MJs Cauliflower Cheese

Cauliflower cheese is often served as a side with a roast or similar. This cauliflower cheese recipe is a meal in itself! It's proper tasty and so simple to put together! 

If you have never made a white sauce, today is your day - it's so simple and so tasty and once you have mastered the sauce you can use it loads of dishes such as lasagne, onion sauce, parsley sauce, fish pie and carbonara to name but a few! 

Once you have the sauce made add some cheese and bingo one cheese sauce! 

To make the dish you will need the following

2 Onions
1 Red Pepper
1 Yellow Pepper
1 Courgette
1 Garlic Clove
Balsamic Vinegar
1 Cauliflower 
50g Flour
50g Butter
1 Pint of Milk
25g of Cheddar Cheese
25g Red Leicester Cheese
A Handful of Breadcrumbs

The Cheese Sauce

To make the cheese sauce melt the butter in a saucepan and add the flour, mix the butter and flour to form a doughy texture, cook it out a little you need to get the raw flour taste out! Once this is done start to add the milk slowly, mix the milk into the rue. Keep adding and mixing until all of the milk has been incorporated, you should now have a velvety white sauce with no lumps! A tip here is to use cold milk as it helps to reduce the chances of lumps! Now add the cheese and stir in until melted. Add salt and pepper to taste. 

The Veggies

Peel and chop the onions and slice the courgette. Throw into a hot frying pan with some oil and lightly fry. Crush the garlic and throw in with the onions and courgette. Do not have the oil too hot as the garlic will burn and become very bitter and no one wants a bitter garlic! Oh if you want a bit of heat you could also throw in a chilli if you wanted! 

The Red & Yellow Pepper

Take the red pepper and put it directly onto the flame of the gas hob, if you have electric you could do this under the grill. You are looking to blacken the skin on the pepper all over and once done put into a plastic bag and seal. The heat of the pepper will loosen the skin of the burnt pepper and after a couple of minutes take the pepper out and peel the skin off under running water. 

Once the skin is off take out the stem and seeds and slice. This pepper will now be really tasty, you can use this in all sorts of things!

When the veg has softened and lightly coloured add the pepper and some balsamic vinegar. 

The Cauliflower

To prepare the cauliflower take off the outer leaves and break the cauliflower into florets and pop into a pan of boiling salty water. Cook until tender.

Putting It All Together

Put the fried veggies into an oven proof dish and then add the cauliflower. Pour over the cheese sauce and then sprinkle the breadcrumbs on top. No put it under the grill to toast the breadcrumbs and give the top of the sauce some colour then serve! 

One tasty meal in one dish! Add a chunk of fresh bread to mop up the sauce and job done!