I have a few ‘go to’ recipes that when I can’t be bothered to do much (most days) or my kids have driven me to distraction (everyday), I can pull one of these out the bag and it will shut everyone up for a little while, with minimum effort from me.
My sort of macaroni cheese is a good one to share. Pasta is always a winner in our house. It’s quick, it’s cheap, and it’s always eaten without complaint. That’s the 3 main criteria for me when I plan a meal.
I call it sort of macaroni cheese because I don’t always use macaroni. I normally forget to buy it so I just use whatever shaped pasta I’ve got in the cupboard. 😂 I also add other stuff to it that I guess makes it more of a pasta bake. It’s origins are definitely macaroni cheese though.
The problem is, that whilst I can, and sometimes do, make a badass cheese sauce from scratch, I normally can’t be arsed. I made it my mission to find a quicker and easier way to do it.
I stumbled upon nadiya hussain‘s recipes completely by accident. I’d seen her on the great British bake off obviously, but I happened to catch her on TV making macaroni cheese, and it looked good.
So here’s her recipe. I use this as the starting point for mine nadiya hussains piccalilli macaroni cheese
I’m never happy to leave a recipe alone though, I like to tweak 😁 so I also chuck in whatever else I might have in the fridge. Sometimes I fry off some leeks, or onion, or throw in some chunks of ham, cooked bacon or chicken. Whatever you’ve got, stick it in (within reason obviously) Then put the breadcrumbs on and shove it in the oven.
Sometimes I can’t even be bothered to make the breadcrumbs. I just put more grated cheese on top. Cheese that I buy pre-grated because life is too short for grating anything.
Make a quick salad. Or if you’re me open a bag of mixed, pre-prepared salad and put it in a bowl. Some crusty bread and you’re done.
Delicious dinner in about half an hour. With enough leftover to feed the kids again the next day. Just microwave the leftover pasta, boil some broccoli and cauliflower, chop it up and mix it in, and you’ve got a whole new meal for them 😂
No such thing as normal 