Baked Green Bean Macaroni and Cheese | The Secret Life of Bees
They got under way slicing ham, laying out fried chicken, shaking paprika on the deviled eggs. We had green beans, turnips, macaroni and cheese, caramel cake - all kinds of funeral food. We ate standing in the kitchen holding paper plates, saying how much May would have liked everything.
The Secret Life of Bees
Sue Monk Kidd
I absolutely tore through The Secret Life of Bees. I think it wouldn't have taken me more than three days to read it from start to finish. There's something just so comforting about the book, it encourages you to keep reading and at the end manages to practically wrap your mind in a layer of warmth. Not to mention - the food. Every type of southern style comfort food imaginable must be mentioned throughout this book, be warned, you will spent a good amount of time hungry while reading.
I felt torn on what to make from it's pages, and likely will go back to try more from it. It wasn't until I was wondering through the local farmer's market the other day and came across fresh green string beans that I decided on what would be my dinner that night. My life has been at a bit of standstill recently, after graduating last year I've been faced with that awkward in-between of being a recent graduate and trying to find work in an appropriate field. I have a bad habit of medicating that feeling of crawling anxiety with comfort food.
Within the book, a death occurs, and like with many funerals an attempt is made to comfort the family of the deceased with platters of comfort food. What better to draw inspiration for when I needed a sense of comfort myself?
*Note: if you are using dairy cheese/milk/butter for this, the nutritional yeast will not be totally necessary (though it is delicious). It's super useful when creating a dairy free cheese sauce as it has a incredible cheesy/savoury flavour to it.
Baked Green Bean Macaroni and Cheese
Serves 1 very hungry person or 6-8 side dishes
Ingredients
350g dry macaroni pasta
20g + 60g butter
2 tbsp plain flour
1-2 cups milk
1/2 cup nutritional yeast *see note
100g cheddar cheese, grated (I used Bio Cheese Cheddar, melts really nicely in this)
100g green beans, ends off and cut in half
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup breadcrumbs
Sea salt
Black pepper
Pre-heat oven to 180C. Lightly grease the bottom and sides of a baking dish - any size is really fine as long as it's not ridiculous huge. Common sense.
Place a medium sized pot of water with a inch of salt on the stove and leave to boil. When boiling add in pasta and cook until they are just about done - drain and leave to the side. You still want them to have a little firmness to it otherwise it'll go too mushy when baking.
Steam the green beans (anyway you want to it fine) until just soft. Heat the 20g of butter in a pan and wait till it is bubbling, when bubbling add in the steamed green beans and cook in butter for about 2-4 mins, adding in a pinch of salt and pepper. Remove from pan and put to the side.
Put the 60g of butter into a medium sized saucepan on a low heat until melted, add in the minced garlic and cook into the melted butter for 1-2 mins.
Add the flour into the butter, keeping it on a low heat - mix quickly, it should form a soft pasta.
Add in 1/2 cup of milk to the flour mix on the pan, whisking continuously as you do so. The mixture should thicken (make sure you keep it on the low heat) gradually. As it does continue to add half a cup of milk at a time - depending on how much sauce you want, you can use 1-2 cups of milk.
Take the sauce off the stove and add in both the nutritional year and grated cheese. Whisk together quickly until cheese melts in. It's fine if the sauce has some lumps - it'll just be bits of garlic or unmelted cheese. Add in a generous pinch of salt and pepper to the cheese sauce.
Mix the cooked macaroni, green beans, and cheese sauce together in the baking dish until the sauce covers everything nicely. Sprinkle the half cup of breadcrumbs on top with a little extra nutritional yeast if you have some.
Cook for 15-20 minutes or until the top has lightly browned. Enjoy!