Comfort for your tum (Emergency Dinners)

Member Name: alysonfreeman

Product:	Emergency Dinners
Date:	26/08/01 (58 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Quick and filling

Disadvantages: None

This is Comfort Food, for the kind of emergency where you’re sad, or tired, or just need something to fill you up. It’s a variation on Macaroni Cheese, which I’m sure most people know how to make, but quicker. It has a kind of back-to-the-nursery feel, which is odd, because I don’t think my mum had ever heard of pasta way back in the nineteen fifties. My husband always moans when we have it (foreign muck), but I notice his plate is cleaned every time!

For two people, you need about 6oz of macaroni (or you can use any similar-sized pasta). Boil some water in a large pan with a pinch of salt added, and throw in the macaroni. Give it a good stir (this is important!) and then boil for the time it says on the packet – usually around 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, get out a large plastic jug (mine’s 2 litres) and put half a pint of milk in it. Add salt and pepper, about half a teaspoon of dry mustard powder, and a rounded tablespoon of plain flour. Whisk together with a balloon whisk and add 1 oz hard marg. or butter (but don’t whisk again or the lump of marg. gets caught in the wires of the whisk and you’ll spend ages trying to get it out again!). Microwave on full power for 3.5 minutes, whisking every minute until the fat has disappeared and the sauce has thickened. Grate some cheese in the food processor while you’re doing this – about 4 oz – and throw all except a little bit into the sauce when it’s done. Whisk until the cheese has melted.

Open a small can of tuna (6 oz) and drain off the liquid.

By this time the macaroni should be cooked. Drain and add to the jug with the cheese sauce. Mix and then add the tuna, flaking it up as you go. Mix again and then transfer the whole lot into a 3 pint casserole dish.

Add a slice of bread (or two) to the remaining cheese in the food processor and whiz. Top the dish with the cheesy breadcrumbs.

Finish off by pop
ping under the grill for 5 minutes to brown.

This has always proved foolproof for me, EXCEPT…….

Last night I put the sauce in the microwave and didn’t watch it – it boiled over and made a terrible mess. Then I opened the tuna with a new can opener – the sort that doesn’t leave sharp edges. Sounds good, doesn’t it? But what they don’t tell you is that it opens the tin around the side, and if it’s full of liquid the can is pretty soon sitting in a puddle (of sunflower oil in this case). So I picked up the can and took it to the sink – getting oil on my feet, the floor, the worktop, down my tee-shirt – fish oil perfume, lovely!

I got it made in the end – it’s a good job it always makes me feel much better when I eat this!

You can do variations with sliced frankfurters, mushrooms cooked in a little butter, prawns, cooked bacon bits – whatever you fancy, really.

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