cauliflower bacon & potato bake

Back to the job hunt. This basically means I send out applications I never hear back from & that I spend a lot of time in my pyjamas eating crisps.

However, this also leaves me with a lot of time to cook, & this was yesterday’s supper. (It was originally intended to be a side dish to roast chicken, but I got a bit distracted in the supermarket & ended up coming home without one. Oops.)

Bacon & Potato Bake:

Ingredients:

- one jacket sized potato for each person
- a leek
- one head of cauliflower
- packet of bacon (cut up rashers or lardons)
- 2 onions
- 200g grated cheese
- 60g butter
- 60g plain flour
- 600ml milk

Method:

i. Peel the potatoes & chop them into slices about half a centimetre thick. Par-boil them for 10 minutes, then line the bottom of your dish with about half of them.

ii. Fry the bacon in a hot pan until it starts to go crisp, then add the onion and the leek, season with black pepper & leave to soften. Steam the cauliflower head separately & mix in with the bacon.

iii. Then make your cheese sauce.. (I think the proper name for it is a béchamel sauce, I know it as the sauce for cauliflower cheese!) Melt the butter in a saucepan & stir in the flour before adding the milk. Keep stirring as you add half the grated cheese & let the sauce thicken.

iv. Pour a bit over the potatoes in the dish, tip in the bacon mix & cover with the remaining potatoes & then the sauce. Sprinkle with grated cheese & bake in the oven at 180c/gas 4/350f for around 20 minutes or until golden.