Sluttishly savoury: Wensleydale Mushrooms

Mushrooms, bacon and cheese: three ingredients that are making me very happy this lunchtime. Wensleydale mushrooms is one of those recipes that throws together everything you've got leftover in your fridge and turns it into grilled comfort food. You absollutely have to use plain Wensleydale in this dish, which the supermarkets seem to hide away in favour of varieties with cranberries and apricots in (I even found Wensleydale with ginger, yuck). Once you've got the cheese sorted, this posh pub favourite is a very simple recipe to whip up. I used the BBC recipe as a reminder, but really it's melting cheese and frying tasty stuff.

You'll need:

• 30g butter
• 200g mushrooms (I used a mix of wild mushrooms, they were cheap in Asda)
• 100g smoked bacon lardons
• 30g flour
• 200ml milk
• 150g Wensleydale cheese
• Cracked black pepper

Make it!

1. Fry the mushrooms and lardons in the butter until they're cooked. Stop eating them.
2. No, seriously, stop.
3. Add the flour and stir until it's all cooked through (if it's not, your sauce will split).
4. Pour in the milk and mix in, cooking until it comes to a simmer.
5. Stir in about two thirds of the cheese and cook on a low heat until it's all come together in a yummy gooey sauce, then add the black pepper.
6. Pop the grill on and transfer your mixture into ramekins, or an ovenproof dish. Sprinkle over the rest of the cheese and grill until it's golden and bubbling. (You could always bake the dish if you prefer - my grill is feisty.)
7. Serve with toasty brown bread.

Flickr image from Annie Mole's photostream.