Sage Advice

After a good weekend on the 9th and 10th of March the weekend of Saturday 16th and Sunday 17th of March was a little epic on the Friday night before being followed by some mellow reflection. The evening of Friday the 15th of March saw a long but worthwhile night out that left me tired on the Saturday, but still fit enough to entertain guests with a self-made dinner on Saturday lunchtime, and ultimately led to an early night followed by twelve hours sleep which commenced at 8 o'clock that evening.

Sunday morning was spent wandering the local woods with some of the local walking fraternity and by Sunday afternoon the effects of Friday had worn off enough to think of cooking projects. I delved back into my past for the afternoon's meal by choosing to cook macaroni cheese- a staple meal of my childhood.

To keep the nostalgia factor up the album I cooked to was Pink Floyd's 1979 album The Wall which was the soundtrack to the summer after my G.C.S.E Exams finished and most of my A-Level years. For me hearing Pink Floyd for the first time was like moving from seeing everything in two dimensional black and white to three dimensional technicolour.

I melted around five ounces of margarine into a large pan and melted it on the hob. I added two heaped table spoons of plain flour to the pan and stirred it into the melted margarine until I had some chunks of flour that looked like soft golden nuggets. I then added half a pint of milk to the pan gradually and over a medium heat mixed it into the flour and margarine until I had a thick sauce.

In the meantime I boiled ten ounces of Macaroni for around six minutes to soften it up. I then drained it and poured one third of it into a well greased ovenproof dish. Next I grated some Parmesan onto the Macaroni and then covered it with the second third of the Macaroni. On top of this third of the Macaroni I grated a large amount of Sage Derby Cheese. This is a cheese that was common in my early days with its distinctive bright green colour. However I had not seen it for some time until I came across it in a local village shop and it made a welcome addition to the Macaroni Cheese.

I added the final third of Macaroni onto the layer of Sage Derby and spread five cherry tomatoes decoratively onto top of it. I then poured the sauce onto it and allowed the sauce to permeate down through the layers of Macaroni until it was totally covered. It is true to say that the key to the success of this dish is to ensure that all the Macaroni is covered with the sauce otherwise the dish will dry up when cooked in the oven.

I added the dish of Macaroni to the oven, which I had preheated to 190 degrees or 200 for a non-fan oven, and cooked it for twenty-five minutes. When I removed the dish from the oven it had started to brown at the edges, which was a sign it was cooked.

The richness of the Parmesan and the distinctive taste of the melted Sage Derby, which glowed an almost neon green, coupled with the melted margarine transported me back twenty years or so to a time when the dish was a regular part of my diet. The Macaroni itself served to offer plenty of protein to help revitalise my body after Friday's excitement.