Comfort Food

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This was one of my favourite meals as a child except my mother used mashed potatoes and sometimes sliced a couple of tomatoes into it.

It is a wonder I did not grow up the size of a five bedroom house!



Comfort Food

2 pounds of potatoes
1/2 pound of grated cheese
6 thick slices of smoked bacon
2 onions
Butter

Boil potatoes until cooked and then slice into rounds.

Fry bacon until crisp and chop into pieces - as big or small as you like.

Slice and fry onion in some of the butter until translucent but not burnt.

Grease an oven proof dish thickly with the rest of the butter.

Line dish with a layer of half the potatoes, followed by half the bacon pieces, then half the fried onion. Top with just under half the cheese.

Next, layer the rest of the potatoes, bacon and onion and top with the rest of the cheese.

Put in preheated oven - Gas mark 6, 400 degrees fahrenheit or 200 degrees Celsius, until brown on top.

Tapioca or Tapi-api-oca pudding

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I used to make this for my kids when they were small, and they make it now they have moved out. Milk puddings flavoured with crushed cardomom seeds are divine!


1 pint of milk

2 ounces of seed pearl tapioca

2 ounces sugar

5 crushed cardomom pods - throw the outer skin away and use the seeds.

a few strands of mace

1-2 ounces of butter.


Put mace strands in milk and gently heat until just under boiling - take off heat and let steep for about half an hour so that milk smells of mace. Remove mace strands from milk and throw them away.

Mix sugar, milk, tapioca, crushed cardomom seeds and pour into a buttered dish,

Top with butter.

Put in over Gas mark 3, 325 degrees fahrenheit or 160 degrees Celsius, for about 2 hours.

Take out of oven every so often and stir so that tapioca does not stick to bottom, and it thickens with the skin stirred in.

Serve when creamy, although I like mine quite firm and eat it cold as well. The thickness depends on how long it is cooked.