Sweet Potato Macaroni Cheese

Hi all,
I know it’s been a long time since I posted on here! I’ve had lots of ideas about what to put up but very little motivation to do so…
I thought to ease myself back into blogging I would put up a recipe that I’m loving at the moment.
Mac and cheese is one of my favourite comfort foods and sweet potatoes one of my favourite vegetables! So what a combination that isn’t too unhealthy!
The recipe is a combination of these two recipes from Macaroni and Cheesecake and Naturally Ella.

Ingredients For 1-2 people (Beware its very filling!)
1 medium sweet potato (peeled)
1 cup of pasta (1/2 pint)
2 cups of milk (1 pint)
1.5 cups of grated cheese (A nice mature cheddar will work well!)
1/4 tsp of mustard (Dijon is good)
A big handful of spinach (I haven’t tried this yet but Naturally Ella suggests it and what a good way to get some extra veg in there!) Edit: just made this again (at 11am no less!) and the spinach works well! Also added a little paprika in with the butter when I mixed the sweet potato! Adds an extra depth! Try 1/2 a tsp
A knob of butter.
A pinch of salt to taste.

First you need to put a pan of water on to boil. If you’re impatient then boil the kettle to speed this along! Meanwhile peel your sweet potato and chop into chunks.

Put the sweet potato in the water to boil. This shouldn’t take long, so in the meantime prep the pasta.

The way that M&Cc does her mac and cheese is to cook the pasta in milk instead of water which give you the basis of the sauce and reduces the need for too many pans! The important thing with this is to not let the milk boil or else it will develop a skin which can lead to lumps! Yeck! So keep stirring this and make sure the pasta doesn’t stick together. Keep checking with a fork until its the texture you like (I’m found of mine quite soft!) for me this takes about 15-20 mins.

After about 5-10 mins the sweet potato should be nice and soft. Check with a fork, then if it is drain using a sieve or colander.

Put the sweet potato back in the pan and here you can add a little butter if you like. Then use a handblender or potato masher to purée the sweet potato and make it nice and soft!

By this point your pasta should be pretty much ready and obviously don’t drain it! Put the sweet potato purée in with the pasta and stir. Immediately you’ll notice the sauce thicken up and take on a nice creamy texture. At this point you could add the spinach if you’re using it! Make sure it’s nice and clean first!

Now you can add your mustard, cheese and salt to taste! Take the pan off the heat and gently stir together to bind and melt all the ingredients.

Now you’re done! Grab yourself a bowl and enjoy your healthy comfort food!

If you try out this recipe then please let me know how you get on with it on if you have any suggestions of how to improve this recipe, write in the comments below!
J xx

Puff pastry pizza

Hi all!
I haven’t posted for a while but things have been pretty hectic since I started university!
Having to cook for myself all the time now means that you sometimes have to get creative with what you eat so that you don’t end up eating supernoodles and oven chips constantly!
So here is a very basic pizza recipe which uses puff pastry for the base instead of dough. I made it last night after getting inspired on Pinterest an it’s great if you’ve got a few random ingredients leftover that you’re not ire what to do with!
Recipe:
I used half a pack of puff pastry that I had leftover from my homemade chicken pie.
Arrabiata pasta sauce for the base
Mozzarella
Pesto
Cheddar cheese
Chicken breast (seasoned and baked)

To prepare the base roll out the pastry and prick it in several places leaving about an inch around the edge for the crust!
Brush with melted butter or an egg wash.
Put in a preheated oven at about 180•c for about 15-20 minutes so that it is partially baked! Mine puffed up loads so I had to press it down with the fork!
After this, you can add whatever base and toppings you like and then bake for about 8-10 minutes!
Hope that you enjoy this recipe!