July Recipe a Week Challenge: Week 5

 

 

 

Cold weather and an injury had me craving comfort food. The kind of food I didn't have much of as a child growing up but still made me feel like a kid. I wanted the taste of real Mac & Cheese. Not the tasteless almost cheeseless macaroni we buy readymade in the shops.

MrB and I try to eat vegetarian at least once a week. I was excited to try a few more vegetarian options to add our monthly menu.

This mac & cheese was delicious. Creamy, cheesy, comforting.

Eaten as leftovers the next day was just as delicious. The dish in the pictures looks big but it's really shallow so please don't think we had large portions. Ah, who am I kidding, we had genrous helpings! 

I do need to go to gym or take a run to make up for my indulgence. If only my knee would get better faster!

You can use any three cheeses with mozarella as the 4th for the topping. We used a milky gouda, a mature cheddar for strong flavour and a lite Danish feta to balance the yellow cheese. If we could find a goat's milk gouda I was going to use that along with haloumi but our local store was out of stock and I wasn't keen to drive all over the city. This is a great way to use up your left over cheeses.

Serve as is or with a side salad. View the original recipe here

 

3-Cheese Mac 'n Cheese

Serves 4 or 2 plus leftovers 

 

500g Macaroni

100g margarine

1 cup flour

100ml milk

400ml chicken stock

2 cups grated cheese

1/2 tsp paprika (not too much - just enough to enhance the cheese flavour)

1tsp Dijon mustard (you can use any mustard)

Salt & pepper to taste (not really needed with our feta cheese)

1 cup grated mozarella cheese

 

I put some water on to boil, added loads of salt and got my macaroni on the go. It needs to be pre-cooked but I decided to make it as i made the cheese sauce. Set the oven to 180 degrees.

 

Now to make the basic white sauce. In a large saucepan, melt the butter. Add the flour and mix with the butter to create a thick paste. Allow to cook for a minute. Add a bit of the milk. Mix it with the paste so that it forms a thicker paste. Add more milk and repeat. Once the milk has been added, ad the chicken stock in stages. If the sauce looks a little runny, don't worry too much.

Take off the heat and add the cheese and the spices. The cheese will thicken the sauce. I used a salty feta so I didn't need to add salt.

Mix the macaroni and the cheese sauce and pour into your baking dish. Sprinkle the mozarella cheese on top. Bake in the oven for 15 - 20 minutes until the cheese is golden.

Allow to stand for 5 minutes and serve.

 

 

Go and have a look at what the rest of the ladies made this week in the July Recipe a Week Challenge