Macaroni Cheese

Macaroni cheese is one of those delicious homely meals that I love to eat, and so of course I make it at Uni. It's so easy to add goodness and extra flavour to every meal by adding as many vegetables as possible, so I always do, even to my version of macaroni cheese. Here, I've used bacon to add extra protein, but if you're vegetarian, the cheese content should provide enough, along with the protein in the wholegrain pasta, and vegetables. 

You may also be thinking that the thick creamy sauce can't possibly be healthy and must be full of fat, but there you'd be wrong. The thickness is provided by the reaction between the little bit of fat and the gluten in the flour. However, there is still fat in this meal, but you need fat in your diet, and if you bulk it up with lots of vegetables, you don't end up eating a lot!

This recipe serves four, but what I do is make it one day, put it in the fridge and cut off portions to heat up in the microwave (making sure it's piping hot all the way through) each day. Alternatively, wait until it's cooled down, and cut it up into portions to freeze. I always do this when it comes to exams so that I don't have to think about food when I'm stressed out revising; I can just whip a portion out of the freezer, bung it in the microwave for a few minutes and eat a tasty, healthy meal.

In terms of cost, vegetables are cheap and so nutritious, especially if they're in season, and the basic ingredients of flour and butter keep for a long time so are cheap if a little is used at a time, as in this recipe. Bacon is perhaps more expensive, but if you're particularly budgeting - use onion to add flavour instead (I explain how later).

Ingredients

• 2 rashers of bacon
• 1 red pepper
• 4-5 mushrooms
• 1 courgette, or 2 small courgettes
• 2 large tomatoes or 5 cherry tomatoes
• 1oz or 25g of butter plus a little extra for frying
• 1oz or 25g of plain flour
• 1/2 pint or 280ml of chicken (or vegetable) stock (just dissolve half a stock cube in boiling water)
• 1/2 pint or 280ml of semi-skimmed milk
• 1 tsp of wholegrain mustard (I always have a pot of this in the fridge, but it might be worth sharing with other people because it goes quite slowly!)
• Juice of half a lemon (or lemon juice to taste from a bottle)
• 3oz or 80g of cheddar or another mild-strong cheese. This is also a matter of taste. By all means add more or less as you please! The lemon juice helps to bring out the flavour.
• 5-6oz or 140-165g of wholegrain pasta
• Any vegetables you have lying around - I add carrots, peas, celery (which adds lots of flavour), sweet potato and parsnip.
• Fresh parsley
• Salt and pepper

The courgettes in this picture are from my parents' garden so they're small and one is yellow. Normally I just buy them from the supermarket! So are the peas, but again, normally I use frozen ones. Also, we had no wholegrain pasta in the house, so this is standard pasta.

Recipe

• Start off by cutting the pepper into chunks, and slicing the courgette, mushrooms and tomatoes. 

Tomatoes, courgettes, mushrooms and pepper

• Melt a knob of butter in a large pan and add the pepper, bacon and courgette. Fry them on a medium heat until the bacon is done and the pepper is soft, or for about 7 minutes. Put a pan of water on for the pasta and add a little salt.
• Add the mushrooms and tomato and continue frying for another 4 minutes. At this point also add the pasta, and set a timer for it according to the instructions on the packet. If you're adding carrots or celery, I'd recommend boiling them with the pasta at the same time, except for peas which you need to add with two minutes left to go.
• Add the butter, wait for it to melt, then add the flour and stir until all the flour has been soaked up. At this point it looks a bit weird, but bear with me! 

I had to scale quantities up to make it for my family, but the principle is the same.

• Once the flour has gone, add the stock and milk and continue stirring until it thickens. 
• Add the cheese, mustard, lemon juice and a few twists of black pepper. If you have fresh parsley cut this up and add it too. It doesn't matter if you don't though.
• Now taste, and season if it needs it. 
• Add the pasta and boiled vegetables and stir together until it's all coated.
• You can leave it at this point and freeze it/take portions of it as described at the beginning.
• OR you can scatter breadcrumbs and more grated cheese on the top and bake it in a large dish at 200 degrees for about 15-20 minutes.

This is the final thing before it was baked. YUM.

If you're vegetarian and don't want to include bacon, you can add onion at the same stage as the bacon. You might need to alter the seasoning accordingly, by adding a bit more salt.

If you want to add a harder vegetable like sweet potato, it will need to be cut into small chunks and fried with the bacon and pepper, or boiled for twenty minutes. Alter the veg with what you have in stock, be flexible with the seasons and offers.

Complimentary Tune: Base Like Home - Lily Allen, because there's nothing like home comforts!

Tip of the day: Last year at Uni, I had a basil plant and a parsley plant in the kitchen. They're not too expensive and carry on providing fresh herbs if you keep watering them! Definitely worth it because they add so much flavour to any dish!

---K