Cauliflower, Bacon, Mac and Blue

This is a pasta bake, I like a one pot so we have veges, bacon and pasta baked together in a cheese sauce.  

200g of pasta, cheese sauce and there's a meal for two plus one leftover lunch.

We have cauliflower, kale, bacon and blue cheese sauce today.  Once mastered, the permutations soon become almost endless.  A green, a brassica and bacon is a good start though.

There are  roasted cauliflower leaves for garnish too.

Roasting the leaves in a drizzle of oil, alongside the baking pasta.  A pretty and tasty garnish and a pro chef trick.

Ingredients (3):

Pasta and veges:

200g dried pasta tubes (rigatoni or similar)

1/2 a cauliflower, cut into small florets

A few cauliflower leaves (for roasting)

200g sliced, stalked kale

1 tsp salt

Sauce:

400ml of whole milk (oat milk is fine)

50g mild blue cheese, dolcelatte or castello, chopped

15g parmesan, grated

15g butter

1 TBSP plain flour

1/2 tsp salt flakes

Black pepper, freshly ground

To finish the dish:

4 rashers of smoked dry cure streaky bacon, sliced and pan crisped

2 TBSP Panko breadcrumbs

Grated parmesan, to taste, around 10g

Method:

Make the cheese sauce by melting the butter with flour and cooking for 2-3 minutes.

Whisk in milk (low heat) and cook until the sauce coats the back of a spoon.  Add salt.

Add blue cheese, half the parmesan and black pepper. Stir until the cheese melts.

Cook the pasta to 4 minutes under packet instructions, add the cauliflower for the last 4 minutes and kale for the remaining 2.  Add all this to a baking dish with the crisped bacon.

Pour in the cheese sauce and stir.

Top with panko and parmesan, bake at 180 C until crispy and golden.  (My oven has a fan and grill setting that works perfectly here).

Tip:

Once you've mastered this, spinach, broccoli, leeks, savoy cabbage and other cheeses are all fair game.

More cheesy pasta:

Spaghetti Cacio e Pepe

Traditional Croziflette Savoie