Spinach and bacon macaroni cheese. With a crispy top.

If you come to my house you will be fed. Even if it’s just a biscuit or a slice of cake with a cuppa I will feed you. I’m incapable of not providing something to eat. It’s an automatic thing for me. Food is a welcome, a sign that you are wanted and your company is enjoyed.

TACT is a charity that provides fostering and adoption services to help some of the UK’s most vulnerable children and young people. Their aim is to help provide loving family homes and fresh starts. For me, food and family is so strongly linked that I am more than happy to be joining in with the Care to Cook Challenge. TACT understand the role that food and family meals can play in creating a safe secure environment and have published their own Care to Cook recipe book, which you can buy for £3 and help raise funds.

Pasta screams comfort food to me, macaroni cheese especially. Even my not a huge fan of pasta husband will happily eat a couple of bowls of this, beefed up with bacon and spinach, sliced tomatoes and a crispy topping.

Served with a salad and sitting round a table, or dished up in bowls and snaffled on the sofa whilst watching a film, it’s a friendly meal and a firm family favourite of ours.

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Spinach and bacon macaroni cheese

Serving Size: Serves 4

The classic comfort of macaroni cheese with spinach, bacon and a crispy top. because everything's better with bacon and a crispy top.

Ingredients

  • 300g macaroni
  • 200g bacon, lardons, pancetta or just a few rashers cut up
  • 200g fresh spinach
  • 175g extra mature cheddar, grated
  • 300ml tub crème fraiche
  • Salt and pepper
  • 3-4 tomatoes, depending on their size
    • For the crispy topping
  • 100g breadcrumbs
  • Glug of olive oil
  • 1 garlic glove, minced
  • Pepper

Instructions

  1. Fry the bacon until crisp and cook the macaroni as per the instructions on the pack.
  2. Drain the pasta, reserving a little of the water and tip it back in the pan. Add the bacon, spinach, cheese, crème fraiche and the reserved pasta water. Mix well. The heat from the pasta will wilt the spinach. Season to taste. If the mixture is a little too thick for your liking then add a splash of milk.
  3. Tip the macaroni mixture into an ovenproof dish and preheat the oven to 200c.
  4. Slice the tomatoes and place on top of the macaroni.
  5. Make the topping by combining all of the ingredients. I do this in a mini food processor. Scatter the topping over the macaroni and bake for around 25 minutes until the topping is crispy and golden brown and the macaroni bubbling.

Notes

This can be made in advance and then baked later on in the day.

http://fishfingersfortea.co.uk/2012/08/09/spinach-and-bacon-macaroni-cheese-with-a-crispy-top/

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About Sian Reynolds

I'm Sian, mother to a three year old who thinks she’s a teenager and a husband who has issues with cows. Both have insatiable appetites and are rather fond of cake. And chocolate. And cheese. Freelance this and that, coffee drinker, food blogger. I seem to spend most of my time in the kitchen, with one eye on the laptop and the other watching the toddler run around with a colander on her head.

09. August 2012 by Sian Reynolds
Categories: Main Meals | Tags: , , | 12 comments

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  • http://twitter.com/BangerMashChat Bangers & Mash

    Oh. Yes. Please! This looks like perfect comfort food and the kind of dish that would make anyone feel immediately at home. Thank you so much for entering this into TACT’s Care to Cook challenge. Your support means so much.

    • http://fishfingersfortea.co.uk/ Fishfingers for tea

      You’re welcome, it’s something I’m more than happy to do. 

  • http://twitter.com/ChezFoti Louisa Foti

    I LOVE maccie cheese and this sounds like a fab pimped up version that I’ll be sure to try….once we have another crop of spinach later in the year! I’m hungry just looking at it. Louisa

    • http://fishfingersfortea.co.uk/ Fishfingers for tea

      Thanks Louisa! And it makes great leftovers too. 

  • hello

    This remind me so much of my mums cauliflower cheese becasue she always used to put tomatoes on the top.

  • http://twitter.com/GreenPeesNappy Green Pees

    This reminds me so much of my mums cauliflower cheese because she used to put tomatotes on the top too.

    • http://fishfingersfortea.co.uk/ Fishfingers for tea

      Tomato on cauli cheese is delicious! Saying that though, I think tomatoes go well on most things. 

  • http://www.ritacooksitalian.com/ rita cooks italian

    I like your ‘comfort pasta’. I love baking pasta too: the crispy topping is my favourite. I will try the topping which you have suggested next time: I’ve never tried to add minced garlic to my pasta topping. Great idea, a lot of extra intense flavour. This Charity is doing a good job.

    • http://fishfingersfortea.co.uk/ Fishfingers for tea

      It’s a great charity isn’t it! I do love a crispy topping on certain pasta dishes and the garlic just gives it a little extra oomph. 

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