A day of cooking

I've spent the whole morning cooking for today and the rest of the week. While the children were at their synagogue classes I took the opportunity for some me time in the kitchen (although I now have wrinkled hands from all the washing up). I started with dough for the bread (I made double quantities this time so I'm now baking two loaves of bread). I've worked out that I can make two loaves of bread for under a pound and they even taste nice.  You can find the recipe here. Once the dough has risen for the second time, cook for 45 minutes at 220 degrees centigrade until the bread is golden and it sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom.

I decided to make some macaroni cheese for dinner tomorrow night. Now normally, I don't like makings the cheese sauce as I tend to burn it and then the pan is really difficult to clean. I'd read on the Internet that it was possible to make a cheese sauce in the microwave so I decided to give it a go and guess what, it worked and the bowl was easy to clean. While I was cooking the pasta (about 500g, enough for two meals for our family), melt 100g margarine in the microwave. I put it on high for 40 seconds. Take out and stir in 100g plain flour. Put back in the microwave for 20 seconds on high to cook the flour. At this point, add enough milk to make into a thick paste. Cook again for 40 seconds. Then stir in the rest of the milk (you'll need 2 pints for this recipe and I used semi skimmed milk). Cook on high for 5 minutes, stir and then cook again for 5 minutes. At this point, the sauce should have thickened. I cooked it again for another minute just to make sure. I then added in grated cheese, stirred into the cooked pasta and sprinkled extra cheese on the top. They're currently sitting in the fridge waiting to be cooked.

Microwave cheese sauce

Macaroni cheese

On Wednesday I bought a bag of kale from Waitrose for 25p instead of £1.50. Now, kale is not my favourite vegetable but it is full of iron. So, I searched the Internet and I found crispy kale. I decided that even if it tasted horrible, I would have only wasted 25p. Wash and dry the kale, mix with some olive oil and bake in the oven at 180 degrees centigrade for about 20 minutes until crisp. Once out of the oven, sprinkle with sea salt. This tastes really good and a little bit like the seaweed you get from the Chinese restaurant. 

The bread is now out of the oven and the house is smelling great. Now just off to do the weekly shop. Can it get any more exciting!