bacon, cheese, chipotle, macaroni

Yep - bacon, cheese and chipotle chilies with macaroni.

I picked up a tin of chipotle chilis in adobo sauce at the Cambridge Cheese Shop at the weekend. These are hard to find in shops in the uk, you can buy them online only (try mexgrocer.co.uk). A lot of mexican recipes call for a chipotle chili to be added to the mix, things like a good chili, gumbo, enchilada sauce. I LOVE mexican food and so I am so pleased to be able to find these locally.


Obviously now I was in possession of this key ingredient my mind went blank on what to use them for. Then this recipe on the Homesick Texan blog magically appeared on my reader one rainy day!
I love mac and cheese, growing up in a household where we had gujarati food every day and anything that wasn't spicy was given a small amount of it anyway, mac and cheese was something I had never had until I started cooking myself.


This recipe really works to give an extra kick to the mac and cheese (reminscent of my mum's turmeric laced lasagne, but in a good way!). Although it does use a really really large amount of cheese - a 2:1 ratio of cheese to pasta - it produces a lighter sauce than your traditional flour, milk and cheese sauce.

A few notes about my recipe - I forgot the cottage cheese. I knew it would give a thicker texture and I didn't have anything like mascarpone or thick cream to replace it with, so I just used less milk and replaced the cottage cheese with more cheddar. And one of the things the original NY Times recipe says is - if in doubt - use more cheese. If your sauce seems thin, add more cheese!

Also try and find a really mature cheddar, this will really make a difference to your sauce.

If you can't get hold of chipotles in adobo you can add a dash of chili powder or maybe even some tabasco sauce to your sauce. You won't get the same smokey depth of flavour like chipotles give but you'll get that extra kick!

Chipotle & Bacon Macaroni Cheese
serves 2 greedy people
adapted from Homesick Texan and NY Times

400g (2 cups) dried macaroni pasta
3/4 pint (1 1/2 cups) of semi skimmed or whole milk
now get ready... 800g (4 cups) grated extra mature cheddar cheese
1 chipotle chili plus a couple of teaspoons of adobo sauce from the tin
1/2 teaspoon cumin
2 rashers of back bacon or 4 of streaky or pancetta, cut into chunks.

Preheat your oven to 375f / 190c / gas mark 5.
Pop the dish you are using in the oven to heat up, try to use a very deep ceramic dish if you can.

Blend together your milk, cheese, the chipotle chili and sauce and cumin. Do this in a food processor or a stick blender in a bowl. Season with black pepper.

Remove your dish from the oven and add your pasta (no need to cook it before, promise!) and then stir in the blended sauce. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes.
Then remove the foil, add the bacon on top and bake for a further 20-30 minutes until the pasta is cooked. You can add cheese to the top here if you like, but if you don't the pasta will still bake up with a nice crust.

I don't normally do drink/wine recommendation (mainly because I don't know much about wine!) but I had this with a glass of apple and rhubarb juice which was a nice bit of sharpness to go with the cheese.

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work in progress

Normally with jewellery projects come together quickly and there aren't many versions of something, mainly because its easy to tweak things as you are making the final version.

Lately I've been working on some more complex projects and some experimental wire wrapping.

I've got these two lovely work in progress pieces which I hope to finish very soon, I am especially excited about the handformed daffodil that I hope to bring to my shop for Easter.

These little brass teardrops will be in my shop very soon, I made them as teeny as can be so I think they need to be a little bigger.

I am also planning versions in silver and gold fill (and in fact i've had another idea for them whilst I've been writing this - Yay!)

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Polishing

I do like an 'in progress' pic - I like capturing the ordinary.


I loved the way the pink polishing cloth looked against these oxidized earwires that I just made.
It has also given me an idea for a pair of earrings, now I need to track down some beads that go perfectly.

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Cooking - Healthy Baking - Granola Bars

This recipe has been sitting in my favourites folder for quite a few months, it looked fantastic but always got passed up in favour of pecan pie, sticky toffee pudding or some fluffy marshmallows. Because really, when it comes to it, these things generally win over an oaty bar.

In an effort to be healthier and because I've been chewing on ridiculously overpriced cereal bars recently I thought I'd finally give my own granola bars a go.

This recipe is from Smitten Kitchen, once again, as many of my recipes are.

I used half and half honey and golden syrup (whereas the recipe only used honey) because I only had a teeny jar of honey. The fruit I used was a bag of mixed fruit - raisins, currants and candied orange, and some jewel like dried cranberries.


The recipe suggested extra sugar if you want a sweet bar or melted butter. I didn't include either but I think I'll include a bit more honey next time and I think the butter would help them stick a bit better. Mine were a bit crumbly!

These are lovely crunchy bars and the fruit gives just enough sweetness. I had a bit of a disaster when cutting them up so I was left with actual granola/muesli which I had for breakfast the next day - it makes great cereal too!

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Sunday Dinner

Not a recipe as such but we had a lovely sunday dinner today and I just had to post a picture (and most welcome it was too as we've been trying to cut back on eating meat recently).

Roast pork, crackling, roast potatoes, yorkshire pudding and creamed spinach.

If you try one thing here it must be the creamed spinach recipe from Smitten Kitchen. We filled our pancakes with it on pancake day too, its very versatile and yummy.

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Treat Yourself - Free Shipping

Hello there!

I'm running a special offer in my Etsy shop this weekend- FREE SHIPPING!

This is on all jewellery to all countries!

And if you mention BLOG during checkout I'll give you another 10% off.

You can wait for a revised invoice with the discount applied or I'll refund your discount after payment.

Happy Weekend everyone!

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Uniquely vintage...

I came across this beautiful vintage optical lens recently, I love the vintage character it has! I think it is especially good because they were never meant for jewellery but they work so well on a long necklace.

It is an opticians lens with a strength of 8.00 - you could even use it as a magnifying glass -maybe something for a gardening or nature lover? The glass is nice and thick and in wonderful condition, I can't see a scratch on it.



I've put mine on a long brass chain with a lovely spring time flower on top!

In my Etsy shop!

I'll have another lens necklace coming soon too!

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