This might sound complicated but it's really easy, and practice will make perfect.

Comfort&Joy's Macaroni Cheese Recipe

1. Melt some butter (around 3 large tablespoons) over a very low fire and stir in a couple of tablespoons of plain flour.

2. With a wooden spoon, keep stirring vigorously for about 10mins or until the flour is cooked. It will be like a paste at first but don't watch that just keep stirring and stirring, it will loosen up. The continuous stirring is very important because if you don't keep stirring and cooking that flour properly your final sauce will be gritty and taste of raw flour. Don't overcook thebutter/flour mixturethough, if it has taken on a golden brownish colour and a weird smell - its burnt. Throw it away, wash out the potand start again.

3. Once the flour and butter have cooked sufficiently, add milk (full fat) gradually and continue to stir the mixture. This may take a while to thicken but keep stirring until you have a nice silkyconsistency which is not too thin, but not too thick - it ifdoes seem too thick just stir inmore milk, a little at a time. If the sauce is a little lumpy at this stage, don't worry, just put it through a strainer to remove the lumps.

4. Once you have a perfect basic white sauce you can add the cheese (medium or strong cheddar is best) and a little salt and pepper. Make sure you put enough cheese in the mixture, otherwise the sauce will taste bland. At this point the cheese sauce should have a custard-like consistency, but more runny than custard is, otherwise it won't coat the macaroni properly. If it seems a bit on thethin side, don't panic because starch in the pasta will help it out when it reaches oven stage. The sauce is now done and can be set aside.

5. Put the cooked macaroni (I'm sure you don't need instructions on how to cook macaroni) into an ovenproof dish (pyrex or similar) making sure the dish is large enough to accommodate all the macaroni and also the sauce. Then pour the sauce over the macaroni and mix it so that all the macaroni is coated and thoroughly mixed in with the cheese sauce. Sprinkle a good amount of cheese over the top of the dish then put intoa hot oven for around 20-30mins or until the cheese on top is bubbling and browned.

6. Carefully remove from the oven, serve it upand ENJOY!

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You can add finely chopped onion or sweet peppers to the sauce, or put a few slices of fresh tomato on top before the layer of grated cheese but I find this issimply delicious without anything extra.

You may already be aware that this dish is laden with calories and fat so isn't the healthiest thing you could eat. A small portion alongside your main meal is the best way to ensure you don't overindulge. This is so tasty that you may be tempted to eat more of it than you should. Give it a try, you won't regret it!

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