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A Secret Recipe: Macaroni Cheese – Mac and Cheese with Bacon and Tomatoes

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A Secret Recipe: Macaroni Cheese - Mac and Cheese with Bacon and Tomatoes

A Secret Recipe:

– Macaroni Cheese –

Mac and Cheese with Bacon and Tomatoes

Mac and Cheese

I remember this was one of my favourite meals to come home to from school when I was growing up……Mum always made it with mature Cheddar cheese for a real bite and English mustard powder too, of course, in the sauce. Cheap and cheerful it may have been, a real “end of the month” recipe for a tight housekeeping budget, but it was always well received with me and my sister, and the plates were wiped clean. It amused me then to read, on one of my social media platforms, that I was now a “true American” when I shared some photos of the dish recently! Now, I DO know, having lived and worked in the USA, that “Mac’n’Cheese” is extremely popular there and you can even buy it in boxes, but, I never thought of it as an American recipe……I could be wrong, but I always assumed that it was a “nursery style” meal for harried cooks (or nannies) and people on a tight budget, and very British too!

Mac and Cheese

So, when I visited my assigned blog for November, as part of The Secret Recipe Club, I was pleased to see that Mac and Cheese was one of the recipes in Enriching your Kid’s recipe box. I would love to tell you more about the author of Enriching your Kid, but I couldn’t find her (or his) name anywhere, suffice to say that they have an interesting site with healthy recipes on there, as the title indicates. Visiting their “About Me” page, I can tell you that they are….”Clinical Psychologist by profession; having practised a good number of years, they settled to be a home maker when they had their kids. They started the blog in a venture to chronicle their mom’s recipes and experiments with cooking for the family”…..

Mac and Cheese with Bacon and Tomatoes

I knew that I was going to make the Mac and Cheese, as soon as I saw the recipe, but I was also tempted by these other recipes: Mozarella Cheese Cutlets, Fish Cutlets, Bread Pudding and Makai ki Roti/Corn Flatbread. My baby has grown up and flown the nest now, but for those Lavender and Lovage readers who still have babies or young children at home, there are lots of recipes for baby food there, which must be a real boon for those mums who need a bit of inspiration now and then. You can browse all of Enriching your Kid’s recipes here: Recipe Box.

mac and cheese

What I loved about this recipe for Mac and Cheese, was the addition of tomatoes and onions……such a great way to incorporate vegetables into a protein rich dish. Searching around in my pantry and fridge, I discovered that I had all the ingredients as well as an opened packet of smoked bacon lardons…….Hmm……why not add some crisply fried bacon to the dish as well I thought, for a really filling complete meal. So, the recipe I am sharing today, is for my version of Macaroni Cheese, as we call it in the UK, with tomatoes and onions, but also some bacon. I also tweaked the sauce, and added some English mustard powder, like mum does, and this was a truly delectable dish, filled with nostalgia as well as an unctuous cheese sauce.

mac and cheese

My recipe is shared below and I hope that this may have brought back happy memories for some of my readers too! That’s it for today, do pop back for some new recipes, giveaways and some traveller’s tales, have a wonderful week, Karen 

mac and cheese

 

Macaroni Cheese – Mac and Cheese with Bacon and Tomatoes

Print recipe
Macaroni Cheese – Mac and Cheese with Bacon and Tomatoes
Serves 4 to 6
Prep time 15 minutes
Cook time 25 minutes
Total time 40 minutes
Allergy Milk
Dietary Vegetarian
Meal type Lunch, Main Dish
Misc Child Friendly, Serve Hot
Region British
By author Karen Burns-Booth

Ingredients

  • 240g elbow macaroni
  • 100g smoked bacon lardons
  • 2 onions, peeled and finely diced
  • 2 tomatoes, chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely diced
  • 40g butter
  • 40g flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon English mustard powder
  • 450mls milk
  • 150g grated mature Cheddar cheese (plus extra for the topping)
  • salt and pepper to taste

Note

A classic recipe for macaroni cheese with bacon, tomatoes and onion for extra flavour. Recipe adapted from Enriching Your Kid.

Directions

Step 1 Pre-heat oven to 200C/400F/Gas mark 6.
Macaroni: Boil macaroni in salted water and drain. Add cold water and drain again. Set to one side
Step 2 Add the bacon lardons, onion, tomatoes and garlic to a frying pan and sauté over a medium heat until the bacon is crisp and the tomatoes and onions are cooked.
Step 3 Add the bacon, tomato and onion mix to the cooked macaroni and mix well. Spoon the macaroni and bacon mixture into a buttered oven proof dish.
Step 4 To make the sauce: melt the butter then add the flour and mustard powder and mix well. Add the milk gradually, beating well, and then simmer over a low heat until you have a thick sauce. Add the grated Cheddar cheese and mix until melted, then season to taste with salt and pepper.
Step 5 Pour the sauce over the macaroni mixture, scatter some extra grated cheese over the top and bake in pre-heated oven for 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown and bubbling.

mac and cheese with bacon and tomatoes


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Comments

  2. Dominic says

    as you know I am a huge Mac n Cheese fan… this looks gorgeous but then how can you go wrong. This would be an ideal lunch for today’s cold weather… so pass some over!

    Reply

  8. Glamorous Glutton says

    I remember this as a child too, except I hated macaroni!?! and would only eat spaghetti. So, ours was a spaghetti cheese but with a wonderful sauce and baked in the oven. Definitely BRITISH and very much kiddies food. But it makes a wonderful comfort dish on cold nights and with the addition of all those goodies truly delicious. GG

    Reply

    • Karen Burns-Booth says

      LOL! How weird GG, as I always thought macaroni and spaghetti tasted the same, maybe it was the shape of macaroni? It is kiddies food and I it was lovely to eat a bowl of pure nostalgia! Karen

      Reply

  13. Melissa says

    I could eat mac and cheese every day and never grow tired of it. I love your addition of the bacon, as well as the tomatoes and onions. It sounds fabulous! Amazing pick this month 🙂

    Reply

  20. Shirley says

    Hi Karen,
    Sorry for dropping by so late! Glad you tried this one. I posted this long ago and it was my first try. To be honest I would definitely add the bacon to it! Makes it complete. The pictures are fantastic. The crisp layer superb!

    Reply

  21. Ann says

    I’ve always been a big fan of Macaroni Cheese! My Mum always added bacon & I’ve taken to adding tomato over the last few years and now “Mummy’s Macaroni Cheese” is one of my boys’ favourite dishes.

    As to its provenance, I have a recipe for Savoury Macaroni from my great-grandmother’s “Instruction in Cookery”, presented to her in 1893 by her school in London. The method is not quite the same–the macaroni is cooked in water for half an hour and then in milk–for another hour!–before cheese and breadcrumbs are stirred through. But I think it would still be recognisable as macaroni cheese. Even if it’s not originally British it’s definitely been a British staple for many a generation.

    Reply

    • Karen Burns-Booth says

      Thanks so much for all this fascinating information Ann!

      I have also seen a similar recipe for water cooked macaroni that is then mixed with milk and cheese on some of my old cookbooks, so I think the provenance is fairly stable as a British recipe – maybe some thrifty cooks took the idea over the States when they emigrated……although, I’m sure the Italians may lay claim to it too, as my Italian pen-friend told me her mum often cooked something similar when she was little., but with Parmesan or Grana Padano in place of Cheddar.

      I bet that “Mummy’s Macaroni Cheese” is a big hit with your boys, and such a comforting supper dish too.

      Once again, thanks so much for sharing the interesting “savoury macaroni” information……love things like that.

      Karen

      Reply

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