The other week I shared that I was feeling a bit homesick. I am not a super great traveller, and I really miss being at home for no other reason than it’s home.
I have found a few things have made me feel less homesick, and making this dish is one of them. We call it Mac n Cheese, even though it really just a pasta bake. 
This version I am sharing is quite different to what my mum use to make. Mostly because I have removed the bacon from it, which we don’t eat, and now Lior likes to eat real food (so inconvenient. Haha!), and he can’t have dairy, and I can only have a little bit, so his is completely dairy free (so yeah, NOT mac and CHEESE anymore!!), and mine only has a little bit…
The secret ingredient is parsley. It is so important that I had to buy a parsley POT PLANT in order to get some. For some silly reason our supermarket here didn’t have any normal parsley in stock. Thankfully the pot plant only cost like 1 Euro 20 cents, so it was still good value.
Anyway, the recipe goes like this:
Stuff You Need:
- 3/4 packet of macaroni (I don’t think my mum EVER used macaroni. Just use whatever pasta you have. I sometimes makes this with all the bits of pasta that are mismatched in the bottom of the tupperware container). Cook this till it’s just before aldente! You want a bit of bite to it as you will cook it again.
- 2 diced tomatoes. Again, you can use whatever type of tomato.
- 1 medium onion, diced. Best to get someone else to cut this up for you if you can.
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- 1 mega large handful of parsley. This is the secret ingredient. Don’t be stingy with it. Chop this baby up so it’s nice and fine.
- A dash of milk.
- Cheddar cheese as per your tolerance of dairy.
Stuff To Do:
- Layer the pasta, tomato, onion, parsley and cheese if you’re having it, into a casserole dish twice, and an extra layer of pasta on top.
- Splash over two cap fulls of milk (Don’t do this if you want to make it completely dairy free. I find the 1/8 of a cap of milk Lior will get in his serve is fine for him to tolerate now).
- Cover in cheese. Or don’t. Maybe half-half if your other half loves cheese and you can’t have any…
- Cook in a slow-moderate over until the cheese on the top is bubbly and brown and delicious. About 40 minutes I’d say.
- Serve it up. I’m not sure what it is about this meal, but there is never any leftovers. Even when there are only three of us and it serves like 6 or 7 people, still no leftovers. It’s a mystery…!
The post Curing Home Sickness :: My Mum’s Mac and Cheese :: Meatless Mondays appeared first on The Climbing Tree.