Prawn and Ginger Noodle Salad

Fine rice noodles 250g pack
Large prawns 250g peeled and cooked
1 small mango peeled and sliced
Light soy sauce 4 tbsp
Root Ginger 2 inch piece, finely grated
1 lime, juiced
coriander leaves, a large bunch, roughly chopped

Soak the noodles in boiling water for 6-7 minutes, until tender. Rinse under cold running water then drain and put into a bowl with the prawns and mango.
Whisk the soy sauce with the ginger, lime juice, and some black pepper and pour over the noodles. Scatter the coriander over and toss together.


So over the weekend I found myself looking for something that could be made in no time at all, and mostly out of things that I already had in the house, as I was really short on both time and money.

I found this in 101 Quick Fix Dishes.

It was perfect. Shrimp (prawns) have been on sale recently, which led to the discovery that both of the boys totally love them. My little one refers to them as “those pink-y, white-y things” and asks for them every time we go shopping.

This was everything I was looking for. It was tasty, it was one of the fastest dishes I’ve ever put together, we had most of the stuff in the house already, and as a bonus, everybody loved it.

Good stuff.

Broccoli pesto

2 heads of broccoli
50g pine nuts
1 clove garlic, chopped
a handful of fresh basil leaves
a handful of fresh coriander leaves
50g freshly grated parmesan cheese
4 tbp oil
a pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper

Follow the packet instructions to cook the pasta of your choice
Remove the tough stalk from the broccoli and break the heads into florets. Place them in a pan of salted boiling water for about 3 minutes. Drain.
Put the broccoli in the bowl of a food processor, along with the pine nuts, garlic, basil, coriander and grated parmesan. Blend until smooth, drizzling in the olive oil, little by little. Season with a little salt and pepper if preferred.
Add the broccoli pesto to the cooked and drained pasta, while it is still hot from cooking. Stir until the pasta is well coated and serve.

There are so many great things about this recipe. It’s packed full of broccoli. It takes no time at all to make. It requires less oil then regular pesto. Best of all, it’s really tasty.

My food processor was too small to do it all in one batch, so I had to do it in two batches, then mix it together, but it still took less time then it took to make the pasta.

I used the same water for the broccoli as I did for the pasta, to save on water boiling time. I just scooped the veg out with a slotted spoon, and dumped the pasta into the slightly green water. It was fine.

I got this from Great Big Veg Challenge which started as a website Here.It’s designed to get fussy eaters to like broccoli, and I could see how it could work wonders.

This will be made again, as it got rave reviews from every family member.

Tiny Timballos

By Cookbad

Timballos, timpanos, whatever you want to call them . . . are upsidedown savory pies filled with pasta, sauces, vegetables, anything you want arranged in layers to create a dramatic effect when it is cut into. A couple of years ago I made a crustless one, but more commonly you build one by layering the bottom of a souffle dish or round bottomed pan with a thin dough, add the fillings layer by layer and then bake. Mostly when I try to get the pie out of the pan it has been sticking and falling apart, but it tastes good and the kids will eat it, so I keep trying.

Last night I tried to make tiny single sized versions for The Mini Pie Revolution mini pot pie event. I've made these mini pork pies in the past with great success, but this is the first time I made up a mini (or any) pie recipe.

So here goes:

Makes about 6 small pies in various sized ramekins:

CRUST:
2 2/3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon of ground black pepper
1/3 grated asiago cheese
12 tablespoons (1.5 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
4 tablespoons chilled solid vegetable shortening, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
6 tablespoons (or more) ice water

In a food processor, mix the first 4 ingredients, then pulse in the butter and shortening until it looks grainy. Then add the water. Continue to pulse a few more times. Form the dough into a ball and put in the fridge for 30 minutes.

PASTA:
2-4 oz. of penne cooked 2 minutes less than the preparation calls for.
enough sauce to cover pasta

BECHAMEL SAUCE:
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons diced onion
2 tablespoons flour
1.5 cups milk
1/4 cup asiago cheese, grated
Sweat he onions in the butter over med heat then add flour and for 2 minutes stir constantly. Add milk, and whisk until fully combined. Set over medium-high heat and whisk till as it simmers. Add asiago and simmer for 8 minutes.
When it is done, add:
1/2 cup of frozen peas

6 hard boiled quail eggs

A bit of extra asiago cheese

TO ASSEMBLE:
Liberally flour your surface and roll out the dough to no less than 1/4 inch. Place the ramakin you are using onto the dough, then cut a circle around it that is 2 inches + bigger than the raminkins imprint. Then, cut a shape directly around the lid of the ramekin. Remove extra dough, then roll the larger circle out some more. The dough should be as thin as you can work with it. Grease, spray or butter your ramakin. Then, gently lift the larger round, place and work it into the ramakin. If there is gross excess in spots, cut it out and seal it.

Take your tomato covered penne and lay them in a row at the bottom of the pie. Fill in the edges with more penne. Then, make another layer.

Scoop about 2-3 table spoons of your peas and bechamel mixture over the pasta. Then very gently press the quail egg down thru the pea mixture. Ideally it will be standing perfectly upsidedown.

Layer some very thin slices of asiago then cover with another arranged layer of penne.

Place the smaller crust on top and seal with the lower crust.

Pop in to oven at 350 for 45 minutes. Check on it, and if the upper crust is burning, take it out.

When you take it out, place it upsidedown on a plate. It may or may not fall onto the plate. Ideally, they fall out of the ramekins after a bit of cooling. If they stick, I've tried chilling it got get it to fall, heating it on the plate to get it to fall, but sometimes it just won't. Then you have a classic pot pie, that will taste just as good.

Leftover bechamel and tomato sauce can be combined and poured over pies if you like.

I'm really sad about the grey circle around the egg yolk, but that comes from over cooking and I can't figure a way around it after 45 minutes in the oven.

Spinach sauce

800g spinach
40g butter
250ml milk
1tbsp plain flour (optional)
Salt and white pepper

Put the spinach in a large saucepan with just the water clinging to it’s leaves after washing and cook for 5 min. Drain, squeeze out as much liquid as possible, then puree in a food processor.
Melt the butter in another saucepan, and pour in the milk and the spinach puree. Season with salt. Cook over a medium heat, stirring the mixture occasionally, until thickened. If the sauce remains runny, stir in the flour and cook for 10 minutes.
Remove the saucepan from the heat and add more salt, if necessary, and white pepper to taste. If this sauce is served with pasta, hand around plenty of parmesan cheese.

Serve with short pasta, or with poached eggs.

hint: don’t use frozen spinach, the texture won’t be right.
also, if you are going to use the flour, be sure to cook for the whole 10 min. so you don’t get a floury taste

This was really good, and really fun too. It was shockingly bright green, which the boys loved. It turned out to be an excellent way to get them to eat massive amounts of spinach without complaining.

I got the recipe from The The Silver Spoon. One of the most wonderful cook books to have.

This was fast and easy and well received by all. I’d make it again.

Pasta with balsamic vinegar sauce

25g capers, drained and rinsed
½ bunch of flat leaf parsley, coarsely chopped
1 potato, boiled and coarsely chopped
about 150ml olive oil
1tbsp balsamic vinegar
salt

put the capers, parsley, boiled potato, and a pinch of salt in a food processor and process to a puree. Scrape into a bowl and gradually beat in the olive oil to make a thick sauce. Stir in the balsamic vinegar.
For short pasta or spaghetti

This was from The Silver Spoon. I got this book recently, and I love it so much. It’s overwhelming, and educational, and fabulous, and exciting. If you love cooking, this is one of those books that is absolutely required.

I tried this because I was fascinated by the idea of a pasta sauce made of potato. Definitely not Atkins friendly.

I give this a place in the category of the easiest fastest sauces ever (if you already have a cooked potato), and it was really good. The taste was really interesting, different from most of the pasta sauces that I make regularly. I wound up adding a little extra vinegar, I think that how much you need probably has to do with how good your vinegar is. The texture of the overall dish was not exactly sticky, but definitely thick and coated. Very high on comfort factor, and with a real balsamic kick to it.

We all loved this one, there were no leftovers.

Tagliatelle with smoked salmon

1tbsp vegetable oil
250g chestnut mushrooms, quartered
375g dried or fresh tagliatelle
125g pack smoked salmon (trimmings are fine), chopped
3tbsp chopped fresh parsley
200ml carton half-fat crème fraiche
juice of ½ lemon

heat the oil in a frying pan. Add the mushrooms and cook for 8 min until beginning to brown.
Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to a boil, add the pasta and cook according to package directions.
Stir the salmon, parsley, crème fraiche, and lemon juice into the mushrooms and season. Drain the pasta and quickly toss with the creamy sauce.

This is another fast easy wonderful thing to do with pasta. I got it from 101 Cheap Eats. I’m not sure on what planet Smoked salmon could be considered a cheap eat, but it does make a point of saying that you can use trimmings, which are usually a lot less expensive.

There’s not much to say about how to cook this, because it’s just so easy. It takes no time at all, and it’s really very good. It tastes a little alfredo-ish.

I’m making it again right away (I’ll make a cake as my new thing). My older son loved it so much he’s been begging me to cook it again. For a fussy four year old, that is better then the best review.

Give it a shot.

Spaghetti with Tomato and Brie

300g spaghetti
500g courgettes, halved lengthways
3tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves thinly sliced
finely grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
6 ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
140g brie, diced

Cook the spaghetti in salted boiling water according to packet directions. Meanwhile, slice the courgettes. Heat the oil in a large frying pan, then fry the courgettes and garlic for 3-4 minutes till softened.
Add the lemon zest , tomatoes and about 3tbsp of the pasta water (enough to make a sauce). Cook for a further 2-3 min until the tomatoes begin to soften. Remove from the heat and stir in the brie so it just starts to melt. Season and add lemon juice to taste.
Drain the spaghetti well and toss with the tomato mixture.

This came from 101 Cheap Eats.

This was another one of those super easy, quick spaghetti sauces I love so much. It did have a bit of chopping, but you could still, quite easily make the sauce in the time it takes to boil water and cook the pasta.

This one was interesting to me because I had never thought of using Brie in a tomato sauce before. It was wonderful. I don’t know why I never thought of it, it’s such a brilliantly melt-y cheese.

I really like this a lot. The lemon perks it up without making it any less of a comfort food. I’m going to try it again in the summer when the good tomatoes come back, but even with winter tomatoes, it’s still worth making.

Tagliatelle with peas and Parma Ham

600g Tagliatelle
200g fresh peas, podded weight
50ml olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
1 garlic clove, crushed
Handful of freshly chopped mint
Handful of freshly grated Parmesan
8 slices of parma ham or 200g soft goat’s milk cheese, crumbled
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Cook pasta according to packet. Actually the recipe called for making your own, but I used store bought because I was in a hurry.

Bring a medium saucepan full of water to the boil. Add the peas and cook for 2-3 minutes. Drain and plunge into iced water. Set aside.

Heat the olive oil in a pan over a low heat and add the garlic. Cook for 1 minute, then add the drained peas, and cook for a further 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.

Drain the pasta and add to the pea mixture. Toss well then season to taste and add the chopped mint and a drizzle of olive oil. Sprinkle in the parmesan, and drape over the parma ham or scatter with the goat’s cheese before serving.

This was from a book I just got called Angela Hartnett’s Cucina.

This was a really simple and lovely pasta dish. It was interesting to me because it used mint. I have not had a pasta dish that used mint before. I was wondering if it would be strangely like eating toothpaste, but it was not at all. The mint works beautifully with peas, and it winds up being a subtle background flavor. You don’t notice it right away, but then if you are told it’s there, it becomes obvious. This was Italian cooking at it’s best. Super simple, only a few ingredients, and only lightly cooked, but perfectly balanced, and ever so comforting.

This is a perfect dish if you’re in a hurry too, because you can make it in the time it takes to make the pasta. I am definitely going to try it again in the summer when the peas are fresh, I’m sure it will be at it’s best then.

Orecchiette with Cavalo Nero

500g orecchiette pasta (I couldn't get Orecchiette, but found a similiar shape)
500g Cavalo Nero, turnip tops, or young purple sprouting broccoli
6Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
3 Garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1/2 tsp crushed dried chillies
6 anchovy fillets in oil
Freshly grated pecorino or parmesan cheese to serve (optional)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Bring 4.5 liters of water to a boil in a large saucepan with 8 tsp salt. Meanwhile trim any large stalks from the cavalo nero and cut any large leaves into approximately 10cm pieces.
Add pasta to the boiling water and cook for 12 minutes. Four min before the pasta is done, add the cavalo nero to the pan and cook for the remaining time, until the greens are tender and the pasta is Al Dente.
Meanwhile, put the olive oil, garlic, and chili flakes into a large deep frying pan and place over a medium heat. As soon as the garlic begins to sizzle, leave it to cook for a few seconds and then add the anchovy fillets and break them up with a wooden spoon until they have “melted” into the oil. Remove from the heat.
Drain the past and cavalo nero and just before all the water has drained off of them , add them to the frying pan and toss together well. Place over a high heat and shake around for a few seconds until the cooking liquid still clinging to the pasta and leaves has amalgamated with the oil and the cooked leaves to create a sauce. Sprinkle if cheese if using.

I got this recipe from Rick Stein’s Mediterranean Escapes. It’s not the most adventurous recipe in the world, but for a long time I’ve been seeing references to Cavalo Nero. Mostly it pops up in Italian cookbooks, a lot of the time I see it in stews and soups. Anyway, I’ve been wondering about it for quite some time, and then all of a sudden they started carrying it in my local supermarket. I chose this recipe because I figured it would hi-lite, and not overpower the Cavalo Nero.

It is a nice green, I really liked it a lot, It’s very hearty. I’d say it’s kind of like Kale, but with a less bitter, almost nutty flavor. It’s got tons of character, and it carried this dish well. Unfortunately it’s a bit expensive, as it’s obviously a specialty item, but if they keep stocking it, I’d buy it again.

Pasta with Broccoli and Blue Cheese Sauce

300g dried Tagliatelle
250g broccoli, broken into small florets
350g mascarpone cheese
125g blue cheese, chopped
1tbsp chopped fresh oregano
30g butter
Salt and pepper
Freshly grated parmesan to serve

Cook the tagliatelle according to the instructions on the packet.
Meanwhile, cook the broccoli florets in a small amount of boiling salted water. Avoid overcooking the broccoli so that it retains it’s color and texture.
Heat the mascarpone and blue cheeses together gently in a large saucepan until they are melted. Stir in the oregano and season with salt and pepper.
Drain the pasta thoroughly. Return it to the saucepan and add the butter, tossing the tagliatelle to coat it. Drain the broccoli well and add to the pasta with the sauce, tossing gently to mix.

Serve with fresh grated parmesan

This recipe is exactly how you’d expect it to be. Tasty, comforting, rich, and lovely. It tastes similar to an Alfredo sauce, but with a blue cheese bite to it. I got it from a new vegetarian cookbook that someone gave me. I’ll be doing some more recipes from it later this week.

This is another super quick sauce that can be done before your pasta is finished cooking, so it’s also an easy after-work meal. Slightly surprisingly, the boys couldn’t get enough of it. I was worried that the blue cheese would put them off, but they loved it.

Linguine with lemon, garlic and thyme mushrooms

225g chestnut mushrooms
80 ml olive oil
1Tbsp Maldon salt, or 1&1/2 tsp table salt
1 small clove garlic, crushed
zest and juice of one lemon
4 sprigs of fresh thyme, stripped to give 1 tsp of leaves
500g linguine
1 bunch of fresh parsley, chopped
2-3 Tbsp freshly grated parmesan cheese, or to taste
Freshly ground pepper

Slice the mushrooms finely, and put in a large bowl with the oil, salt, crushed garlic, lemon juice and zest, and thyme leaves.
Cook the pasta according to the packet instructions, and drain loosely, retaining some water. Put the pasta in a bowl with the mushroom mixture.
Toss everything together well, then add the chopped parsley, grated cheese and pepper to taste, before tossing again.

This is so good. It is yet another from Nigella Express. I’m really enjoying this book. They really are all easy to make quick prep dishes, It’s going to totally spoil me.

This is a non-cook pasta sauce, which are really nice sauces to get into, because they are super fast to make, and they tend to have a really fresh clean taste to them. This sauce will probably be ready before your water is even boiling. Ever so slightly longer then popping open a jar, this is the way to go. And the flavors of this one are so refreshing and light tasting. They make a very summery tasting pasta, that is still totally warming and comforting.

If you are missing the sunshine already, and feel in need of a bit of food therapy, try this dish!

Sesame Noodles

For the dressing:
1 Tbsp sesame oil
1 Tbsp garlic oil
1 Tbsp Soy sauce
2 Tbsp Sweet chili sauce
100g smooth peanut butter
2 Tbsp lime juice

For the salad:
125g Mangetout
150g beansprouts, rinsed
1 red pepper, deseeded and cut into small strips
2 spring onions, finely sliced
550g ready prepared egg noodles
20g sesame seeds
4 Tbsp chopped fresh coriander

Whisk together all the dressing ingredients
Put all the salad ingredients except the sesame seeds and the coriander in a bowl.
Pour the dressing over and mix to coat everything well.
Sprinkle with seeds and coriander.

Another from Nigella Express.

These were super easy to make. I did a lot of the prep in advance, chopped the veggies and made the sauce in an empty jar and left it all in the fridge overnight. That way when it came time to eat, all I had to do was empty the veggies, the noodles, and the sauce into a big bowl and mix it up. Great for when you are having people over and you’re short on time.

I made another version of sesame noodles once before, and it was really good too, and could be made from basic store cupboard ingredients, but this one is more substantial as a full meal because of the veggies, they also add a really nice crunch. If I was thinking about it in advance enough to pick up some sprouts and a pepper, I would totally make this version.

Aromatic Pork Belly Hot Pot

1.5kg Pork belly, with the rind on
About 1.5 liters Pork or chicken stock, if available, otherwise water
12 spring onions
100ml light soy sauce
75ml Chinese rice wine
25ml rice wine vinegar
2tbsp soft light brown sugar
3 star anise
10cm piece of fresh ginger root, peeled and sliced into rounds
a good pinch of dried chili flakes

Remove the bones from the pork belly and cut into rectangular chunks, about 2.5x5cm. Put them in a large pan, pour over enough boiling water just to cover, then bring back to the boil. Simmer gently for about 5 min, skimming off the scum that rises to the surface, then drain through a colander. Rinse out the pan if necessary, return the pork to it and pour over enough boiling stock or water to cover it again. Cut 5 of the spring onions in half and add to the pan with the soy sauce, rice wine, vinegar, sugar, star anise, ginger and chili flakes. Stir well and bring back to the boil. Reduce heat, cover tightly and simmer very slowly for about 2 hours, turning the meat occasionally, until the pork is very tender, soft and succulent.
Remove the pork with a slotted spoon and set aside. Strain the cooking liquid into a clean pan, skim off as much fat as you can (but don’t worry about leaving a little), then boil the stock hard to reduce and concentrate the flavors. It should be lightly syrupy and intensely aromatic, but don’t over reduce as the soy sauce could make it too salty.
Meanwhile, thinly slice the remaining spring onions on the diagonal. Return the pork to the sauce and heat through. Serve over plain noodles in warmed soup bowls, with plenty of the broth ladled over and the sliced spring onions scattered on top of the meat.

This was from The River Cottage Meat Book which I am absolutely and totally in love with right now.

I had great fun with this recipe. I had never bought belly pork before, so I asked my butcher what exactly it looks like, so I could decide if I wanted it or not. He disappeared into the back, and the reemerged with what looked like the whole bottom of a pig. It was still vaguely pig shaped. It was really cool to see exactly what I was getting. I would recommend going to a good butcher for this, they’ll be able to help you out. I got to see the whole chunk of meat that I wanted, and then he boned it and cut it up for me too because it’s a bit of a job when the meat still has the rind on. My knives aren’t that good.

The actual cooking was super easy. It takes awhile, but doesn’t require all that much effort. I used about 2 liters of liquid for the long cooking (I had to in order to cover the meat), half good chicken stock, and half water. This wound up being a good mix, the concentrated broth wasn’t too strong, just really beautifully aromatic, just like it said, and very tasty. The flavors of the spices really came through.

Anyone who has seen belly pork knows that this is about as far from a low fat dish as you can get, but do try this. It’s soooo good! I love it. It’s a fairly authentic Chinese dish from what I understand, and it looks like it is probably the dish that was bastardized in order to create the modern monstrosity of pot noodles.

It’s noodles, it’s seriously good soup, and it’s huge chunks of meat. As you would expect, everyone loved it.

Spaghetti with courgettes, ricotta, basil, and lemon

300g dried spaghetti
1tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 courgettes, thinly sliced
finely grated zest and juice of 1 unwaxed lemon
50g ricotta cheese, crumbled
1tbsp grated parmesan cheese
2 tomatoes, diced
8 basil leaves, ripped
1tbsp pine nuts toasted
Freshly ground black pepper

Cook the pasta for 1 minute less then recommended on the packet. Drain reserving a little of the cooking water.
Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large frying pan, or wok, and fry the garlic and courgettes over a medium heat, turning regularly, for about 3 minutes till just starting to color.
Add the pasta to the courgettes together with 3-4tbsp cooking water. Stir in the lemon zest and juice, both cheeses, the tomatoes, basil and pine nuts, and toss to combine. Season with pepper and serve immediately.

My father-in-law is visiting right now, and he has recently been diagnosed as being borderline diabetic. When I found out I went to the library to find some diabetes cookbooks. They only had two, but it’s a good jumping off point. This one is called The Diabetes Weight Loss Diet.

Looking through these cookbooks, I found that it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. Now, if you are actually diabetic and reading this, please know that I do not know much about this, and I could easily be wrong, as I have only consulted two sources. From these two sources though, I have gathered that the emphasis is really more on high fiber, then on low carb. By that I mean that the high fiber carbs seem to be fairly acceptable like brown rice instead of white and things like that. This recipe actually used regular pasta. The idea was that all of the fiber in the raw and lightly cooked vegetables, balanced out the carbs of the pasta. I decided to use whole wheat pasta anyway.

This dish was nice. It wasn’t terribly special or fancy, but the lemon made it very summer-y and refreshing. Also, it’s incredibly fast to make. The sauce can be made in the time it takes to boil the water and cook the pasta. I could see myself making this again.

Courgette Pasta

Ingredients

1 garlic clove, crushed
3 courgettes, grated
200g spaghetti
handful of flat leaf parsley
leaves, roughly chopped
1 tbsp capers
50g parmesan cheese, grated
olive oil


Instructions

1. Put a good splash of olive oil into a frying pan over a medium heat and add the crushed garlic, cooking until golden.

2. Add the grated courgettes to the pan and keep stirring until it begins to dry out.

3. Meanwhile, bring a pan of salted water to the boil and cook the spaghetti. Drain the spaghetti then mix in the courgettes, parsley, capers and parmesan.

4. When serving sprinkle with more parmesan and season
to taste.

Recipe adapted from Zest by Michele Cranston

I found this on the Rivernene web site. They are the people that I get my vegetables from. It’s one of those services that brings organic local produce right to your door. Good stuff. I checked their site the other day and they have a huge bank of recipes. Tons and tons. It’s a good idea really, because you only sort of choose what you are going to get, so if you are going to give people things that they are unfamiliar with, it’s nice to also let them know what they can do with those things.

Courgettes (zucchinis) are not exactly unusual, but they are another one of those vegetables that you forget to do something new with, so I thought I would try this.

This sauce can be made in far less time then it takes to get the water boiling and cook the pasta. That means that you would not save any time by just opening a jar of sauce. I was really surprised by how many pasta sauces can be made while the pasta is cooking. All those years of thinking I didn’t have enough time to make fresh sauce…funny.

This was really good. It was a nice and fresh tasting, super easy, perfect summertime pasta dish.