Macaroni and Cheese

'Twas another I'm-too-zonked-out-from-work week night that called for a simple satisfying dinner at home. As we had leftover frozen bacon from the epic boeuf bourguignon, the choice was clear: it was mac and cheese time! (with bacon, clearly).

Macaroni & Cheese - Fourawesome style

- Macaroni : ~100 g

- Bacon : ~4 strips, squared

- Cheddar : ~120g, grated, cubed, whatever

- Onions : 1/2, chopped

- Garlic : 2 cloves, chopped

- Butter : 1 tbsp

- Flour : 1 tbsp

- Milk : 1 cup

- Mixed Vegies : 1/2 cup

- Italian herb seasoning

- S&P

First up, fry up some bacon! Four strips were used in this recipe, which didn't seem like much in the pan, but was just enough for awesome porky salty goodness.

At the same time, we boiled the macaroni in salted water. Here we roughly estimated the quantity (which turned out just perfect again! more on that later), but feel free to use a more scientific approach of deducing how much carbs you want in your mac and cheese.

Once the bacon is nice and brown and a bit charred, dish it out and set aside. With the remaining bacon fat (do NOT let it go to waste!!1), add in the butter (yes, really) and then the chopped onions and garlic. Stir fry till the onions are a bit translucent and everything smells like heaven.

For a slightly more balanced meal, we decided some fibre is needed in this meal. About half a cup of frozen mixed vegies were thrown in the pan. Stir around for a while to cook it a bit.

Next, we mixed 1 tablespoon of flour into a cup of milk. On lower fire, add this to the pan of oily buttery onion goodness, and stir till homogeneous. Then, in went the cheese, S&P, and italian herbs.

By now the macaroni was already cooked through al dente, drained, and set aside.

Now we added the dry cooked macaroni and BACONN into the cheesy sauce. It was mixed well to make sure every bit of macaroni was liberally covered in sauce. Like so:

Once the macaroni was sufficiently cheesed, scoop the whole load out into a baking tin. Here we used a regular-sized loaf tin, lined with baking paper (which by the way, is the best invention ever - one less item to wash up!).

Topped it all off with a generous sprinkling of breadcrumbs.

Left it to sit in a preheated oven for about 20-30 minutes, until the top crumby bit was slightly browner.

Voila!

Serve on a plate (floral patterns recommended) with bit more freshly ground black pepper, and enjoy! :D The most amazing part of this dinner was how the macaroni/sauce ratio, macaroni/loaf tin ratio, and macaroni/appetite ratio was absolutely perfect without much measuring done :) Yummeh!

Please don't have sex with it.