Recipe: Macaroni Cheese

I was thinking about puddings the other day. Not about eating them you understand, being at least 2 ½ stone overweight, I am trying to keep off them. No it was more a case of reminiscing about school lunches and in particular the puddings served up by the dinner ladies. In those far off days school lunch used to consist of a soup and a cooked dinner followed by a pudding. I don’t know about other schools but at ours there were four that I remember and another that I’m not sure of, but think it might have been sago.

Anyway, we had a different pudding for each day of the five-day school week. On Mondays we had semolina with a spoonful of jam to stir in which wasn’t half bad. Tuesdays it was jam roll with custard, brilliant. Wednesday is the one I think was sago, if it was; I seem to remember sago as being ok. Thursdays it was the one that we call frogs spawn, tapioca. I remember it as being pretty bland, but I ate it anyway, probably because it was a boy thing, eating frogs’ spawn.

Now we come to Friday, the only day that the unheard of happened and I refused a pudding. I was never a fussy eater and I would eat everything put before me, except the pudding that was invariably on Friday’s menu, macaroni. I don’t know why but I just couldn’t eat a sweet Macaroni pudding, yet if my mother made macaroni cheese I would scoff the lot. So bearing the above in mind. here is the recipe for macaroni cheese.

Macaroni Cheese

Break up macaroni sticks and cook in boiling salted water for 15 minutes. Drain well.

Melt margarine, stir in flour, cook for 2 minutes. Add mustard, salt and pepper. Stir in milk gradually. Bring to the boil and stir for 1 or 2 minutes as it thickens. Remove from heat and stir in 3½ oz of the grated cheese.

Add macaroni to the sauce; pour into a greased, ovenproof dish. Mix breadcrumbs with the remaining cheese and sprinkle over the top.