Macaroni cheese

Was inspired to make this for the first time ever, possibly as a result of some pseudo-lust for American soul or comfort food brought on by a combination of watching Home Alone (again), reading the New York Times online and listening to too much Marvin Gaye. Plus there was a packet of elbow macaroni pasta in the cupboard and I felt it would be too sacriliegious, and not nearly as much fun, to make it into anything else. And I just wanted to make something new, that I'd never made before. Also, PJ has a strong weakness for any hot, pasta-related, creamy, cheesy food item, preferably with synthetic bacon flavouring, so I thought I'd give him a break from the Pasta-For-One Cheesy Bacon Flavour microwave jobs and whip up the real thing (for dinner, and probably about 400 lunches, seeing as it made so much).

How easy was it?? For a start, there are only about four ingredients. (I naively assumed that you just mix cheese and pasta together in a bowl, but it turns out that there's actually a bit more to it). I was a little alarmed to see some recipes that called for cheese, full-fat milk, butter AND cream (how's ya arteries?) but luckily I found a creamless one that I could adapt by cutting down the butter quantity and using some low-fat cheese.

• Small knob unsalted butter (maybe 1 or 1 and a half tablespoons)
• 1 to 2 tbsps plain flour
• quarter cup Trim milk
• cooked and drained elbow macaroni pasta
• paprika or other seasonings
• Trimmed bacon, cut into small strips and cooked (soft-cooked, not crispy-cooked)
• grated cheese, any kind you like. Although I think a milder, firm cheese would be more appropriate than a screamingly mouldy blue or a mega-sharp cheddar. I used havarti, Coon low-fat mild and a tiny bit of leftover tasty cheddar.

Melt the butter in a saucepan and add flour, stir it till it's smooth and bubbly (about 30 sec). Chuck in the milk, stir stir stir, till thick and creamy (this only took about ten seconds so maybe in future I will turn the heat down a bit. Didn't expect that so fast). Pull it off the stove, stir in paprika and cheese. Maybe put it back on the heat for a bit if you need to help the cheese melt in. Throw the lot on top of the pasta with the bacon, and stir like Satan's MixMaster until it's all a goopy homogenous mass. You can stop there and eat it as is, but I then put it into a baking dish (lined with baking paper: don't make more washing up for yourself) and sprinkled with a bit more cheese. Into a hot oven (mine was set to "hot"...who knows what the actual temperature was) for maybe half an hour or 20 minutes or so, till top is golden and crisp. Mmm, tasty.