Mexican mac’n’cheese

I hope you are all having a nice weekend. It was a public holiday here in Denmark on Friday, so I have been enjoying a relaxing long weekend. The weather has been beautiful, it was really warm yesterday and we properly started some gardening on our balcony. More posts will follow about that. As I've said before, I’m excited to get into growing my own veg after a few years’ break. Today we will be pottering around on the balcony some more and a pineapple and olive pizza is planned for dinner. I’m happy.

Today I want to share a recipe of a dish with you that has lately become a huge favourite of mine. I’ve made this style Mexican mac’n’cheese with beans and Mexican spices a few times now and I absolutely adore it. Maybe mac’n’cheese isn’t quite accurate as a description, as it’s quite a different recipe than traditional mac’n’cheese. But anyway, the dish does contain mini macaroni and cheese. I add some beans for a wonderfully fluffy coating when they are partially broken to the mix. In this recipe I used kidney beans, but butterbeans are actually my favourites for this. Sweetcorn also adds a nice veggie crunchiness to the dish. Sometimes I also add tomatoes or bell peppers. Here is my recipe.

Ingredients

1 large onion

2 garlic cloves

1 chipotle chilli

Vegetable oil for frying

230 g kidney beans

150 g sweetcorn

Smoked paprika to taste

Ground cumin to taste

Ground coriander to taste

4-6 tbsp tomato purée

1 cup mini macaroni

Fresh coriander leaves

Method

Cook the macaroni, drain, cool and set to side.

Chop the onion and start frying it in oil. Once the onions have softened, add the minced garlic and finely chopped chilli. Cook for a while.

Add the beans and sweetcorn to the mix and season. Cook for a while and break the beans up a bit. You can also add some water or vegetable stock, if needed.

Add the tomato purée and mix in the grated cheese. Then add the macaroni and let the dish heat through, season to taste and serve with fresh coriander on the top.

Your VegHog