White Pasta Sauce from Scratch

I was really excited that this recipe turned out well!  It is so straight-forward and simple, and I was actually brave enough to add in some of the recommended additions at my own measurement discretion!

I went with the ingredients to make the medium sauce:

2 Tablespoons butter
2 Tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 dash of pepper
1 cup milk

The first step is to melt the butter in a saucepan on low heat.

Once the butter is completely melted, add in the 2 tbsp of flour, the 1/4 tsp of salt, and the dash of pepper.  Mix all of this together well to form a sort of paste.

Next, add the 1 cup of milk all at once.

For the next two or three minutes, cook it all over medium heat, stirring frequently.  The sauce will start thickening and getting slightly bubbly.  Once it reaches that point, keep cooking and stirring it over the medium heat for another 2-3 minutes.

Once that time has passed, the sauce should have reached an acceptable thickness.  This is the point to add in extras!  For my sauce, I added 1/2 a cup of shredded Parmesan cheese and 1/4 tsp of garlic powder.  It tasted yummy over the bow-tie pasta with the Garlicky Baked Shrimp!

That said, the cheese did thicken the sauce considerably, and once the sauce cooled a bit it got very clumpy.  Next time, I believe I shall either add only 1/4 cup of shredded Parmesan OR keep that the same and use the "Thin Sauce" measurements:

1 Tablespoon of butter
1 Tablespoon of flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk

I'll let y'all know how that turns out whenever I try it!  Or if you try it before me, let me know too!