An excellent simple standby dish, always popular.
You can knock this up quickly from store-cupboard ingredients, so quantities are necessarily variable - if you only have 2 tomatoes and 2 rashers, that's what you use.
You also need a little butter and flour and some milk to make the sauce; and cheese to grate into it.
And macaroni, of course!
Let us suppose you are cooking for three: use about half lb of macaroni. Bring a large pan of water to the boil and cook the macaroni until just slightly underdone; there's a reason for this!
While it cooks, cut up your tomatoes into smallish bits, say hazelnut size. Fry the rashers and chop with scissors into six or eight pieces. Make the cheese sauce, as follows:
Melt a dessertspoon of butter or margarine over a medium heat. Stir in a dessertspoon of flour and cook together for a few minutes. Gradually stir in about a half-pint of milk and heat together, stirring or whisking until they form a smooth creamy sauce. Cook slowly for five minutes. This should be quite a thinnish sauce.
Season the sauce and stir in as much grated cheese as you want, (or have): aim for a savoury taste.
Returning to the recipe:
When the macaroni is barely done drain it, put in a casserole dish, and stir in the chopped tomatoes, chopped bacon and cheese sauce. Stir together.
Sprinkle grated cheese on top and bake in a 350F oven until the topping is melted and the flavours have had time to blend. Say, 12 minutes.
During this time, the slightly thin sauce with be absorbed by the slightly underdone pasta: so that both aquire the right consistency.
If you had thick sauce over soft pasta, it turns into a pasty stodge.
Notes: for 1/2 lb pasta, about 2 or 3 fresh tomatoes (tastier the better)
3 or 4 bacon rashers
Cheese; sharp cheddar is best.
sauce: season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, mustard, Parmesan (any that appeal to you)
Variations: not many really improve it. Finely-chopped onion in the cheese sauce is popular with some. For vegetarians, you can substitute the rashers with sliced mushrooms.
