A long and winding blog entry

Work has become a little bit of a hard slog lately. I'm busy, but I know that I've only got a few weeks to go. With my time in London limited I have been doing a lot more both during the week and on the weekends, which means that Mondays are especially difficult.

The only thing that gets me through the day on a Monday is MODEL MONDAY MADNESS! Fashion reality television reigns supreme on Monday. First we had Make Me A Supermodel US (MMASUS), and now it's the latest season of America's Next Top Model (ANTM).

This has started a bit of a Monday dinner party tradition for me. Apart from when I was in Munich, each Monday I have people over for dinner and we dissect and judge the pretty people.It started off as a casual affair, with Angela coming over for Chicken Kiev, and has grown into a culinary delight, with me trying out new recipes for Angela and Kasia this week.

And my baked macaroni cheese went down an absolute treat! Angela licked the saucepan of any leftover bechamel sauce and supported Jaala's claim that I should open my own cafe. Jaala and I have discussed this many times. My cafe would be an open kitchen and dining room, where guests would have to sit and talk to me while I cooked, and eat whatever I decide to dish up that day. Oh, and the guests would have to bring a bottle of wine. Them's the rules.

So anyway, I present to you, my Delicious Baked Macaroni Cheese recipe!

Purchase oven proof bowls, big enough for an individual serve.

Cook macaroni. I don't know how much, just whatever you think.

Cut up maybe four or five rashers of bacon, fry, then remove from pan before they get too crispy.

Dice half an onion, fry until soft, add two finely diced cloves of garlic and fry for another little while but not so long that the garlic burns.

Add the bacon back to the pan, stir around, turn off the heat and set aside.

In a saucepan melt a wad of salted butter, a big wad, on low heat. Once melted add an equal amount of flour, until it sort of looks like play doh, then stir constantly for one minute to cook off the flour.

Over low heat, add a quarter cup of milk. The flour and butter mixture (roux) will absorb it quickly and turn into mush. This is good. Add another quarter cup of milk and stir. Keep adding milk until the sauce thins out a little and then start whisking to get rid of lumps.

The amount of milk required depends on how much roux you made. I don't know the correct amount. Hang on. *Googles a recipe* For 50g of butter and 50g of flour you should need about 500ml of milk. Use common sense though - less milk, thicker sauce.

Once you have a smooth sauce add cheese. Shit loads of cheese. At this point my bechamel sauce starts to resemble a cheese fondue mixture. This is good.

Mix sauce with macaroni, bacon and onion mixture, and approximately 10 grinds of pepper.

Spoon mixture into bowls and top with more grated cheese.

Cook in the oven for however long it takes to make the sauce bubble a little. This is where glass oven proof bowls are awesome. Maybe 10-15 minutes or so. Then turn the oven grill on for 3-5 minutes to crips up the top.

Serve with a side salad, to counteract the fact that you are eating hardcore carbs and cheese for dinner.

Voila!

Update

Okay, so I have been a little slack with my blog lately. I've been doing stuff, it's just I don't think it's that interesting to read about.

The other weekend I went to Cardiff with Alli, Kat, Kasia, Karina and Beavis. There isn't much to see or do in Cardiff to be honest, so we went to the Australian-themed bar and cut up a rug. Honestly, we owned that joint. Apart from that, we walked around the city and bought some souveniers to prove that we were actually there.

The UK is currently in the midst of swine flu fever, and I have been doing a lot of work on this. As Internal Communications Manager at The Government Agency, I am privy to the inside information. My manager has come to my desk several times and asked to see me in private on several occasions, leading me to think that I was in trouble, however it is just so I can get the low down on what's happening. I am not as important as Bec though. She is sitting on the crisis response team at The Local Borough Council, which allocates her the prestigious 'category 2' rank for when/if the UK decided to carry out nation-wide vaccinations, putting her just after emergency service front line staff who are category 1.

Also at work, I had my annual performance appraisal with my manager. He is extremely pleased with the work that I have been doing, so it looks like my job is pretty secure.

I continued with my lucky streak, winning tickets to a play through the London Paper . So far I have won music festival tickets, a trip to Copenhagen, and some lettuce seeds. London Paper, you rock! Dom and I went to see the play on Friday, which was actually pretty good. Much better than the opera that Dom had convinced me that we were going to see. We had a few drinks in Fulham afterwards, though quickly sobered up when we saw a fight in the middle of the street. Some kid smashed another with a bottle, and I saw him fall with a thud to the pavement, his head falling heavy on the cement. Everyone was running around screaming but no one thought to check the guy on the floor. I went over to see if he was okay, but was pushed aside by a heroine screaming "get him in the recovery position!", so I left them to it. Dom and I hailed the first cab we saw and hot footed it out of there. I have never seen such a fight. Honestly, I cannot understand it.

I am having drinks this Saturday to celebrate the second anniversary of my 25th birthday. I don't like not being with my family for birthdays, however I LOVE the Dora the Explorer package of birthday presents that I received from home today. I promise not to open it until my birthday mum!

The highlight of the month would have to be Croatia! On Saturday 16 May we head to Split for a week cruising around glorious Croatia. I. Can. Not. Wait!

And that's it really. A boring, jokeless update. Sorry guys, I promise something more interesting next time.