Chicken Penne Pasta Bake

We've had a few tummy issues in the family just lately, so I've been trying to avoid the heavily spiced, full of chilli, rich with tomato sort of flavours so as to give everyone a chance to recover.  Inevitably, my first port of call is always what my hubby refers to as "brown food", or "something in some sort of gravy".  Now that is okay by me because I love gravy of all kinds, but it's not necessarily so okay with the remainder of the assembled throng.

So I began pondering the thought of how to adjust foods that we normally eat but that are very tomatoey, or contain a hefty whack of chilli for instance, but exchange something else for those troublesome ingredients.  Something that will deliver a good flavour in exchange for the tummy-troubling effect.

Amazingly - I think probably because I've a talent for comfort food - I've been fairly successful in most of these "calmer" dishes and this one proved to be particularly good.

Cooking the chicken through

Now I know that some of you will raise your eyebrows and move on at the mention of the use of a tin of condensed cream of chicken soup.  Well, if that's the way you feel about it then fine, I won't try and convince you otherwise.  However, for those of you who are left, the use of the soup as a sauce base is invaluable when you're either a little bit pushed for time, or are just worn out and can't face the "from scratch, infuse with chicken, add an hour to the cooking method" version.

I don't recommend that you use the soup alone for your sauce - although it would do at a pinch - but if you work on adding complimentary flavours, you can create a multi-layered flavour profile resulting in a really quite interesting sauce which will keep your taste buds interested through to the last bite.

Mmmmn ... had to stop myself from "tasting" too often!

I started my layers of flavour with sweated down onion and garlic in olive oil, then added chopped celery and a green pepper (which was a late addition, but made all the difference).  The tarragon made a huge impression on the sauce flavours, of course, as did the use of goat's milk instead of cow's.  You just get that slight tang of goat's cheese coming through - and the little bit of Philadelphia helped that along by providing the creaminess.

Again, it was one of those "put things into the pan in order, boil some pasta, combine the two and eat" dinners that are always so welcome.  Plus, with the extra little bit of breathing space that you get when it goes into the oven, you've got time to beat back the washing up or put together a little side salad, if the idea moves you.

As for Cook's Tips, well I've a few :

With any vegetable that you are using for flavour, chopping them finely instead of just chopping them into bite sized chunks, will increase the flavour they can deliver by a factor of many.  So don't be tempted to leave your onions, celery and green pepper in large chunks - small pieces will work so much harder.

It really isn't necessary to use goat milk for the sauce, cow's will do the job perfectly well - and if you're using a semi-skimmed of whole milk, then there is no need to add the Philadelphia as that was really just there to provide the creaminess lacking in a skimmed milk.  Likewise, if you're using skimmed milk but don't have any Philadelphia but do have some cream - use that!

Do try to find - and use - low salt chicken stock granules or cubes.  It makes all the difference if YOU can say how much salt you want in the mix, rather than some manufacturer deciding for you.

Again, it isn't essential to use petit pois - ordinary peas will do perfectly well.  Petit pois are just smaller and sweeter, but were what we had in the freezer at the time.  If you don't have any peas, then some frozen sweetcorn would do a similar job!

Also, it isn't essential to use the mozzarella ball.  It just provides some "stringy cheese" which my son always enjoys and adds a nice creamy flavour to the cheesy layer on top of the bake.  However, if you're strapped for cash or can't find any - don't worry about not including it, nobody will notice.

It's a great mid week dinner, this one.  It can be dressed up for more than four by the addition of a side salad and garlic bread, or just eaten as is.  Very flexible where ingredients are concerned and forgiving to cook, it's a very civilised little recipe.  The evenings are beginning to draw in and the temperatures have dropped, so I think it's time for a little bit of comfort food.  What say you?

CHICKEN PENNE PASTA BAKE   (serves 4)

Ingredients :

1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped finely
1 clove garlic, chopped finely
1 stick celery, de-strung and chopped finely
1 green pepper, cored and diced
10g salted butter
half a tsp ground black pepper
3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, sliced
1 tsp dried tarragon
295g can of Batchelor's condensed cream of chicken soup
250ml skimmed milk (I used goat milk)
1 tbsp Philadelphia cream cheese
1.5 tsp Knorr reduced salt chicken granules (stock powder)
2 tbsp frozen petits pois
300g penne pasta
125g mozzarella ball, sliced
150g mature cheddar cheese.

Method :

Two thirds fill a large saucepan with water and put on to boil over a high heat.

Heat the olive oil in a large, deep frying pan over a high heat and add the onion, garlic, celery and pepper.  Make sure to stir the contents regularly so as not to allow them to brown, but cook until the onion is transparent and the celery & pepper have softened.

Add the black pepper and stir through.

Add the sliced chicken and continue to cook, stirring regularly, until the chicken has all turned from pink to white.

Reduce the heat to moderate and add the dried tarragon and stir through.

Once the water comes to a boil, add the pasta and cook until al dente.  You don't want it to be cooked all the way through, as it will finish cooking in the oven.

Add the soup, milk, cream cheese and stock powder and gently stir until all is amalgamated.  Allow the combination to come to a gentle simmer.  Taste for seasoning and adjust if necessary, but remember that there will be cheese on top - so go easy on the salt!  Add the frozen petit pois and stir to combine.

When the pasta is done, drain and make sure to retain a little of the pasta water, just in case you need to reduce the thickness of the sauce a little.

Replace the pasta back into the hot saucepan and add the sauce contents.

Stir through gently.

Decant into an ovenproof dish and lay the mozzarella slices over the top.

Cover with the grated cheddar and put into a pre-heated oven at 180degC/350degF/Gas4 for 20-25 minutes or until the cheese is melted, bubbly and just beginning to turn golden.

Serve.

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Pepperoni & Mozzarella Millefeuille - or pie!

I suppose it all depends on how much you want to befuddle your audience, as to whether you call this one a "Pepperoni & Mozzarella Millefeuille" or a "Pepperoni & Mozzarella Pie".

Because I'm feeling quite classy today - and it doesn't happen often, so it's good to make the most of it - I shall be calling the dish a Millefeuille.  However, don't be thinking of layers of crisp pastry interspersed with common old pepperoni and squishy mozzarella - oh no.  Be thinking of lovely golden puff pastry, filled with a luxuriant mixture of pepperoni, mashed potato (oh, sorry, did your expectations just crash and burn? *chuckle*), mozzarella cheese and spring onion.

Whatever you call it, it was flipping lovely.

The filling, before the top layer went on

This was another one of hubby's creations, in that he knew we had a pack of pepperoni and two balls of mozzarella in the fridge, left over from an expected pizza voyage that never happened.  The mozzarella is used up easily at lunchtimes, but the pepperoni was a different matter.  So he devised a use for it - and very nice it was, too.

All pleated up and egg washed - ready for baking

For simplicity, we bought some ready-made puff pastry and even a tub of ready-made mashed potato.  Now shop bought mash isn't my favourite by any means, but I have to admit that it did make what could have been a right old palaver a lot easier.  Of course, the best thing of all would be to make a bit extra the day before (presuming you have a dinner with utilises mash the day before).  For us, our meal plan that week had gone completely to worms and the rhythm of our dishes was completely up the creek - hence the shop bought mash.

The only two changes we'd make when making this again, would be to use a better quality of mozzarella - which would give better flavour, plus to use a small quantity of grated cheddar, just to increase the cheese flavour by a tiny bit.

The addition of the spring onion to the mixture was a stroke of genius, though.  Far nicer than straight chopped white onion, or a sweated off onion.  It gave a lovely bite to the texture plus a welcome splash of colour - not to mention the sweet, mild onion flavour which of course went so well with the other ingredients.

Mmmn, squidgy!

This is a recipe that I suspect would appeal to menfolk everywhere - and you could even get away with serving with a little salad, so long as you promise that there's lots of cheese involved in the pie!

Son & heir definitely approved and even ate his salad without complaint.  Hubby was, of course, super critical of the dish as it was his own creation - but agreed that it was definitely one that he'd do again.  I was pleasantly surprised by the flavours as I'm not the biggest fan of pepperoni outside of a pizza and found that the pepperoni flavour was muted by the mashed potato, which allowed the cheese to come through most agreeably.

One note that is worth mentioning, is that the fat content of this dish is off the scale.  It would be impossible to substitute chorizo, for example, as the fat that chorizo brings would just swamp out the texture.  If you consider that every single ingredient - the pastry, mashed potato, pepperoni and mozzarella - all contain a significant amount of fat, this is very definitely a dish for "once in a blue moon".  I'm sure it has a place, though - perhaps as a sharing dish for a mixed buffet, or as a picnic dish (it was very good cold, too!).  Something where you don't need to have a huge slab of the stuff.

Definitely one of those meals that are naughty, but very nice!

PEPPERONI & MOZZARELLA MILLEFEUILLE  (serves 4-8)

Ingredients :

400g puff pastry, rolled out into two sheets approx. 15" x 8"
120g sliced pork pepperoni
400g mashed potato (leftover mash is best)
250g mozzarella, grated
50g cheddar cheese, grated
5-6 spring onions, trimmed & chopped into quarter inch pieces
freshly ground black pepper
1 egg, beaten.

Method :

1.  Prepare a baking sheet with non-stick aluminium foil and pre-heat your oven to 180degC/350degF/Gas4.

2.  Slice the pepperoni into strips and place into a good sized bowl.  Add the remainder of the ingredients and season with a good pinch of black pepper.  Mix with a fork until evenly combined.

3.  Place one of the sheets of pastry onto the baking sheet.

4.  Tip the pepperoni mixture out onto the pastry piece and form into a rectangle, at least an inch in from the edges of the pastry.

5.  With a pastry brush, brush a little of the egg wash around the edges of the pastry.

6.  Lay the second piece of pastry across the top and press down around the edges, to seal.  Make sure you're not trapping air inside the pastry, by cutting two or three slots into the top of the rectangle.

7.  Pleat the edges of the pastry, to seal and neaten.  Then give the pastry a good coating with the egg wash.

8.  Place into the oven for some 35-40 minutes, or until the pastry is golden brown.

9.  Serve with a side salad.

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Pizza Tart - or Chorizo, Mushroom & Mozzarella Tart, if you like!

We were in the mood for some tart, last week.  We hadn't had one for quite a while and, although pastry is on the no-no list for my diet, I hoped that I'd be able to offset it a little bit with the other ingredients.


Being Pizza Tuesday, I was able to craft the tart to please just hubby and I - which obviously meant mushrooms!


Aside from that, however, I had been having difficulty with chorizo just lately.  I am not all that taken with the taste of a lot of smoked paprika, which of course, makes chorizo very difficult.  I like a little smoked paprika in dishes, but find it becomes almost medicinal in quantity - which isn't very nice.  However, our local Asda has begun to stock some cooking Chorizo, as well as the "ready to go" version.  I thought it would be worth giving it a try, so used it in the filling for the tart and was pleasantly surprised.  I certainly would be willing to use it again, so it can't have been all that strong!  Hubby used the last Chorizo sausage in the Chilli Con Carne later in the week, and it was crackingly good in that.


Something else that's worth noting, is that I used the Jus-Rol Low Fat Puff Pastry for the first time.  Now I know that "low fat" and "puff pastry" seem like a contradiction in terms, but it worked perfectly!  You must bear in mind, though, that I wasn't looking for a well risen pastry for this tart, but something that would give a lighter effect than shortcrust - and in that context it worked just fine.  I'll be using it again, as every little ounce of fat that can be gained, is all to the good.


So.  What did I do?  Well, I unrolled the pastry rectangle and placed it on a baking tray, then because it was a bit big (ordinarily I'd run a knife around the outside to create a crust), I rolled up the edges to form the crust of the tart.  After copious amounts of pricking to prevent it from puffing up hugely, I then part baked it for 10 minutes at 200degC.


Next, I took a pizza sauce (yes, shop bought. I was interested in a tart that was easy to prepare!  If you want to make a pizza sauce, then by all means be my guest.  I know they aren't difficult to make, but it was one step further than I wanted to go, that night) and put a coating of that over the pastry.

Next job was to slice the chorizo very thinly and add that to the tart base, followed by the sliced mushrooms (which in the recipe, below, I have sauteed first - it will remove a lot of the water that they carry) and topped off by the slices of mozzarella and a small sprinkle of grated parmesan cheese over the lot.


That done, it went into the oven for 25-35 minutes, or until the mozzarella was melted and browned on top and the filling was obviously heated through.


I served it with the Zesty Beetroot Salad on top of some mixed salad leaves.  Oh, incidentally, I used a pack of beetroot that had been marinated in honey & ginger for this - and it was gorgeous.  That's something else we'll be having again!


The salad was just lovely with the tart and provided that nice freshness to counteract all the rich flavours of the tart.


Totting up the Inflammation Factors, the end result is -356 per serving, so as you can see, I failed miserably where offsetting the pastry is concerned.  *sigh*  I was SO sure that beetroot was anti-inflammatory, but it turns out it's anything but.  Hey ho.  Back to the drawing board!


PIZZA TART  (Serves 2-3)


Ingredients :


350g puff pastry
3-4 tbsp tomato pizza sauce
a tsp of olive oil
3 cooking chorizo (4" links), sliced finely
3-4 mushrooms, sliced finely
2 balls of mozzarella, sliced finely
a small amount of parmesan cheese, grated.


Method :


1.  Pre-heat your oven to 200deg C/350deg F/Gas 4.

2.  Roll out (if home-made) your pastry to form a rectangle which will fit your baking tray, then using the tip of a knife, score approx 1" in from the edge a line around the inside of the pastry, to form the crust.  Alternatively, (if shop bought) simply unroll the pastry onto your baking tray and score - or if slightly larger than your tray, roll up the edges to form the crust.


3.  Using a fork, prick the inside of the pastry all over, then place into the oven for 10 minutes.


4.  While the pastry cools slightly, in a frying pan, add the teaspoonful of olive oil together with the chorizo and cook on a medium heat for 5 minutes or so, until the oil has changed colour.  Add the mushrooms and cook on a fairly high heat until they have given up their water.


5.  Next, coat the inside of the pastry with the pizza sauce, then add the chorizo & mushroom mixture, levelling off as you go.


6.  Lay the slices of mozzarella on top, then sprinkle the parmesan over and place back into the oven for 25-35 minutes or until the mozzarella is browned and bubbling.


7.  Allow 5-10 minutes for the tart to cool once removed from the oven, then serve with a salad.


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Macaroni Cheese - the gold standard

You may remember my talking about my Hubby's longing for a macaroni cheese recipe that didn't involve a roux-based sauce.  He had a memory of a macaroni cheese that a friend's wife had made for a dinner party, which he was sure contained wine - and was itching to re-create that.

Well, he'd gone a little way along that route by learning how to make a roux-based sauce, so that at least he understood the process in order to deviate from it.  I detailed his learning process in the blog posting about the Cauliflower Cheese - and indeed it was a beautiful cheese sauce.

Like me, he'd scoured the internet and my recipe books, looking for a recipe that satisfied all his criteria, but without success.  So he took a recipe that was nearest to what he wanted, and adapted it with the best bits from several other recipes.

I can confirm that the Macaroni Cheese he came up with was quite categorically the best Macaroni Cheese I have ever tasted - and was perfectly able to see it on a dinner party menu.  Macaroni Cheese isn't the first thing you'd think of for a dinner party, but this one is quite simply the Gold Standard for Macaroni Cheeses.

The cheese sauce was made more in the style of a fondue, rather than a cheese sauce.  As such, it contained the desired white wine, simply loads of cheese (cheddar and gruyere) along with cream and milk.

As if that wasn't enough, the whole dish was sprinkled with a mixture of buttered breadcrumbs, herbs, parmesan and salt which gave it a lightness of texture and a simple delicious crunch.

It's not the cheapest Macaroni Cheese in the world - but I'd go so far as to say that it is certainly the best I've ever had!

3 January 2018

I've just made a version of this macaroni cheese - following the recipe apart from three differences.  I used The Black Farmer's Sweet Mature Cheddar and a ball of Mozzarella in the cheese sauce - which were both SUCH a success.  The cheddar is truly packed full of gorgeous flavours and the mozzarella, well, mozzarella makes any cheesy thing wonderful.  The last difference was that I skipped the breadcrumb and baking part completely.  Did we mind?  Not one bit.  Here's how it looked.  SO yum.  

MACARONI CHEESE  (feeds 4-5)

Ingredients :

225g macaroni pasta
5-6 rashers lean unsmoked streaky bacon
3 tbsp butter, plus a little for the breadcrumbs
3-4 small shallots, chopped
2 tbsp plain flour
150ml white wine
100ml whole milk
300ml double cream
115g gruyere cheese, grated
115g mature cheddar cheese, grated
2 tbsp fresh chives, chopped finely
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
pinch of cayenne pepper
pinch of nutmeg
110g crusty breadcrumbs
enough parmesan to grate over.


Method :


1.  Pre-heat oven to 200deg C/180deg C fan/Gas mark 6.


2.  Cook pasta in boiling salted water according to packet directions until tender to the bite.  Drain well, but do not rinse.


3.  In a large frying pan over a medium to high heat, melt the butter and add the bacon.  Fry until fat is rendered and just beginning to turn crusty around the edges.  Add the shallots and cook until golden, approx 3 minutes.


4.  Sprinkle mixture with flour and cook, stirring all the time, for around a minute.  Add the wine and stir, then the milk, still stirring, making sure to collect all the flavour from the bottom of the pan.  Add the cream and continue to stir.  Sprinkle in the cheeses, a handful at a time, continuing to stir until each handful is melted before adding the next.

5.  Stir in 2 tbsp chives, mustard, a pinch of salt, the cayenne and nutmeg.  Add the pasta to the sauce and stir lightly to combine.

6.  Add to a baking dish.

7.  To make the breadcrumb mixture, (which can be made ahead of time), in a food processor pulse the breadcrumbs with one and a half tbsp of butter, 1 tsp chives, grated parmesan and a pinch of salt, until mixed.

8.  Sprinkle over the pasta and bake until the top is browned and the cheese sauce is bubbling, around 15-20 minutes.

Serve.
 
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Bolognese Pasta Bake & Ras-Al-Hanout Chicken - two days, two dinners

I've decided to lump these two dinners in one blog post because neither of them had us hanging out the flags with delight.  As a consequence, I won't be detailing a recipe for either of them, but they're very worth talking about.

Firstly, the Bolognese Pasta Bake.

Well, it sounds nice enough - Bolognese with pasta, baked with Mozzarella cheese on top.  Mmmmn, sounds promising!  However, and I suspect this may well just be a "Jenny's Taste" thing, as opposed to a general point of view, but I really like my pasta bolognese to stay separate from one another.  That is, the pasta is on the base, with the bolognese sauce in a neat heap on top, sprinkled liberally with parmesan.  Not all mixed into one.

You see, the thing I enjoy most about bolognese, is eating the sauce on its own and choosing to eat some pasta at intervals throughout.  I know, call me picky.  It's one of the rare times when I am picky, to be honest!

I just didn't think about that aspect of it when we agreed to use up the mozzarella in this way.  Of course, the mozzarella melted on top of the saucy pasta was completely divine - but then mozzarella always is!  Unfortunately, it doesn't soak through the pasta and once you've eaten the cheese, all you're left with is saucy pasta.  But hey ho, even if I wasn't impressed - the chaps ate theirs and Son & heir would have eaten the leftovers today, if we hadn't have gone to Cafe Rouge for breakfast!

So, moving on - the next dinner was Ras-al-hanout chicken, with new potatoes and salad.

I suspect there must have been a male:female imbalance thing going on here, because the chaps both declared the chicken to be bland, whereas I was musing approvingly to myself how Ras-al-hanout has a stealth heat which sneaks up on you.  Granted, it isn't ever the sort of heat that you would find too much, but it was very definitely there!

The chicken was simply butterflied, then put into a bowl with olive oil, salt & pepper and the Ras-al-hanout mix where it sat for the next 30 minutes, before going into the oven for 25 minutes, thence onto the plate.  So, simple enough - but obviously lacking in flavour for the chaps.

The salad was just that - salad - however the new potatoes are worth a word.  After much sampling, we have discovered that Jersey Royal new potatoes are far tastier (even to the point where hubby enjoys them - and he hates potatoes with a deadly loathing) when you buy them as "muddy spuds" (i.e. with the dirt still attached) than when you buy them all beautifully washed and ready for the pot, sealed up in a plastic bag.  Now this interesting point is one which I have been sure was true, for as long as pre-packed bags of spuds have been available.  I'm just glad that places like Asda see fit to cater for both types of consumer - the muddy and the clean!

It is hard to consider that mud has any great taste benefits, but I suspect that it may well be the cleaning process that eradicates subtle flavour trails within the potatoes.  Of course, I have no scientific backup for this opinion.  It is just that - my opinion.

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Baked gnocchi with spinach, tomato & mascarpone

I usually leave a day or so in between trying out a recipe and blogging about it, but the really good ones get blogged earlier than that because, basically, I can't wait to tell everyone about them!

Such is the situation with this Baked gnocchi dish from Jo Romero's Comfort Bites blog.


You know how some recipes strike you instantly as being so "do-able"?  You can see immediately that everyone who will be eating would enjoy the ingredients and the way they have been prepared.  The first time I read through the recipe on Jo's blog, I knew straight away that we'd really enjoy eating this dish.

I felt as though I was cheating a bit, buying a jar of pasta sauce.  However, I'm glad I did as the jar - a sundried tomato sauce from Dress Italian - was very nice with a depth of flavour that I'd have been hard put to have achieved in a home-made sauce (for the same money - just a pound - that is!).


I also added a ball of mozzarella, diced, to the recipe as I know how much Son & heir enjoys the stringiness of cooked mozzarella and anything that helps him over the fact that there's also spinach in the dish, can't be anything but good.


I have given the recipe below, but please note that I'm very definitely not claiming it as mine - it's simply because I've added the mozzarella, which is where my recipe differs from Jo's.

Even if you've never cooked Gnocchi before, this is a perfect introduction to the little darlings.  Flavoursome and rich with the mascarpone balancing the tomato and with the spinach for added texture and flavour, it is truly a lovely thing.  The sheer fact that neither hubby nor Son & heir missed their meat (in case you haven't noticed, it doesn't contain any!) is testament to the satisfaction it delivers.



BAKED GNOCCHI WITH TOMATO, SPINACH & MASCARPONE (feeds 4)

Ingredients :

500g pack of potato gnocchi
500g jar of your favourite tomato based pasta sauce
2 handfuls fresh spinach leaves, washed
About 6 tablespoons mascarpone cheese
A mozzarella ball, diced
Handful of Parmesan.

Method :

1.  Preheat oven to 180C. Heat a large saucepan of slightly salted water until it boils. When the water is boiling, drop in the gnocchi and cook for around 2 minutes, until they puff up slightly and float to the top.

2.  Meanwhile, scatter the washed spinach leaves in the base of a fairly large roasting dish.

3.  When the gnocchi are cooked, drain and tip directly onto the spinach in the dish. Mix slightly, so that the spinach begins to wilt in the steam of the cooked gnocchi. But go careful - you don't want to break them up.

4.  Tip on the tomato sauce and mix again.

5.  With a tablespoon, scoop out dollops of mascarpone and arrange them over the top of the tomato-gnocchi mixture. Sprinkle over the cubed mozzarella and cover with a handful of freshly grated Parmesan and bake for around 30 minutes, until the gnocchi is bubbling and the cheese has melted.

Allow to cool slightly before serving - with a side salad.

Printable version

Parmigiana di melanzane - or Aubergines with Mozzarella and Parmesan

I first made this dish to accompany a roast chicken - which it did very well.  It occurred to me at the time, that it would be good with a lot of other types of meat and especially greasy types like pork or gammon, or types that tend towards dryness, as with chicken.

However, this time, it was nobody's second fiddle but the star of the show, accompanied by some salad and garlic bread.  The meat eaters in the family would have preferred more carbs with their Parmigiana, but nobody announced that they missed the meat.

If you make use of one of those olive oil sprays when cooking the aubergine, you are able to keep the oil to a minimum.  Although the dish is heaving with cheese, neither of them are very greasy cheeses and so it stays really light.  I think the juiciness of the tomato & basil sauce helps to balance the rich cheese and the aubergine becomes deliciously soft and gently flavoursome.  I really must make this one more often!

PARMIGIANA DI MELANZANE (serves 4 as a main course)

Ingredients :

2 aubergines, topped, tailed and sliced thinly
olive oil spray
sea salt & ground black pepper
300g mozzarella, sliced
115g parmesan (or Grana Padano), grated
3 tbsp panko or crispy breadcrumbs
1 tbsp butter, cut into small pieces.
  

For the tomato & basil sauce :

1 tbsp olive oil

3 banana shallots, chopped finely

2 garlic cloves, chopped finely

400g can chopped tomatoes
1 large vine ripened tomato, chopped
2 tsp tomato puree

1 tbsp tomato ketchup

1 tsp of Worcestershire Sauce

3-4 fresh basil sprigs, torn
1 tsp sugar or honey

sea salt & black pepper to taste.

Arrange the aubergine slices in a single layer on 1-2 baking sheets.  Spray with olive oil and season, then bake in a preheated oven at 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6, for 10-15 minutes, until tender, but not collapsing.

Over a high heat and using a large frying pan, add the olive oil and when up to temperature add the shallots and garlic.  Cook, stirring regularly, for 5 minutes or so until softened.   Add the tomatoes, stir in the tomato puree, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, fresh torn basil and season with salt and pepper to taste, adding the sugar or honey if it requires a bit more sweetness.  Bring to a lively simmer then lower the heat and gently simmer for about 10 minutes, until thickened.  

Spray an ovenproof dish with olive oil and arrange half the aubergine slices in the base.  Cover with half the mozzarella, spoon over half the tomato sauce and sprinkle with half the Parmesan.  Mix the remaining Parmesan with the breadcrumbs.  Make more layers, ending with the Parmesan mixture.

Dot the top with butter and bake for 25 minutes, until the topping is golden brown.

Remove from the oven and leave to stand for 5 minutes, before slicing and serving.

Printable version

What's for dinner this week, then?

Very good question!

This week's menu's have largely been brought to you care of Delia Smith's "Frugal Food" and the BBC Good Food website, with one element of Jamie Oliver.  The week's programme began to write itself fairly early on in the previous week, when I got down to having a serious (as opposed to a quick flick through) look through Delia's recipe book.

Incidentally, can anyone tell me the difference between a "cookery book" and a "recipe book"?  The Cambridge Dictionary defines a "cookbook" as "a book containing recipes which tell you how to prepare and cook particular dishes", whereas it doesn't carry a definition for "recipe book".  I'd have thought that a "cookery book" contained paragraphs on "how to" as well as recipes (as with "The Constance Spry Cookery Book"), whereas a "recipe book" is just the recipes.  Maybe I'm wrong in that, though?  There seems to be almost as many descriptions for books regarding cookery as there are books!

So, anyway, I digress.

Here's what's on the menu this week :

Tuesday (which is tonight, as I write this blog) : this is a Delia night.  We had Devilled Chicken Pieces with onion rice.

This is the photo that went with the
recipe - but it's not how they looked
when I'd finished making them!

This was an experiment on two counts.  Firstly, as a first go at Delia's recipe for Devilled Chicken Drumsticks (albeit we had pieces) and secondly, as a first go at having chicken pieces (i.e. drumsticks & thighs) instead of breast fillets.  Because of the hike in price of frozen breast of chicken fillets, it has now become almost impossible for us to afford them and, because we have so many chicken recipes, I was keen to find a replacement.  I pondered on buying a whole chicken and jointing it - but I could immediately see that would be a non-starter on a busy day.  A bag of frozen drumsticks and thighs cost less than an entire chicken (and provide you with 5 of each, drumstick and thigh) and have the benefit of being extra-tasty in comparison to a breast fillet.  Of course, you can't stuff them, but you can use them in casseroles and stand-alone roast type dishes such as the Devilled Chicken.

Well, it proved a success.  Not exactly a resounding success - but that was down to Son's difficulty with handling chicken on the bone, rather than any other problem.  The recipe is a good one (I'll blog it eventually!) and although - next time - I might add a little more spiciness to the devilling, it was suitably finger-licking good.  I gave Son a drumstick and a thigh.  The drumstick he coped with just fine, the thigh was a little more challenging.  However, it's nothing that a little practice won't cure.

The onion rice, however, was more than a little ho-hum.  I won't bother blogging that one as we definitely won't be trying it again.  It was just too bland and uninteresting, even though I tarted it up with some cinnamon bark and broad beans.  I'm sure I can make a vegetable rice that will provide more interest.

Wednesday : Spirali al Pesto Rosso

Please don't pick me up on my Italian - it's just a humorous "at home" name for Spirali pasta with Red Pesto and Kielbasa sausage.  I'm looking forward to this one, as we've bought a red pesto which involves walnut and which should go with the Kielbasa (Hunter's Sausage) really well.  It's hubby's first cooking night, so fingers crossed it goes well for him!

[Edited on Wednesday evening, to say that the Kielbasa sausage (Hunter's Sausage) is TDF (to die for) and the Pesto (Red Pepper and Walnut, made by Dress Italian) is absolutely lovely.  I have rarely seen such a simple pasta dish wolfed in shorter time!]

Mace, bagged up
and ready for export

Thursday : Rissoles, potato wedges and peas

Thursday is hubby's second cooking night and tonight he's attempting to re-create a taste from his past - Rissoles.  The recipe he's using is another Delia one, which also uses ground Mace.  Now, I can't remember the last time I ever used Mace in anything so I was intrigued to have a sniff once we'd bought some.  Immediately my mind travelled to Rice Pudding, not Rissoles, so it'll be interesting to see what the Mace brings to the Pork Mince that is being used.

Friday : Sausage & Mozzarella Pasta Bake

By dint of the frequent requests, not to mention the puppy-dog eyes that accompany them, we will be indulging in gorgeously spicy tomatoey pasta with sausage pieces, broccoli and that creamy, gooey, cheesy mass that is melted mozzarella.  *sigh*  Happy happy.

This is the Jamie Oliver inspired one, which I have blogged about on a previous occasion back in September, but you can find its recipe here.

Saturday : Tuna & Lemon Pasta with garlic bread

Photo from BBC Good Food
Wonder what my version will look like?

It's another "eat on your lap, whilst watching Strictly Come Dancing" job again.  We've not had this one before and the idea of tuna alongside lemon, with fine green beans and pasta shells, appeals to my taste buds.  In fact, my mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Sunday : Pot Roast Chicken, roast potatoes & parsnips, carrots & green vegetables with Yorkshire Puddings.

I just have to try the pot roasting method on another chicken.  It was SUCH a resounding success the first time, I have to check and see whether that was just a fluke!

I'm also going to attempt to make my own yorkshire puddings.  I haven't told you about the disaster, nay tragedy, that was my Toad in the Hole - and I never will.  Suffice to say that I'm not holding out much hope for wonderfully risen Yorkies.  However, I'll keep on trying because one day - one day - I'll make it.  One day.

Photo from BBC Good Food

Monday : Lemon & Chilli Chicken Noodles

I think maybe I'm coming down with a cold or something, because I have a serious yearning for all things lemony at the moment.  I'm not sure what a yearning for noodles means, but I seem to have a constant hankering for those, too!  This is another BBC Good Food recipe which makes admirably good use of the other half of the chicken from Sunday.  I just hope that the fresh stir-fry mix I buy on Friday will last until Monday!

Apart from a marked lean towards the pasta, I think this week's dishes are a little more balanced than last week's "heavy on the Yorkshire pudding" week!

Home made Pizza

The final articles

In days gone by, when we still lived in Kent, I would make pizza from scratch on a regular basis.  However, with the advent of frozen pizza becoming £3.00 for 3 in Asda, I just couldn't compete with that kind of price and home made pizza became too expensive to produce.

Recently though, the frozen pizzas have become sickly and more than a little bit yuk, which has put us off from buying them and leaving us pizza-less.  With a 12 year old boy in the house, this is something of a critical situation to be in.

So, hubby decided to have another go at making them from scratch.

Three pizza bases, ready for action
They look alright to me!

I won't go into the pizza bread base, as I know that hubby wasn't terribly pleased with it, although both son and myself had no problem with it and declared the whole thing just gorgeous.  However, I know there's no point in giving you the recipe until he's completely happy with it.

Ooooh, you saucy things!

He made the tomato sauce himself, comprising a tin of tomatoes to which he added a teensy bit, like a quarter of a teaspoon, of dried mixed herbs, dried oregano, salt & pepper to season, a teaspoon of tomato ketchup and a couple of drops of Worcestershire Sauce.  He then simmered it until it had reduced to the consistency of a thick passata and allowed it to cool.

Of course, everyone had different ideas about what they wanted on their pizzas.  Son was the easy one, as he just wanted pepperoni, plus mozzarella and cheddar cheeses.  However to make it a bit more meaty, we'd bought a Pepperami which hubby had sliced up for adding to the pizzas.

Mine (left) and hubby's (right)
all ready for the oven.

Hubby had pepperoni, pepperami, green pepper, mushroom, green olive, mozzarella and cheddar.  I had all that, plus a leetle bit of black pudding, sprinkled here and there.

Gosh, but they were good.  :)

I don't mind having Pizza more often, if they're going to wind up being THIS good.

Sausage & Mozzarella Pasta Bake

This is a dish for those days when you want to provide a good wholesome meal that pleases everyone, but have completely run out of inspiration.

It is such a ridiculously simple dish but it is an evergreen that we simply don’t seem to be getting bored with. The original recipe was one of Jamie Oliver’s “Food for a Fiver” recipe cards produced by Sainsbury’s. However, I felt that the tomato sauce was a bit weak, so have broadened the flavours with the addition of a few extras.

If you’re feeding a number of people, you can include a green salad and/or garlic bread. However as it’s just us three and none of us need the extra calories, we don’t bother.

The dish is just as nice the following day, for lunch, so perfect for anyone carrying lunch to work provided you've a microwave there!

Sausage & Mozzarella Pasta Bake

Ingredients (to feed 3-4) : 

1 pack of 8 sausages
200g approx of penne pasta
Sufficient Mozzarella to cover the top of your casserole dish.  I used 3, but then we did eat almost half of one before it ever reached the dish. lol
As much broccoli as you think your family can stand.
2 tsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped fine
1 clove of garlic, grated or chopped fine
1 small red chilli
400g tin chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato puree
1 tbsp tomato ketchup
A shake or two of Worcester Sauce
Half a teaspoon of Oregano
Salt & pepper

Method :

1.  Place the sausages onto a baking tray and bake for 25 mins at 190deg C. You want them to be just browned, as they’re going to cook further in the casserole dish.

2.  While they are cooking, put a large pan of salted water on to boil and then cook the broccoli florets for no longer than 2-3 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon (reserving the cooking water for the Penne pasta) and place into the casserole dish. Place the pasta in to cook according to the instructions on the pack, once the water is back to boiling.

4.  In the meantime, in a high-sided frying pan, sweat off the onion and chilli in the oil and add the garlic and oregano when almost done.

5. Add the tomatoes, tomato puree, tomato ketchup and Worcester sauce. You may need to add 100ml of water, depending on how juicy the tomatoes were. Allow this to simmer gently while the pasta cooks and you chop the part-cooked sausages into four.  Taste and adjust seasoning as necessary.


6.  Ultimately, combine the sausages, pasta, broccoli and sauce together in the high-sided frying pan, mixing gently to ensure everything is covered with sauce. Decant into the casserole dish, add a layer of sliced mozzarella cheese on the top (try not to eat it all!) and bake in the oven at 190deg for around 30 minutes or until the cheese is golden and bubbly.

Scrumptious "in front of the t.v." food.  :-)

{Edited to add the broccoli, which I forgot to add to the ingredients list, and to say no, you're not seeing things, this is the second time I've posted this recipe.  *sigh*  Call it blog blindness, I'm forgetting what I've posted where!}.

Now that's what I call a successful day's meals

Some days, I look back at the meals we've had over the course of that day and feel like I could have done so much better.

However, yesterday wasn't one of those days I'm pleased to say.

Hubby got cracking early on the bagels and before we knew it, there was a new batch of bagels all ready for consumption.  He reckons he let them get a little over-browned, but I like them like that - adds flavour!  Mind you, I'm the sort of person who likes her toast to be browned as opposed to just warm bread.

We had a new batch of free range eggs and a new packet of Asda's cheap as chips smoked salmon offcuts (88p! Can't say fairer than that), so all that just begged to be made into scrambled eggs with smoked salmon, on a bagel.  Delicious!

I had plans to make Mary Moh's Sweet Potato & Carrot soup for lunch, so once we'd got back from our trip to the library, greengrocer (where Hubby picked up two duck eggs and more plums) and charity shops, I got started.

Mary's Sweet Potato & Carrot Soup - plus Bagel

I didn't have any garlic oil, so as a substitute, I began the process by frying a sliced clove of garlic.  Somehow a small chopped red chilli crept into the mix at the same time.  Well, it seemed like a good idea!

The soup is so ridiculously easy to make and smells simply gorgeous when it's cooking.  I digressed from the recipe once more, in that I pushed the blitzed soup through a sieve - just to emphasise it's velvetiness.  Goodness, but that soup is really delicious - and to think, it's doing you good too.

So, flushed with success, I set to and made a batch of plum chutney - but more on that later.

Dinner that evening was an easy one, but a family favourite.  Sausage & Mozzarella Pasta Bake.  It's grown a little from the original, as the recipe was one of Jamie Oliver's "Food for a Fiver" for Sainsbury's.   I felt that the tomato sauce was quite weak in the original recipe, plus the emphasis was too heavily on the broccoli, so the following recipe has resulted, which is always greeted with cheers whenever the question "what's for dinner tonight, Mum?" is asked.

Sausage & Mozzarella Pasta Bake

Serves 3 hungry people, or 4 people if you're serving dessert too!  Can also be served with a green salad, although we tend not to.

Ingredients :

1 pack of 8 sausages (Cumberland preferred).
Around 300g of broccoli (depending on how much you like it)
200-300g Penne Pasta
3 balls of Mozzarella (quantity depends on how big your casserole is!)
400g tin tomatoes
A small red chilli
An onion, chopped
A clove of garlic, chopped
Half a tsp oregano
Worcester sauce
1 tbsp tomato ketchup
Half a tbsp tomato puree
Freshly ground black pepper
Salt
1 tablespoon of olive oil

Method :

1.  Place the sausages onto a baking tray and bake at 190deg C for 25mins or so, or until they are brown.

2.  Put a large saucepan of water on to boil, with salt added.  Once boiling, add the broccoli florets and cook for 3 minutes, then remove with a slotted spoon, retaining the cooking water.

3.  In another large pan, or deep frying pan, begin to make the sauce by sweating the onions until they gain a golden colour and are transparent.  Then add the garlic, oregano and chilli and cook for a minute or so more.

4.  Add the tin of tomatoes and allow to heat through, adding a shake or two of Worcester Sauce, the tomato ketchup and the tomato puree.  Leave to simmer while the flavours combine, then season and taste before the broccoli is added, to heat through.

5.  Fire up the heat under the broccoli water and once boiling, add the Penne pasta.  Cook for slightly less than recommended on the packet, retaining a little bite.  Drain and add to the sauce.

6.  Slice the sausages into four and add to the sauce.  Mix to combine carefully, so as not to break up the broccoli, then decant into a casserole dish.

7.  Slice the mozzarella and lay over the top.  Bake at 190deg for around 30 minutes, or until the cheese is browned and bubbling.

Serve, to the acclamation of all.  :)