Bare Essentials

April 30th - I was in the mood for comfort food...and you can't beat a good homemade macaroni and cheese.  However I had spied a recipe I wanted to try in one of my cook book trawling sessions so Ricotta and Parmesan lasagne it was. First the cheese sauce - melting 80g of butter in a pan and softening a finely chopped onion (brown shallot in the recipe) for a couple of minutes.  Then adding flour, milk and bayleaf  and cooking until the sauce was thick.  I did not allow the problems of getting ingredients put me off and I substituted a tub of lightest Philadelphia for the ricotta which was stirred into the sauce off the heat, then seasoned.  This was then layered up with the pasta and baked.  Give this a go - naked lasagne is a revelation!