This was meant to be the first of my “Compare the Rubbish Ready Meals they Sell at Supermarkets to the Stuff you can Make at Home” posts. However I went and looked at a few different ready made macaroni cheeses, one at Morrisons and a couple at Sommerfield and to be honest I couldn’t see anything too toxic in the ingredients, so maybe they are ok? Big price variance though, from 98p to £2.99 for a little plastic pot of pasta making them probably work out more expensive per portion. Oh and there’s also the unknown effects of plastic that is seeping into your cheese sauce as you nuke it for 3 minutes in the microwave or, if it’s posh ready meal, cook it in the oven (I really can’t understand how you can put plastic in the oven, surely that has to be wrong?), and the fact that the thing you just cooked it in will be probably be lying around in a landfill for the next few thousand years. Erm so not that great then. I also didn’t do any taste comparison but I’m pretty sure a nuked plastic tub of slop wouldn’t look or taste any where near as good as a big bubbling golden dish of cheesy tubes fresh out of the oven.

Macaroni Cheese

• 250g macaroni
• 1 1/2 oz butter
• 1 or 2 heaped table spoons of plain flour
• 1 pint milk
• 250g grated mature cheddar
• nutmeg
• black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 220.
2. Put the pasta on to boil.
3. Meanwhile melt the butter in a saucepan, remove from the heat and mix in the flour, add on big spoon full and mix into the flour, add extra if needed to make a thick paste.
4. Pour a small amount of milk into the paste and mix it in, gradually add a more milk just a little at a time so it doesn’t go lumpy.
5. When all the milk has gone in return to heat and gently bring to boil (but don’t let boil fast) stirring almost continuously. Bad things can happen if you don’t keep stirring. As the sauce begins to thicken it will start to catch on the bottom of the pan, you need to keep stirring so it doesn’t burn and go lumpy.
6. When the sauce has thickened add 3/4 of the cheese and stir in, still over the heat until the cheese melts.
7. Hopefully the pasta should be ready pretty much at the same time, so you can just drain it and then mix in a dish for the oven with the cheese sauce.
8. Sprinkle the rest of the grated cheese over the top and then grate on some nutmeg, and sprinkle a little pepper.
9. Put in the oven until the cheese goes golden and nice crispy yum. Will be about 15 mins. I think.