Food For Student Life (Part 1) - The White Sauce, Baked Potatoes with a Cheese Sauce, Come Round for Lasagna

The White Sauce

A simple and useful sauce that can be adapted to many meals. Stir in some mustard and spinach and serve it with fish, add grated cheese and spoon it over cooked vegetables or use it as the base for a pie filling. It’s an easy recipe to double or triple. The trick is to add the milk gradually and stir thoroughly after each addition. If the final sauce is still lumpy, simply push it through a sieve!

Hands-on time 10 minutes. Cooking time about 10 minutes. Serves 2

Ingredients

1.    25g butter – if you don’t have scales, use the markings on the butter pack to work this out

2.    1 heaped tablespoon of plain flour

3.    250ml semi-skimmed or whole milk – that’s about 1 standard mugful

Directions

1.    Put the butter into a saucepan and melt it over medium hob heat. Once melted, stir in the flour and cook for 30 seconds (this will help remove any floury taste).

2.    Take the saucepan off the heat and add a little of the milk, stirring well with a whisk or wooden spoon. The mixture will clump and thicken. Add some more milk, stirring well to beat out the lumps. Continue until all the milk is added – the mixture should now be smooth and fairly thin.

3.    Return the saucepan to a medium hob heat. Stir it constantly and bring the mixture up to the boil – this is crucial for the sauce to thicken. Keep cooking and stirring until the sauce is the consistency of yogurt – this will take about 5 minutes. Add salt and pepper until you are happy with the flavor. Your sauce is now ready to use.

Per serving 185cals, 13g fat (8g saturates), 14g carbs (6g total sugars)

Baked Potatoes with a Cheese Sauce

Preheat your oven to 200⁰C (180⁰C fan), mark 6. Pick 2 medium-large floury potatoes (such as Maris Piper) a few times with a fork. Cook in the oven for about 1-1¹/₄ hours until ready – you should be able to push a knife easily through the potatoes. Then, 10 minutes before the potatoes are due to be ready, make white Sauce. When the sauce is finished, stir in 1 teaspoon wholegrain or Dijon mustard and a large handful of grated Cheddar cheese. Split your potatoes and spoon in the sauce. Serves 2

Per serving 457cals, 22g fat (13g saturates), 52g carbs (7g total sugars)

Come Round for Lasagna

Get a friend to help out in the kitchen and make a quantity of Best Bolognese Sauce before you start this recipe.

Hands on time 1 hour. Total cooking time about 2 hours. Serves 6

Ingredients

·         1 glug of oil – vegetable, olive or sunflowers are best

·         250g pack of mushrooms, chopped

·         1 x quality Best Bolognese Sauce

·         1 medium carrot, ends removed, coarsely grated

·         2 x quality White Sauce

·         2 large handfuls Cheddar cheese, coarsely grated

·         9 dried lasagna sheets

Directions

1.    Preheat oven to 200⁰C (180⁰C fan) mark 6. Heat the oil in ma large saucepan over a high heat and fry the mushrooms, stirring occasionally, until soft and any liquid in the saucepan has evaporated – about 5 minutes. Stir in the Bolognese Sauce and grated carrot and heat until bubbling. Set aside.

2.    Next, in a separate saucepan make the White Sauce. When it’s ready, stir through half the cheese. Check the seasoning.

3.    Spoon a third of the Bolognese dish, then top with three lasagna sheets. Next spoon over a third of the White Sauce. Repeat layers with remaining Bolognese, lasagna sheets and White Sauce until you have three complete layers. Sprinkle over the remaining grated cheese.

4.    Cook in the oven for 40-45 minutes until the top is golden and bubbling.

Per serving 623cals, 36g fat (14g saturates), 43g carbs (15g total sugars)