Mega Mac & Cheese

 I made this macaroni and cheese for my family recently, and it has taken me a while to write it up but everyone's macaroni is different, for instance, when we were little, Mum used to make macaroni for Lucy and I and she would roast tomatoes on top.

I found this recipe on Kate Gowing's blog but I didn't have all the ingredients so I've chopped and changed it slightly.

500g of macaroni or any other small pasta

6 rashers of bacon, chopped

5 spring onions, chopped

For the cheese sauce:

60g butter

60g plain flour

2 tsp mustard powder

750ml milk

250g jarlsberg, grated

150g cheddar, grated 

First cook your pasta, and that's simple enough, unless you're me and never cook it, thank goodness my godmother was there to check it!

While the pasta is cooking away, cook your bacon and spring onions in a pan together, with no fat, until they're the perfect balance of crispy and meaty.

Then in another pan, start making your cheese sauce, first by melting the butter with the dry ingredients, then adding all the milk until it thickens, and then add about half of both of the grated cheeses.

Drain the pasta and mix the bacon and spring onions in.

Once the pasta and bacony bits are combined, mix in the cheese sauce, sprinkling half of the grated cheese that isn't in the sauce into the pasta.

Get a big dish. And I mean big, we've still got left overs in the fridge, I wasn't kidding when I said it was mega!

Sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top of the dish and bake in 200 celcius/ 400F oven for about half an hour.

 

When it comes out it should be all bubbly and deliciously crispy on top.

I served this just by itself, it's not one for dieters but seriously this is the ultimate comfort food.

Cheese Pies

 

I was given this recipe by my greek friend's mother, IK always brought these in on birthdays and other occasions and I was hooked, smooth cheese wrapped in filo pastry, almost a cheese samosa.

 

Ingredients:

2 cups milk
1/2 cups semolina (or I used polenta, similar sort of thing)
50g butter
1 beaten egg
150g feta cheese (cut up into very small pieces)
1 pack of filo pastry sheets

 

Pour your two cups (or in my case mugs) of milk into a pan and heat gently.

 Then add the half cup of polenta and keep stirring constantly so no lumps form.

 

 

As you are stirring add your butter in, I put mine in solid and continued to stir until it had melted but that is up to you.

Add your beaten egg

Keep stirring until it noticably thickens, at which point take it off the heat and add your small bits of feta.

This is where I would advise you to chop it up very small, I should have listened to Ismini's advice...
Apologies for the less than appealing photo above, the saucepan was a little smaller than I had thought, but what's cooking without mishaps?

Next take a sheet of filo and quarter it, leaving 4 rectangles of pastry.
Then dollop about half a tablespoonful of the sauce into the corner of the pastry sheet.

Brush melted butter all over the surrounding pastry and begin folding in triangles.

Keep going until you reach the end and repeat until you run out of either the pastry or sauce.
Then put on a baking tray and put in the oven until golden.
Once golden and crispy put them on some kitchen towel to soak up any grease which will help prevent them getting soggy.

These keep for about 3 or 4 days, if they last that long.
They would also be great with something like chutney on the inside of the filo...!