cheese but I'm not a big fan of macaroni. You may be thinking to yourself, wait a minute! Then it's not a true macaroni and cheese. Sacrilege! That's okay. Feel free to use your macaroni and I'll use my penne. Fair? Here are the ingredients I used:

I began by cooking the penne pasta until al dente, drained it and set it aside. The sauce was next and started with a roux using butter and flour. Here's an example:

Slowly, whisk in the milk. Whole milk is best but you can use a combination of milks. I used canned milk and whipping cream. Whisk in the cream cheese, cheddar cheese, white pepper, dry mustard, and chili powder until smooth. After tasting the sauce, it wasn't to my liking. So I added a pinch more of this and a dash more of that. This resulted in adding more pepper and mustard and the sudden realization what was missing: garlic powder and some salt. Silly me!

I poured the sauce over the pasta, mixed together, and pour it into a baking dish. After crumbling some Ritz crackers on top, baked it in the oven. My macaroni and cheese came out looking like this:

After tasting my macaroni and cheese, I decided I could never go back to a boxed mix again. It was so good!
Here's the recipe. What do you think?