Tiffin Treats - Baked Macaroni And Cheese
Preparing my son’s evening tiffin/dinner meals is always a challenging task. I have had numerous requests for tiffin varieties for toddlers and children and they all voice the same opinion - we need variety, variety or more variety of healthy and delicious tiffins/meals!
Yesterday, I prepared a cheesy macaroni casserole for Nehal, a recipe I adapted from Sanjeev Kapoor’s cookery show. Easy to prepare - a lively merger of sauteed onions, capsicum, garlic and tomatoes, combined with boiled macaroni, topped with white sauce, garnished with cheese and finally baked to perfection. A comforting hearty casserole sure to get your child asking for more.
Baked Macaroni And Cheese Recipe
Recipe Source: Adapted from Sanjeev Kapoor’s Cookery Show
Preparation: 40 mts
Serves 3-4 persons
.
2 cups boiled elbow macaroni
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 bell pepper, finely sliced
6-7 garlic flakes, crushed
1 large tomato
fistful of boiled sweet corn (optional)
salt to taste
freshly ground pepper as per taste
big pinch mustard pwd (optional)
1 tbsp grated cheese for garnish
1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley for garnish
For white sauce:
1 tbsp maida
1 tbsp butter
1 cup low fat milk (room temp)
1 tbsp grated cheese
salt and pepper to taste
1 Cook macaroni in salted rapidly boiling water until al dente, drain and keep aside.
2 Heat olive oil in a vessel, add the onions, capsicum and crushed garlic and saute till transparent. Add the chopped tomato and salt.
3 Cook for 8-10 mts, stirring once in a while. Add the boiled corn and combine.
4 While the onion-tomato base cooks, prepare the white sauce. Heat a pan, on low flame, add the butter and let it melt. Add maida and keep stirring using a hand whisk over a low flame till well blended. Slowly add the milk, stirring continuously. Next add the grated cheese. On medium heat continue to stir until you have a nice smooth consistency sauce. Once in a while, remove the vessel away from the heat for a few seconds and place it back while stirring. Season with salt and pepper. Keep aside.
5 Next add the boiled macaroni to the cooked onion-tomato base and toss for 2-3 minutes stirring well to coat. Adjust salt, season with freshly ground pepper, mustard pwd and sprinkle some grated cheese. Turn off heat.
6 Remove macaroni onto a baking dish and spoon the prepared white sauce along the edges of the dish. Garnish with grated cheese. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 200 degrees C for 10 mts.
Note:
You can prepare this with fussili or farfalle also.
By sailu • Aug 30th, 2007 • Category: All Recipes, Lunch Box Recipes, Pasta & Baked Recipes, Savories, Snacks & Tiffins
I love Mac and cheese. I make something similar, but with different varieties of pastas. They all taste great. I will have to try with elbow macaroni sometime..thanks for sharing…
I make something very similar & it tastes so good. I just checked out your spaghetti in tomato-yougurt sauce. I’ve never used yogurt in a spaghetti/pasta before. I am going to try that out when I can.
WOW!…..This is looking great…..Lovely pictures…Looks so comforting….
lovely mac and cheese, any kid will want to eat.
hey sailu
looks really yummy!have tried out diff pastas and white sauce with veggies separately but wow!……. both combined,just delicious…will try this wknd! just love ur recipes! thanks a lot!
This is bound to get children and even the adult-children to eat
This is really unique…I will have to try it sometime for my daughter, it really looks and sounds good!
I like the Indianised way of macaroni, I too like my pasta with some indian flavours in it, though never tried macaroni pasta till now. Nice photos Sailu!
Hi there I love your macaroni recipe. Lovely pictures
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Nice recipe Sailaja :-), Looks yummy.
hey Sailu, this looks great!! reminded me of a place called “Kalyan” in Baroda India…their baked macaroni was just unparalleled in this world!! oh, now i need to make it!!
Wow! lovely site and recipes you have here. Will definitely be trying out some of them. Are you also a web designer by any chance? You have done a great job with your site.
Hi! Sailaja, I tried out this dish today and the results were amazing. Even though, I deviated a bit from the original recipe(I did not bake it), it was awesome. My family just loved it. Keep up the good work and thanks for all the yummy recipes.
Oh good, Candida answered my question. I don’t have an oven so was contemplating a coupla rounds in the microwave. But if it works without baking, why not?