Orecchiette with Prawns and Zucchini

Nigella Lawson has said that she likes to keep frozen prawns on hand to make a prawn dish whenever she fancied it.  Inspired by this, I grabbed a tray of prawns at the supermarket recently with this orecchiette dish in mind. The recipe comes from Taste.com.

This dish is a terrific all in one, and dead easy to make.  If you'd like to try it, you will need:

400g orecchiette

60ml olive oil

2 crushed cloves garlic

2 tablespoons capers, rinsed

2 small chillies, seeded and finely chopped

2 zucchini, finely diced

700g medium green king prawns, deveined and cut into 3 (I just used small prawns)

2 cups baby spinach

1/2 cup mint leaves, torn

juice of half a lemon

salt

Cook the pasta and drain, retaining 1/3 cup cooking water.

In the meantime, heat the olive oil in a frying pan.  Add garlic, capers, zucchini, chillies and a half teaspoon of salt  and cook, stirring, for three minutes.  Add the prawns and cook on high until the prawns are cooked through.

Add the pasta, three quarters of the mint, spinach and lemon juice to the prawn mixture and mix to combine.  Season with salt and pepper, and sprinkle with the remaining mint.

Serve and enjoy!

Nigella’s Slut’s Spaghetti

Who doesn’t love  a steaming bowl of pasta as a quick, hearty, tasty meal? I am not immune to the charms of a bowl of pasta, especially a tomato-based sauce.

I recently bought a packet of black bean spaghetti at my local IGA. It looked cool (hey, black spaghetti!), and had 44% protein and heaps of  fibre, making it super good for you.

The spaghetti kept falling out of my cupboard at me for a couple of months until I finally decided I needed me some pasta.  I grabbed a sadly neglected book from my shelf, Nigella Lawson’s Kitchen, to find a recipe for a sauce for my spaghetti. Kitchen is a great book - it has just been drowned in the sheer volume of cookbooks that I possess.

Nigella reliably had a recipe for Slut’s Spaghetti. She loves good alliteration and so do I, so this recipe won a big tick right off the bat. If you don’t have the book, you can find the recipe online here.

This tasty dish is brimming with punchy flavour - anchovies, olives and tomatoes are up front and centre. The black bean spaghetti added a comforting earthy flavour to the dish.

While this spaghetti might not be the prettiest to look at, it has a depth of flavour that is hard to beat. It is also super quick and easy to make. Go on, treat yourself and make Nigella’s Slut’s Spaghetti!

Sweet Potato, Mince and Pasta Bake

In my quest for the perfect lunch dish, I recently found a recipe for Sweet Potato and Mince Pasta Bake published in the Australian Women's Weekly featured in an advertisement for sweet potatoes.  I liked the sound of the ingredients, which included both meat and vegetables.

I made some changes to the recipe  that were mostly accidental.  I used fusilli rather than penne because that is what I found at my supermarket.  I left out the spinach because I forgot to buy it, and the pine nuts because I couldn't find them in my pantry cupboard.

I recommend using a food processor to grate the vegetables as this will save you a lot of time and grief. 

This is a really hearty, warming winter lunch, and I would happily make it again.  

If you think that you'd like to make this dish (my version), you will need:

• 350g dried pasta
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 chopped onion
• 2 cloves crushed garlic
• 500g beef mince
• 400g sweet potato, peeled, coarsely grated
• 1 small zucchini, coarsely grated
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 400g can diced tomatoes
• 1 cup  beef stock
• 4 sprigs thyme
• 100g ricotta
• 1/2 cup grated cheese

Preheat your oven to 220°C.

Cook the pasta according to packet instructions.

Heat the oil in a frypan and cook  the onion and garlic until softened. Add the mince and cook until browned. Add the sweet potato and zucchini and cook until softened slightly.  

Add the tomato paste, tomatoes, stock and thyme, then simmer, uncovered, for 15-20 minutes until thickened slightly.

Combine the pasta and the sweet potato mixture in a large ovenproof dish. Crumble over the ricotta, and sprinkle with grated cheese. Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden.

Remove from the oven and serve with a garden salad. 

Tuna Pasta Bake

I have said before that I struggle to find good dishes to make for lunch that go beyond the stodgy sandwich.  Recently, in a Taste magazine newsletter, I found inspiration in a really good recipe for a simple Tuna Pasta Bake.  This pasta bake only uses six ingredients.  I bumped it up to seven by adding frozen vegetables to make it a true "one pot" dish that is transportable and can be heated up in the microwave for lunch at work.

This is the kind of dish that speaks for itself, so without further ado, here is how to make it.

Gather together:

300g dried macaroni
40g butter or margarine
2 tablespoons plain flour
2 cups skim milk
3/4 cup reduced fat melty grated cheese
425g can of tuna in springwater, drained
250g mixed frozen chopped vegetables
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat your oven to 220 degrees Celsius.  Lightly grease a large casserole dish.

Cook the macaroni according to packet instructions then drain, reserving a quarter of a cup of the cooking water.

Melt the butter or margarine in a saucepan, then add the flour and stir for a minute over the heat.  Remove the saucepan from the heat and pour in the milk.  Stir to combine then return to the heat, and continue stirring until the sauce thickens.  Season with salt and pepper, and stir through a quarter of  a cup of the cheese.

Combine the cooked macaroni, tuna, frozen vegetables and reserved cooking water, then arrange evenly on the bottom of the greased casserole dish.      Sprinkle the top with the rest of the cheese, then bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden.

Serve and enjoy!  (I got 6 servings out of it.)

Tuna with spaghetti, peas and borlotti beans

I am very proud of me.  I recently commenced on the seemingly insurmountable task of weeding out my cooking magazines, which  had started to take over my apartment.  I started this mammoth task with a set of about 10 magazines that were still in their plastic  and had lived under the bed three apartments ago ands been lugged around ever since.  I opened the mint condition plastic around those magazines and went through them one by one, tearing out recipes I might make and discarding the rest.

I have since done the same with the mountains of food magazines perched on furniture in my spare room.  I have gone though nearly five years worth of food magazines.  Now all that is left are the more fortunate magazines that found a place in my bookshelves.

One of the recipes that I tore from that first batch of magazines was a recipe for Spaghetti with Tuna, Peas and Borlotti Beans, on p 88 of the February 2009 edition of Delicious magazine.  I am forever searching for work lunch dishes - I need something hearty and filling, and I get bored easily. 

This dish exceeded my expectations.  Spaghetti with borlotti beans sounded - well weird.  However, the combination of ingredients was really flavourful, and the beans make it a really filling dish.  I made it even heartier by using wholemeal pasta.

To make this dish, you will need:

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 finely chopped onion
3 finely chopped cloves garlic
1/3 cup tomato paste
pinch of dried chilli flakes
4 tomatoes, skinned, deseeded and chopped
400g borlotti beans, rinsed and drained
400g can tuna in springwater,  drained and flaked
1 cup thawed frozen peas (I used frozen mixed vegetables)
400g spaghetti (I used 250g - heaps!!)

Heat the olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat.  Add the onion and cook for 1-2 minutes until soft.  Add the garlic and tomato paste and cook for 1 minute, stirring from time to time.  Add the chilli flakes, fresh tomato, borlotti beans and 1 cup water, then bring the mixture to a simmer.   Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes or until the sauce has thickened, stirring from time to time.

Stir in the tuna and the peas/vegetables, and cook for around 3 minutes or until the vegetables soften.

While the sauce is simmering, cook the spaghetti according to the packet instructions.  Serve the spaghetti topped with the sauce and ton basil leaves (if desired).

Curtis Stone's Sausage and Asparagus Pasta

In another delve into the supermarket magazines, I chose to make Curtis Stone's pasta with sausages and asparagus from the October 2017 Coles magazine.  As a disclaimer to my comments, I am not a huge pasta fan or a huge sausage fan.  So, you may ask, why did you choose to make this?  Well, because it sounded quick and easy and a good thing to make to  take to work for lunch.

Don't get me wrong - this pasta was OK, and I think it got better as the week went by.  I think part of my indifference to it stemmed from the sausages that I used (Woolworths beef, garlic and rosemary sausages; sacrilege, I know, when the recipe calls for Coles Beef Oregano and Parsley Sausages). I think plain old beef sausages would have been better.

If pasta is your thing and you like sausages, then this would be a great quick and easy dinner.

The recipe is as follows:

1 tablespoon olive oil
500g beef sausages (I am agnostic as to which ones you use)
2 chopped cloves garlic
1 1/3 cups passata
250g large spiral pasta
1 bunch asparagus, trimmed and cut into 4cm pieces
20g grated parmesan

Remove the sausage meat from the casings and break into small chunks.

Heat the oil in a frypan and cook the sausage meat until golden brown.  Add the garlic and cook until garlic is fragrant.  reduce the heat and add the passata.  Simmer and cook for 2 minutes or until the passata reduces slightly.

While the sausage is cooking, cook the pasta according to the packet.  During the last 2 minutes of cooking time, add the asparagus. Drain the pasta and reserve 1/2 cup cooking liquid.

Add the pasta and asparagus to the sauce and toss to combine, then add 1/4 cup of the pasta cooking liquid to the sauce to thin it out.  Season with salt and pepper, sprinkle with parmesan and serve.

EwE - Penne with Zucchini and Mint - Spring Harvest

This week's Eating with Ellie theme is Spring Harvest, chosen by Peggy.  I can still imagine it's spring here, because the weather has for the most part remained warm, despite us being in the second month of autumn.  To that end, I thought of fresh vegetables for this theme, and settled on Ellie's Penne with Zucchini and Mint.

This pasta was a nice, meat-free meal to have for lunch or dinner.  The zucchini gave it moisture and the mint gave it some zing.  The use of wholemeal pasta provides fibre and lowers GI.

To see what the others made this week, visit the LYL section of the EwE website.

EwE - Better Beef Lasagne - Italian Night

Hey, mambo! Mambo Italiano!
Hey, mambo! Mambo Italiano
Go, go, go you mixed up Siciliano
All you Calabrese do the mambo like a crazy

                                                   From Mambo Italiano

For tap dancing, our first routine is for the Moomba Festival in Melbourne, which takes place annually on the Labour Day long weekend.  I will be away that weekend so I am not participating, but I still get to dance along with my class.  The theme for Moomba this year is food, with two chefs, Guy Grossi and Karen Martini, being crowned Moomba king and queen.

Our tap dance routine is to the dulcet tones of Dean Martin singing Mambo Italiano. I am not a great dancer, but I have a lot of fun at tap dancing, laughing at how clumsy I am sometimes.  Our dance moves include waving around a teatowel and a latex pizza.

When I chose the theme of Italian Night for Eating with Ellie this week, I had no idea I would be back at tap dancing after 15 years away, let alone that we would be dancing to an Italo-American song, but it happens to tie in nicely.

I decided to make Ellie's Better Beef Lasagne, from Comfort Food Fix. This lasagne cuts down on grease and calories by subbing some of the meat for portabello mushrooms, and subbing the white sauce for a mixture of spinach and ricotta.

I didn't have quite enough Napoli sauce, so for the top of my lasagne, I just used more ricotta and spinach.  This made my lasagne perhaps a little dryer than it should have been, but I enjoyed it regardless.  (Aside:  The recipe refers to "marinara" sauce, which in Australia is known as Napoli sauce.)

I couldn't find wholewheat lasagne sheets, so I went for organic ones instead. I also subbed the mozzarella for light cheddar.

This is one of those dishes that gets better with age.  The first night, I was not that enthused about it, but after that, the flavours developed and the lasagne sheets soaked up more moisture from the other ingredients so tasted better. (I did not pre-cook my lasagne sheets, which is not the norm for lasagne sheets here.)

I served my lasagne with steamed carrots and beans - delish!!  And I didn't miss the extra meat or the greasy white sauce.  I like the fact that the lasagne gets in an extra serve of veggies with the spinach.

To see what the others made this week, visit the LYL section of the EwE website.

EwE - Tortellini-Spinach Soup - Soup's On

For Eating with Ellie this week, Margaret chose the theme of Soup's On.  I decided to make Tortellini-Spinach Soup from So Easy.

This soup is very easy to make, as it uses pre-packaged tortellini.  The recipe calls for spinach and cheese tortellini; I could only find roasted vegetable and cheese tortellini, so that is what I used.

This soup is very, very tasty. It is also reasonably quick to make, and filling.  It is a dish I'd make again.

To see what the others made this week, visit the LYL section of the EwE website.

EwE - Spaghetti Frittata - Perfect Pasta

I chose this week's Eating with Ellie theme of Perfect Pasta.  Pasta is not one of my favourite foods, but I guess at the time of choosing the theme, I was trying to be alliterative.  Don't get me wrong - pasta is OK - but it is not something I ate much of growing up, hence I would not miss it much if I never had it.

The recipe that I chose is Ellie's Spaghetti Frittata.  Granted, this dish does not look very attractive - the spaghetti makes it look like something from a Halloween party - but it tastes really good.

The frittata contains spaghetti, spinach, onion, sun-dried tomatoes and cheese.  I'd probably replace the sun-dried tomatoes with fresh cherry tomatoes if I made this again, as I found the strong flavour of the sun-dried tomatoes a little out of place here.

To see what everyone else made this week, visit the LYL section of the EwE website.

Low Fat Macaroni Cheese

If you read this blog regularly, you will know that while I like my sweets, I try to keep my meals healthy.  This led me to search for a low fat recipe for macaroni cheese as a side to serve with dinner while my mother was staying with me.

I found this recipe for low fat macaroni cheese on Taste.com.  The recipe calls for bacon and parsley, which I left out, but I otherwise followed the recipe.  It was quick and easy to make, and sliced easily into convenient squares for serving.

This macaroni cheese was pretty good, but lacked a little oomph flavour wise.  Perhaps a sharper cheese or a dash of chilli or paprika would remedy this.  However, I would make this again.

EwE - Pasta with Sardines and Broccoli Rabe - Mama Mia! Let's Cook Italian!

Mama Mia! Let's Cook Italian!  That is the enthusiastic theme for Eating with Ellie this week, chosen by Margaret.

Ellie has lots of Italian-inspired recipes, including plenty of pasta recipes, and it is a Sicilian- style pasta recipe that I dialled up for this week.  The recipe is for Pasta with Sardines and Broccoli Rabe.  It comprises wholemeal pasta (Ellie used fusilli, I used penne), canned sardines, toasted pinenuts, raisins and crispy-fried greens.  Broccoli rabe is something that I have never seen here, but from a quick Google search, I understood that kale would be a good substitute, and that is what I used.  (Contrary to its name, broccoli rabe is not like broccoli - it is more like bitter greens.)

This pasta is super delicious - the only tweak that I would recommend for next time is using some chilli flakes to give it a bit of kick.

To see what our other Italian mamas made this week, visit the LYL section of the EwE website.

EwE - Shrimp Fra Diavlo with Spinach - I'll Have The Shrimp!

For Eating with Ellie this week, Kayte chose the theme of I'll Have The Shrimp!  In Australia, "shrimp" are "prawns", and these delicious but smelly little fellas are immortalised in the idiom, "Don't come the raw prawn with me" (ie don't try to fool me). 

I chose Ellie's Shrimp Fra Diavlo (Shrimp "Brother Devil") with Spinach from So Easy, a recipe featuring pasta, shrimp and a spicy sauce, with wilted spinach added.  The pasta was supposed to be spaghetti, but I used macaroni instead because that is what I had in the pantry.

I really enjoyed this tasty dish - I made a half recipe, and ate half for dinner one night and half for lunch the next day.  This is definitely a repeat dish.

To see what everyone else had for Ellie's shrimp dishes, visit the LYL section of the Eating with Ellie website.

EwE - Chicken, Mushroom and Spinach Pasta - Plate of Pasta

This week's Eating with Ellie theme is Plate of Pasta, chosen by Margaret.  This is a fairly broad theme, and Ellie has plenty of pasta recipes, so it was an easy one to find a dish to make.

I chose Chicken, Mushroom and Spinach Pasta from Weeknight Wonders.  It has the kind of flavours that I really like and as always with Ellie, was quick and simple to make.  The use of wholegrain pasta ups the healthiness factor of this dish.  I'd make it again.

To see what the other Ellie cooks made, visit the LYL section of the Eating with Ellie website.  

Spinach Fettucine with Salmon, Fennel and Asparagus

Cook with Jamie is one of my favourite cookbooks.  I have owned it for years, and I used to cook out of it regularly.  The other day, I was fed up with making the same lunch over and over and was looking for something different.  I flicked through Cook with Jamie, because Jools' Favourite Sunday Pasta is also one of my favourites.   However, this time, my eyes lighted on Jamie's Crab Linguine.  I thought that would make for a perfect lunch!  You can find the recipe, slightly modified, online here. 

I ended up taking the idea of Jamie's crab linguine and making something a little different.  I already had spinach fettucine in the pantry, so I used that instead of linguine.  Crab meat, even the tinned variety, was outrageously expensive, so I used canned pink salmon instead.  I kept the lovely fennel and asparagus and Jamie's dressing of lemon juice and olive oil.  The end result is strongly inspired by Jamie's recipe, just with a couple of ingredients swapped out to save some dollars.

This pasta was beautifully light but still tasty.  I was very happy with my version of "crab linguine". 

EwE - From the Sea - Wok-Charred Lettuce and Spinach Noodle Stir-Fry with Shrimp

This week's Eating with Ellie theme, From the Sea, was chosen by Margaret.  In Weeknight Wonders, there is a whole chapter devoted to seafood, so that is where I went to choose my dish.

I selected Ellie's Wok-Charred Lettuce and Spinach Noodle Stir-Fry with Shrimp (in 'Straya, that's prawns).  This dish comprised spinach fettucine, prawns, gem lettuce, spinach, shallot and garlic all stir-fried with soy, sriracha, vegetable broth into one delicious dish.

This was easy to make, and quite tasty.  I would make it again.

To see what the other Ellie cooks made this week, visit the LYL section of the EwE website.  

EwE - Pasta with Prawns, Peas, Herbs, and Feta

For Eating with Ellie this week, Margaret chose Orzo with Shrimp, Peas, Herbs, and Feta.  Orzo was a little too exotic for my supermarket so I just used up whatever pasta was in my cupboard - in this case, a little bit of wholemeal penne and some bowties.

I liked this pasta recipe with prawns, peas, lemon, and feta.  This one is a keeper.

To see what the others thought of this dish, visit the LYL section of the EwE website.

WIAFK (CB) - Andrew Carmellini’s Bow Tie Pasta with Tomato, Arugula, and Mozzarella

Today's Weekend in a French Kitchen (Cafe Boulud) feautures Andrew Carmellini’s Bow Tie Pasta with Tomato, Arugula, and Mozzarella.

This dish took longer  to prepare than you might think because we had to peel, deseed, chop and reduce six tomatoes, and infuse some oil for 15 minutes.  However, the end result was subtly flavoured and delicious - I liked it a lot.

I think the extra cherry tomatoes on top and rocket are not totally necessary, but they do add texture. What I loved is that when I reheated the leftovers, the mozarella on top melted into an ooey, gooey sauce - yum.

To see what the other members of our group thought of this dish, visit the LYL section of the Weekend in a French Kichen website.

WWDH - Pasta with Smoked Salmon and Dill Sauce and Asparagus with Balsasmic Butter

For our Wednesday with Donna Hay dish this week, Chaya selected Pasta with Smoked Salmon and Dill Sauce from New Food Fast.  The recipe can also be found online here. 

This was a quick and simple dish to make.  I made it for Sunday lunch and had two serves left over for later.  The classic flavours of lemon, salmon and dill made this dish sing.

To see what the others thought of this dish, visit the LYL section of the WWDH website.

I also caught up on the simple but tasty asparagus with balsamic butter chosen by Margaret last week:

Definitely a good one to make again; check out the LYL section for the others' opinions.

WWDH - Spinach Ravioli with Basil Oil

It was my pick for Wednesday with Donna Hay this week, and I chose Spinach Ravioli with Basil Oil from Seasons.  The recipe is also posted online here.

This ravioli is made using gow gee wrappers from the deli section of the supermarket as the pasta.  You then place a small amount of spinach and ricotta filling in the middle of a wrapper, brush water around the edge of the wrapper as glue, and place another wrapper on top and press to seal.  Instant ravioli!

I liked this dish a lot.  It was very filling and cheap to make, hence is a winner in my books.

To see what the other Donna Hay devotees made of this dish, visit the LYL section of the WWDH website.