A man walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt under his arm.
He says to the bartender, “Give me a beer … and one for the road.”

As though Macaroni and Cheese isn’t perfect enough on it’s own, put it into a puff pastry crust and you have a luscious treat.

Sautéed mushrooms added to the macaroni gives it additional texture and there are two cheese sauces for maximum flavor.

Macaroni And Cheese Puff Pastry Pie

Ingredients:

1 pound puff pastry, thawed
1/2 pound elbow macaroni, cooked
1 oz butter, plus extra for greasing ramekins
4 oz mushrooms, quartered
Mornay Sauce (recipe follows)
Parmesan Sauce (recipe follows)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 200℃/400℉.

2. Lightly butter 6 ramekins or 6 individual casserole dishes. Place them on a large baking sheet.

3. Roll out pastry dough and cut out 6 circles large enough to fit bottom of your ramekins. Cut remaining pastry into strips wide enough to line the sides of the ramekins. (My individual casserole dishes are 6 inches across. I use one half of the puff pastry to cut out the circles with some scraps left over. The other half of the pastry was enough to make the strips.) Press the pastry along the bottom edge to seal with the base.

4. Line each ramekin with foil and fill with baking beans. Refrigerate for 20 minutes.

5. Bake puff pastry shells for 20 minutes until golden. Remove baking beans and set aside shells.

6. Stir cooked macaroni into Parmesan sauce and warm through.

7. Melt butter in a skillet. Cook mushrooms for 5 minutes until golden brown. Stir into macaroni mixture.

8. Divide macaroni among the pastry cases and spoon mornay sauce over each.

9. Return to oven for about 5 minutes or until hot.

10. Serve in ramekins or invert pies onto serving plates.

Serves 6

Mornay Sauce

Ingredients:

1 ounce butter
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
200ml milk, warmed
1/2 tsp prepared English mustard
3 oz grated cheddar cheese

Directions:

1. Melt butter in a saucepan. Add flour and cook over low heat for 2 minutes.

2. Gradually add warmed milk, stirring constantly until smooth. Simmer until thickened, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Stir in the mustard and cheese and stir until cheese is melted. Keep warm.

Parmesan Sauce

Ingredients:

250ml heavy cream
3 oz Parmesan cheese, grated
2 Tbs crème fraîche
Squeeze of lemon juice, to taste

Directions:

1. Pour cream into a large saucepan and bring to a boil.

2. Lower heat and whisk in the Parmesan and crème fraîche. Add lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste.

Recipes slightly adapted from BBC Good Food Magazine

Dave Hughes has a new album ‘Rise, Again!’ due out in March. The first single, “Freedom Of Something”, embraces life in a world where freedom is respected. Amen to that.

“Through the Freedom of speech, comes the Freedom of thought
the Freedom of peace and the Freedom of war
The Freedom of religion,
and the Freedom to believe in absolutely nothing at all”

Check out Dave Hughes on his Website, where you can learn of upcoming shows in the EU and an opportunity to be in a music video if you are in Glasgow on the 27th of February. (Jealous!). You can pre-order the new record and get the older music on Bandcamp.

Cheers!