Chorizo, Pork and Kale Lasagne

Lasagne was not one of my favourite meals growing up, I avoided it fairly successfully till probably my early twenties and had dated someone who loved, it so eventually I learned to make a fairly decent one and liked it enough to eat on special occasions... though the lure of red wine going into it possibly helped too at the time, and over the last few years it didn't really cross my mind to cook it until I decided to go experimental and I cooked an awesome one last year with fennel salami in it last year...(though it was actually 18 months ago on checking! I swear it was last year!) 

So last Saturday, whilst deciding what to make for supper and rummaging through the cupboards muttering under my breath the words de-cluttering after decanting half the stuff on to my toes, I stumbled across a couple of boxes of lasagne sheets and decided it was to be lasagne. Except I had pretty much everything bar a pack of beef mince. So experimental lasagne it became again!

We are a fully signed up club chorizo lovers and I decided to base it around that flavour wise, then pretty much make it up as I went along for the rest! Overall I have declared it as the best lasagne I have ever had, it tasted just so, so good! Meaty, a little spicy, rich and packed with flavour, what more can you want? Oh and for the lasagne purists out there this is not Italian or meant to be in anyway. Its just darn delicious!

As always with my meals I love a bit of yellow sticker hunting and managed to sneak a few bargains into the lasagne! We love kale and after getting a bag for a mere 7p it seemed idea to add, the iron-ey rich greens really do add an extra layer of flavour and my cheese was a steal too at 25p! I bought about 6 packets a few weeks back and froze them, they are no use for the cheeseboard but perfect for any baked dishes! I also used a basic mozzarella to keep it more cost effective too, and the mince was on special! Oh and my thyme plant was only 13p too!

   

Time: About 2 hours including cooking

Ingredients:

Serves 6-8

165g Spanish chorizo
1 yellow pepper, diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
250g ripe vine tomatoes, chopped
400g pork mince
1/2 red onion sliced
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 ball mozzarella
75g grated cheddar, mature
100g kale, woody stalks removed
400ml milk
1 tsp cornflour

2 tbsp fresh thyme leaves, finely chopped
12 sheets dried lasagne
Sea salt and pepper

You will need a large roasting pan- mine is 26x30cm (AKA trusty traybake tine).

1) Heat a glug of olive oil in a large saute pan, gently fry the onion for about 4 minutes stir in the peppers, chorizo and garlic, fry until the chorizo starts to leak its lovely orange oil, add the pork mince and break up with a wooden spatula or similar item until browned.

2) Add the fresh tomatoes and tinned tomatoes, then reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes, stir through the thyme leaves.

3) Meanwhile boil the kale in a saucepan for two minutes, drain keeping back 400ml of the cooking liquid. Soak the lasagne sheets in water for 15 minutes.

4) Add 200ml of the milk and 200ml of the kale water to the chorizo pan and season with salt and pepper and simmer over a moderate heat for a further 10 minutes. You need a relatively sloppy mixture.

5) Pre-heat oven to 190o.

6) Place  two scoops of the mince mixture in the bottom of the roasting dish, cover with prepared lasagne sheets, followed by half the remaining mince mixture and a little of the mozzarella. Scatter over the kale to form a layer. Top with 4 lasagne sheets, then remaining mince mix, and final layer of lasagne sheets.

7) In the now empty pan, add the remaining milk and kale water, bring to the boil scraping down any of the remaining pan juices, slacken the cornflour with a little water then whisk in until thickened, simmer for a minute then remove from the heat. Spread over the lasagne, sprinkle over the last of the mozzarella and cheese and a couple of thyme leaves.

8) Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until golden, lovely and bubbling.

I could pretend I served a nice green salad, which would be lovely but we had garlic bread instead!

Polish Ham and Cheese baked Pancakes with Hardy's

First things first - before cooking this delightful dish make sure you have allocated enough time – it doesn’t take that long to actually cook but rushing around to make twelve pancakes, one by one is awfully time consuming whilst also crumbling up cheese, slicing ham, along with preparing a tray of potatoes and squash, and it results in a lovely, rather messy cheese splattered kitchen!

 

You see normally I am quite organised in the kitchen but I had got home late from work, and really fancied a cup of tea. So that’s what I did. So in turn I ran late, though in the end it all worked out fairly fine except for some slightly soggy broccoli. No one complained anyway that it was a bit late and we all had seconds, so I am not sure really why I get into such a tizz! I do like being punctual even if I am working to my own little schedule in my head! Though I may at one point declared if I were to offer pancakes again presume I have gone crazy!

I think I may have mentioned before that my roots are a little bit Polish but I have never really explored Polish cuisine other than picking up the odd packet of ready made Pierogi (and the fun time I accidentally bought sweet cheese ones and served with a garlic butter sauce!) and this recipe by no means is particularly Polish in origin, though it does use a rather tasty ham called Szynka Swojska, which was wrapped in some kind of netting and proved fun to remove, plus a cheese that was labelled as being a soft cheese, but on opening it was actually rather crumbly upon touch and more resembled a cottage type cheese but without the watery gloop part! I will have to look next time in the Polish shop more closely to find its other name! Fortunately it also melted into the ham fairly well! I think next time I would add more cheese - as the last few pancakes were on the skinny side!

 

Recently I was sent a bottle of Hardy's 'Stamp of Australia' Sparkling Chardonnay Pinot Noir - its a new variety on me and I am a fan! When it comes to sparkling wines I do like Champagne but I can't afford it and normally we tend to buy Prosecco for special occasions, though this sparkling Chardonnay is definitely a serious competitor! I am no wine buff but I really liked the lightness of this one, its small bubbles bursting with a light citrus note on the tongue with an almost creamy, smooth roundness to it makes it most drinkable for all tastes! My boyfriend is not normally a fan of chardonnay as it tends to be drier (perfect for me!) but even he enjoyed this without adding a splash of raspberry syrup! It complements the smoked ham and slightly sour cheese flavours very well but even on its own its a very pleasant glass of bubbly. A keeper!

 

Serves 4-6

Pancakes:

180g plain flour
5 eggs
400ml milk
Pinch salt

Sauce:

250ml milk
250ml water
1 heaped tsp vegetable bouillon powder
1 tbsp finely chopped rosemary
6 tbsp grated extra mature cheddar
2 tbsp cornflour
6 cherry tomatoes, halved

Filling:

500g diced Szynka Swojska (cooked ham) cut into small strips
275g Polish soft cheese  - crumbled

For frying - butter or spray oil

A large sheet of greaseproof paper -

Start by making the pancakes. Sift together the flour, salt and beat in the eggs. Add the milk bit by bit to form a smooth batter. Season with salt and pepper.

Heat a heavy based frying pan and add a little butter or spray oil, add a ladleful of batter and swirl around quickly to form a thin pancake. Cook for about two minutes then flip, and cook for a further minute or until cooked through. Place on the prepared baking paper, and repeat with remaining batter to form roughly 12 pancakes.  Alternate the cooked pancakes with the greasing paper to stop them sticking to each other.

When your pancakes are all prepared, pre-heat oven to 200o. Lightly grease two large baking dishes.

Place a pancake on a board or clean counter. Spoon over ham and a litte cheese, roll up and place seal side down in the dish. Repeat with remaining until all filled.

Meanwhile boil together the milk, water and bouillon. Slacken the cornflour with a little water and when the milk mixture is boiling, stir in the prepared cornflour paste, whisking all the time until thickened. Add the rosemary and 2 tbsp of the cheese. Pour over the prepared pancakes and sprinkle over the remaining cheese and tomato halves.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden and bubbling.

Sorry there are no pictures of it plated it - it was gobbled up fast by my family and lovely neighbour who popped around for her share as she had never had them baked before! For the record I served mine with broccoli, and a tray of roasted new potatoes with cubes of butternut squash.


Many thanks to Hardy's for the wine samples. All opinions, text and photography remain the property of Anne's Kitchen and prior permission must be sought before use elsewhere. 

Bacon and Cheese Tart

My boyfriend was away on holiday recently visiting his family in South Africa and I found myself alone with a packet of shortcrust pastry on its use by date... Obviously dangerous times cooking for one to be alone with so much pastry, however thanks to calling over to one of besties at work as to whether she would like some planned bacon and cheese tart for her lunch, to which was a yes (and an eventual can I have the recipe please as her hubby liked it too) another friend-colleague also overhead and agreed it sounded rather nice and so two pieces were instantly ‘sold’ and I only had to eat two portions myself…such hardship…!

Its quite a frugal tart meat wise, I used half a packet of ready chopped bacon trimmings so its relatively faff free too! Whilst I cook from scratch this damn cold weather plays havoc with my joints so a little less chopping is welcome! Also the cheese was the end part of a piece bought yellow stickered and the sour cream was leftover too from our beloved soured cream bundt cake, so it was great not to have the guilt of two cakes in one week, plus a good fridge raid too!

The pictures are not great as I didn't expect to like it so much but you get the idea of it!

*You will need a ready rolled shortcrust pastry sheet if you are lazy like me, or measure home made accordingly*

Ingredients:

1x ready rolled shortcrust pastry sheet

300g cooked chopped up bacon trim, fat removed

4 large eggs

1 tsp dried oregano

75g soured cream

30g double Gloucester cheese.

2 tbsp tomato puree

Bring the pastry to room temperature if you are organised (If not spend a few minutes massaging the cracks with cold water!), gently roll out the sheet, and measure to 26cm, trimming off the excess centimetres. (Makes excellent mini jam tarts for pudding)

Gently lower the pastry sheet into a square baking dish – roughly 8 inch pan, using your fingers to mould the pastry corners.

Brush the tomato puree over the pastry base and sprinkle over the bacon pieces

Beat the eggs, ½ the cheese, oregano and soured cream, season with Salt and pepper. Pour over the prepared base, sprinkle over the remaining cheese and bake for 35-45 minutes or until cooked through and golden. 

The tart was really tasty served hot, with sweet potato mash and some fried romano peppers (5 for a £1 in one of the grocers near my dad!) but also worked well cold too the next day for lunch and would be ideal for a buffet style dinner too!

As my tart is very frugal, using ready chopped bacon trim (88p a packet!) plus cheese scraps - you could use any old cheese really - it would be ideal for a quick Christmas time supper or part of your boxing day buffet, without breaking the piggy bank - I have sent my tart over to this months Credit Crunch munch, from Fuss Free Flavours and Fab Food 4 All:

Spicy Organic Sausage and Mozzarella Baked Spaghetti

Recently on a whim I decided to make a baked spaghetti dish for supper with my dad, using odds n ends up from the fridge, it worked so well – with the spaghetti providing a nice change to usual fusilli or penne that I tend to use in pasta bake and when Sainsbury’s got in touch about creating something with one of their organic hero ingredients I decided to try out their Organic pork sausages in another version of it. To be honest I couldn’t wait to try it again as we enjoyed it so much the first time around and was more than willing to try out an organic version!

Overall I was really impressed with the ingredients – I buy a small amount of organic food, in an ideal world I would probably buy more but it just doesn’t work in our household budget but I managed to make this from mostly organic ingredients for a total of £6.55 to serve 4 comfortably, which I am very happy with! I did however add a bag of salad and made some garlic bread so upped the cost slightly, though that did cover meals for the following day too so was still affordable.

One of my favourite discoveries were the sausages, they were so delicious! Meaty, no gristle or strange goo in the grill tray and a lovely porky flavour. Definitely something affordable at £3 for 6 and when stretched out into a pasta bake it was more than enough for us! The mozzarella too was really tasty, I adore cheese anyway and liked the delicate, milky flavour though would add bigger chunks next time – I think I was too mean chopping it too small it got a little lost in the bed of spaghetti! We all loved the wholewheat spaghetti too, I have been trying to switch to more wholemeal and brown foods to boost nutrition and it worked perfectly in the bake, adding a nice nuttiness to the flavour.

Chinese Leftover Roast Pork Noodles

Firstly sorry I've not been around much this past week, I've been struggling the past few weeks with a dodgy hip among other things so I've not been cooking very much and making very good friends with the sofa! We also went away for Easter for a few days by the sea to relax, which was well needed! I hobbled around as best as I could for brief spells and we had a nice lunch out over looking the sea plus the odd ice-cream! The journey back was awful, the motorway was solid so we did a magical mystery tour of A roads and what seemed like farm tracks, including through the spectacular Cheddar Gorge! I am back home now but will off a few more weeks so I apologise now if I get a little ranty on my twitter feed from being stuck indoors!

Going back to the most important thing - food! We love noodles it is no lie. Whenever I ask B what he wants to eat it’s nearly always Noodles! I play around with my recipe as to what needs using, slowly perfecting it and this was pretty darn good! When I served it up it looked a bit small but I think it was my new dishes being quite big as I was full up afterwards! Plus we did have a plateful of freshly cooked prawn crackers alongside! I am so pleased we bought them on our last jaunt into China Town!

I made this back in February I think, (I've started dating things in my notebook now as memory fails me some days!) using up some leftover roast pork. There wasn't very much pork leftover after making some other dishes but when mixed up with everything else it was most adequate! I think noodle dishes are great for making something out of not very much! I also garnished it with ribbons of egg to help bulk out the protein and make it look attractive too!

Serves 2

Ingredients:

2 nests Fine egg noodles
½ courgette, sliced into half moons
½ red onion, sliced thinly
1 basics vegetable stock cube
75g leftover cooked pork, finely shredded
2 tsp garlic and ginger paste
1tsp Chinese 5 spice
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sherry/ Shaoxing wine
1 tsp toasted sesame oil
1/2 tsp Black pepper
1 tbsp sunflower oil
3 spring onions, finely sliced
½ tsp sesame seeds
1 egg, beaten


Place the shredded pork, 5 spice, pepper, sherry, soy sauce and sesame oil in a bowl to marinade for a little while before ready to cook. 

Heat a large frying pan, spray a little oil and add the beaten egg, tilt the pan to make a thin layer, cook until browned underneath, flip for 20 seconds and remove to a chopping board. Roll up and slice finely into ribbons and keep warm.

Meanwhile cover the noodles in boiling water, crumble in the stock cube and cook as per packet instructions - normally 3-4 minutes. When cooked, drain and reserve 50ml of the cooking stock.

Add the oil to the pan and cook the onion until softened, add the courgette and fry until golden, add more oil if its burning. Reduce the heat and add the ginger and garlic paste. then add the white part of the spring onion, and fry for a minute or so. Then add the pork and its marinade, then stir through the noodles and the reserved stock and heat through. Season with salt and pepper - I find soya sauce quite salty but B likes more so adjust to your tastes!

Spoon the noodles into your serving bowls, sprinkle over the sesame seeds, egg ribbons and green parts of the spring onion

Honey and Mustard Sausage Casserole

Winter still has us in its chilly grip but the daffodils are starting to bloom and Spring is in the air!  I love seeing their bright sunny little heads burst into flower and think of warmer times ahead! Me and cold weather do not mix! However salads are not really going to cut it for a while yet and a warming dish, like my sausage and mustard casserole is just the thing to keep you warm inside! Packed full with sausages, soft tender barley and beans it will keep you full for hours and your tummy snugly and content.

I also feel I need to apologise I've been struggling lately to get my blog posts written up, sometimes its because I get downstairs and realise the note pad / camera/ pen are still upstairs, and as stairs are simply a menace to my knees to go back up, I abandon any blogging idea. Or at a later date and I can't find where I have written a recipe down. That on top of I simply the lack the energy to string more than a few sentences together to form a blog post someday's! As per this weeks meal planning post my health has been not too brilliant but I am trying to just pace myself, it just gets all a bit frustrating at times though but I will keeping trying! A lot of the food lately B has been eating as my appetite has been all over the place but hopefully when the new meds kick in I might feel a bit more level! I still love to look at food though so have been spending a lot of time tidying up my Pinterest boards - do head over and have a little drool whilst you are there!

So enough of my woes, this dish was originally developed using some Basics ingredients from Sainsbury's - I cook fairly budget friendly anyway but managed to switch several ingredients to basics ingredients very successfully and with no loss of flavour, definitely something I have carried forward into other dishes I make. I also used up some leftover potatoes and kidney beans from other meals so it was a tasty fridge raid casserole! 

Serves 3-4

Ingredients:

2 Basics Vegetable stock cubes in 1200ml boiling water

6 cumberland sausages

1 large carrot, sliced

2 sticks celery, sliced

120g cooked new potatoes, cubed

115g cooked kidney beans

1 large white onion, diced

6 tsp Basics honey (if like mine its gone a little too set simply zap in the microwave without the lid to melt!)

1.5 tbsp wholegrain mustard

2 tbsp vegetable oil

150g pearl barley, soaked in water for at least two hours

Method:

In a large saute pan or casserole dish heat the oil and brown the sausages for about 10 minutes or until they have a nice golden colour. Transfer the sausages onto some kitchen paper, cut into 6 pieces each. 

Fry the onion for about 3 minutes in the remaining oil, then add the carrots and celery, stirring regularly until all the veg is just softening - about 5 minutes. Add all the remaining ingredients, bring to a gentle boil then cover and simmer gently for 2 hours.

Ladle into deep bowls or pasta plates and tuck in! It also reheats beautifully the next day too!

As this used up some stray leftover potatoes and kidney beans and some rather tired celery I am sending this over to the No Waste Food Challenge, held by Cooking Around the World this month:

Many thanks to Sainsbury's for supplying some of the ingredients. Disclaimer: I received vouchers to cover my time and ingredients to develop this recipe

Slow roasted Apple and Ginger Pork Shoulder - and the beginning..

Nothing beats a good roast dinner, and all its trimmings however when you work an erratic shift pattern, including most weekends the traditional Sunday roast is a very rare feature for us! However we do still have roast dinners but on other nights and this Roasted Pork started life on a Friday night and initially fed me, B,  my dad and Brother. All 3 boys had seconds – though I had secretly squirreled away some cooked pork before presenting it all, mainly as leftovers are a rarity feeding them! I didn’t initially plan to buy a crackling joint but was all I could find late night shopping though the boys were more than happy to have a portion of crackling with their roast! My brother actually took a little foil wrapped piece for later too!!

Sainsbury's recently got in touch with me about making your leftover Roast work harder - One of the bonuses of cooking a larger roasting joint is all the lovely leftovers that you get to play with afterwards and in all honesty leftovers frequently result in some of my favourite meals! Cooking a large joint of Pork on this occasion took me a little out of my comfort zone – I never have cooked such a large piece before, yet alone used leftover pork and its only in the last few years I’ve really enjoyed eating Pork and I am really chuffed with not only the initial meal but all subsequent meals I got out of it!

In total from the 2.2kg joint of Pork we managed 11 servings, not including those who had seconds from the roast! We initially had a full roast dinner for four, then B had for lunch a wrap filled with apple sauce, roasted pork and a little veg, four portions of enchiladas and two portions of Chinese Pork noodles. Pretty impressive! The recipes will be up after this posting!

Apple and Ginger Roast Pork – The beginning

2.2kg shoulder of pork crackling joint

750ml apple juice (from concentrate, basics is fine for this)

3tsp dried ginger root

2 tbsp salt

½ tsp freshly ground black pepper

*You will ideally need a roasting bag but if not well wrap with foil*

Start by drying the joint of meat with kitchen paper, sprinkle the top with salt and place in a bath of 500ml of the apple juice and allow to relax for 20-30 minutes, drain off the juice and rinse of the salt.

Pre-heat the oven to 210o. Place the pork in a roasting bag along with the remaining 250ml apple juice and sprinkle the ginger over the top of the joint and a little black pepper, seal the bag and roast for 3 hours.

Remove from the oven and carefully cut off the top of the bag, cut way the crackling and place on baking tray minus the string. Cover the joint with foil and allow to rest, meanwhile return the crackling to the oven and cook until crispy – about 15/20 minutes.

Going back to the meat, remove any excess fat (careful as it will be hot!), string and discard. Slice up as best as you can – my joint was no beauty sight wise so more a case of hacking into small chunks!

Serve up with your desired accompaniments, making sure you leave enough for later! We had roasted potatoes, swede mash, carrot mash, mustard creamed leeks, part-baked petit pains, stuffing balls and gravy.

Stuffing Ball's - I didn’t tell anyone it was Sainsbury's basics until they had eaten! The texture was perfectly acceptable alongside the roast dinner at 15p was excellent value. It didn't have the same chunky coarse texture of the regular one but very much edible. That whole ONE BALL out of twelve I had made – NB Men eat too much!

Thai Turkey with Coconut Coriander Sauce - Random Recipe #36

This months Random Recipe #36 - New Year, New Book was set as always by Belleau Kitchen, was actually chosen by B – he had no idea what he was doing it for at the time but I gave him the most recent cookbook I was given (though admittedly was a slight cheat as I was given this particular book and the ‘Reggae Reggae’ cookbook together but nothing really appealed in there when I had previously looked!) I just simply handed the book over and told him to flick it open to a recipe – and with a slight sigh of relief Thai Pork with Coconut Coriander Sauce was read out! If you just noticed the deliberate change from the title to the reference above then well done – we did switch the meat from Pork to Turkey, mainly as I had bought reduced some Turkey breast steaks, and as the recipe called originally for Pork Fillet which is equally pretty lean it made an excellent and economical substitute!

So the book in question this month … its Rachel’s Favourite Food at Home (by Rachel Allen), and the Thai Pork is also the first recipe cooked from it. Dad gave me the book late last year after managing to source it for I think something like a measly 99p brand new in a clearance shop! I do like a bargain but really lack bookshelf space now (in fact a boxful linger sadly in the loft softly calling at night..either that or we’ve got pigeons!) and now I’ve actually had a proper look through it there are some rather tasty looking recipes including some Fruity Breakfast Muffins that the page just opened on as I got the book out to type it up!

This also reminded me once again (and the second time that week oops) to READ A RECIPE FROM START TO FINISH as we completely cacked up the timings and wasted precious time and energy making it! Dinner was finally served about 9pm! I have written the recipe out to make it easier for those with similar brain programming to me!

Many moons back I attended evening classes for a Thai Cookery course, it had been initially advertised in the local paper as South East Asian Cookery but I think Thai food was becoming popular and there must have been requests made and it was changed to just Thai cookery. To this day ashamedly I note that I have never looked up the difference! I am no expert by any means on Thai cusine and not really sure how authentic this is either but it has all the elements of a Thai meal, and despite our attempts to ruin it piece by piece, it actually turned out pretty tasty and can see us definitely making again.

The original recipe serves a whopping 10-12 so I have scaled it down somewhat to suit 2-3 adults. I also opted for using Gourmet Garden’s fresh herb and spice pastes as er its easier and I had them in! I left out the lemon zest as I er forgot to buy one. I’ve never used lemon zest in Thai recipes before either so wasn’t too concerned missing it out!

Ingredients:

400g Turkey breast, into 1x2cm chunks

Marinade:

2tbsp fresh coriander leaves chopped up

3 spring onions, roughly chopped

½ tbsp ginger paste

2 cloves garlic

Squeeze of lemon juice (I use bottled)

½ tps red chilli paste

½ tbsp lemongrass paste

1 heaped tbsp brown sugar

1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce

1 1/2 tbsp Nam Pla (fish sauce)

1 1/2 tbsp toasted sesame oil

Sauce

1 tin coconut milk (in hindsight next time use ¾ tin)

2 tsp Nam Pla

3 tsp lemon juice

1 tbsp fresh coriander leaves and stalks roughly chopped

S&p to taste

Some of the ingredients!

Method:

This is the bit I we-wrote completely - there are two options for making the marinade– option one is if you have a liquidizer or similar gadget. Option two is if you only have a food processor (I don’t this is how book states it?!)

Option one – whack all the marinade ingredients together in a liquidizer till nicely combined, mix with the Turkey and reserve for at least 30 minutes or overnight.

Option two – In the food processor add the coriander, spring onions, ginger, garlic, lemongrass, chilli and lemon juice, blitz and combine with the remaining marinade ingredients mix with the Turkey and reserve for at least 30 minutes or overnight.

Mmm soo good!

1) Heat a large frying pan until very hot (but not so hot the alarm goes ping ping ping) and lift the turkey bits out of the marinade (a slotted spoon in great here) and fry in a single layer for about 2 minutes, turn over and cook through – should be at the most 3-4 minutes and lovely and sticky and your kitchen smells fab. Keep warm

2) Meanwhile place the leftover marinade in a small pan and bring to the boil uncovered, and boil until slightly thickened, then add the sauce ingredients. (We were a little impatient having mis-read original instructions and added cornflour shh!)  It may well not need much seasoning – the soy and nam pla are quite salty on their own so do check first!

3) Serve the cooked turkey on top of rice if desired and lather a little sauce over the top or on the side. We actually poured most of the sauce back over the turkey to warm through! It most likely lost some marks at this point in the looks department but it tasted great! As you can see we didn't have rice - I used up some leftover chapati's and made a dry sweet potato curry on the side. Garnish with a little extra corinader and spring onions to hide the dodgy colour if you like.

No stake in the beauty contest but wins on taste! 

As I managed to make the recipe more economical by substituting Turkey breast for the Pork Fillet, and it was reduced to a purse friendly £1.78 I am sending over this to Credit Crunch Munch set up by Fuss Free Flavours and held by Fab Food 4 All this month:

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The trio of tasty cheats!

Disclaimer: Gourmet Garden provided me with the spice/ herb pastes for my own review and I was under no obligation to feature on Anne’s Kitchen

Sausage and Courgette Carbonara

One of my favourite Christmas presents was a pair of perfect porcelain pasta dishes, and my word they have had a lot of use already! Like a supermodel perhaps, these dishes would look good in everything! They are just the right size for two relatively greedy adults and whilst its winter and they are seeing lots of pasta, come summer I can see them being rather perfect for some nice salads too! I have decided I have had enough now of this winter and my body is craving some sunshine! 

This Carbonara was not only rather delicious but it was a also quite frugal and super easy dish to make to! Most of the time I do meal planning but with going away for Christmas and New Year’s half of December was a case of anything goes, and I cooked extra bits to up cycle into newer dishes – in this case the sausages were leftover from a sausage dish the night before, and also used leftover garlicky fried courgettes which are a regular make in my kitchen! Its a great way of stretching out a small quantity of good sausages too!

Its close to it but not a traditional carbonara, we had no cream but its fairly close and I am not one for tradition, I like to break the rules when it comes to cooking!

Ready in 10 minutes
Serves 2

Ingredients:

150g egg Pasta Fettuccine

2 good quality pork sausages, cooked and sliced thinly

2 eggs

4 heaped tbsp Parmesan finely grated

1 courgette, halved length ways and sliced into 1/2cm moons

1 tsp minced garlic

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tbsp olive oil

S&p

Start by making the courgettes. Heat a frying pan with the olive oil, fry the courgette slices for about 8 minutes, add the garlic and fry for a further minute, stirring regularly. Either cool for use or cook with sausages.

1) In a bowl beat the eggs, parmesan, salt and pepper to taste and the cooled courgettes.

2) Heat a large saute pan, gently fry the sausage to warm through - add the cooked courgettes. Meanwhile boil the pasta as per packet instructions. 

3) When the pasta is cooked through, drain quickly, add the sausage and courgettes, then the egg mixture and mix well, allow to stand for a minute with the lid on.

4) Serve on your favourite plate and garnish with a little extra parmesan and drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

I am sending my dish over to Pasta Please, created by Tinned Tomatoes and  held by The Spicy Pear for January who's theme is garlic:

Also as its a perfect warming winter cheesy bowl of goodness its going to Cheese, Please! Over at Fromage Homage

As my dish used up both leftover cooked sausages and courgettes, I have also entered it over at Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary No Waste Food Challenge

Fennel Salami and Kale Lasagne

Possibly the finest Lasagne I have ever made or eaten. Even if you think hmm Fennel, ain't that liquorice? Then please don't leave me so soon - it has a slight aniseed taste and I promise its not a new variety of allsorts!! 

Okay so I admit its not beef, pork or veal based as such but I did use lasagne sheets and a sort of bechamel so I am stealing the name Lasagne for this beautiful creation! I used the translated name of fennel salami for those not fluent with Italian but its natural form is better known as Finnocchiona Negroni Salami, which no I can't pronounce it too good either. Even less after a glass of wine!

This delightful dish came about as sometimes I agree to being sent items to try, some turn are good, some turn out bad and some indifferent, and some that make you look at things in a whole new light! And with open arms I welcomed two rather large bags of Kale to experiment with! 

Initially I wondered what the hell to do with it, and more importantly would it taste nice. Well it does, I was so wrong. I had tried it I think boiled a few years back and was very unimpressed and never bothered again.... and I missed out on all the good times we could have shared! It turns out that boiled, yep ain't my thang but given some kitchen magic and voila! A star is born. Maybe I should make the Christmas tree from Kale this year?

The salami idea came about as I had popped into the local deli to get some awesome pasta for a friend that morning, which I had previously discovered (will blog soon!) and whilst waiting to pay I was admiring all the meats and cheeses and the idea of having something meaty with the iron rich Kale seemed like a great idea, and with my bad pronunciation I acquired 6 slices, though only needed 4 in the end , which was fortunate as I was er, testing it out...the mozzarella seemed like a good idea too so quickly grabbed that too! 

Anyway back to my new creation - I was forcing persuading B to help in the kitchen more, as he isn't very confident and whilst we didn't really weigh anything, I was trying to explain that the whole weighing things isn't essential - what's more important is to picture your finished dish and then work out by eye how much filling you will need. Obviously there are pesky things like spinach, and er Kale that like to reduce down rather well but they are just a nice little red herring to break the rules!

I'm not sure how much I succeeded in persuading him cooking can be fun but as I always tell newbies - don't be scared - nothing will bite unless you happen to have a lobster on the prowl behind the kitchen door! Have some fun, you never know - you could make something beautiful!

 Serves 2-4 depending on greed. If we had some nice leaves I.e. rocket could do 4 at the most.

Ingredients

85g kale, tough bits removed and roughly shredded by hand

1 ball mozzarella thinly sliced

2 garlic cloves finely chopped

150g finnocchiona Negroni Salami, sliced into 2 cm pieces

4 good quality lasagne sheets 

2tbsp cherry tomato puree

2 tbsp grated mature Cheddar

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp grated parmesan

½ red chilli finely chopped

½ red pepper, sliced

10 baby plum tomatoes

1 large red onion. Halved and sliced thinly

1 tbsp pine nuts

S&p

White sauce

½ pint milk

appx 2 heaped tbsp butter

2 heaped tbsp flour

¼ pint spinach water

2 tbsp grated parmesan

s&p

Cover the lasagne sheets in boiling water. 

You will need a square dish that fits 2 sheets of the lasagne.

1) Boil the kale in a inch of salted boiling water for 3 minutes, reserve all the liquid in a jug.

2) Fry the onion until lightly browned, stir in the peppers and half of the tomatoes and fry for a further 3 minutes or so till they have a little colour and starting to soften. Stir in the garlic and chilli for a further minute.

3) Stir in the tomato puree and add a splash of the kale water to loosen if needed. Add the salami and cook for a further minute until it starts to brown

4) Stir in the kale and a couple of tablespoons of water to make a slightly sloppy sauce, cover and keep warm.

5) Heat the butter in a saucepan, and stir in the flour and whisk like mad to form a paste (roux), after a minute or so slowly stir in the spinach water, a little at a time whisking continuously as we don't want lumps! Then add the milk until you have a nice smooth sauce, simmer for a couple of minutes to cook the flour through, stirring all the time. Remove from the heat, season and stir in the parmesan. 

Pre-heat oven to 190o

6) Now its time to layer up! For the bottom layer, spoon over half of the kale/ salami mix, top with 2 lasagne sheets, spoon over half the bechamel sauce, and scatter over half the mozzarella slices and a little of the grated cheddar, repeat again to form the next and final layer. Place the tomatoes on top, then the pine nuts, parmesan and remaining cheddar.

7) Bake for around 45 minutes or until golden and bubbling, and piping hot. Poke with a knife to check the pasta is cooked through. (see my giant doughballs in the background!)

8) Serve and eat! We had the doughballs but as I mentionned earlier a nice crisp green salad would be good too.

The flavours were simply amazing, I dreamt about this! Meaty..a little spicy..silky comforting pasta..cheese..you can't go wrong! It ticked all of our boxes! 

Frugal Sausage and Bean Casserole

On Sunday night, after an early start for work and then a few hours on the sofa relaxing when I got back I wanted to make something nice and warming for dinner but fairly easy at the same time.. B was helping fiddle about with the neighbour's car and definitely needed something to thaw him out it was so cold I honestly don't know how he didn't ice up but he was happy getting greasy with oil so that's the main thing! 

I like to pride myself regularly on making delicious meals but without an equally delicious price tag! Yes I love the odd treat like smoked salmon or fine champagne but its only doable on a lower income if you make cutbacks else where. I don’t like cutting back ever on taste though and it has to be enjoyable, if not why bother eating? 

I roughly costed the whole dish, considering I made three healthy portions at about 63p in total. Yes that is in pence! My secret? Always check the frozen and fresh reduced sections at your supermarket! The sausages were Butchers Selection Pork and Herb, I picked up 12 for £1 reduced to clear. The 3 Bean casserole pack was 10p, and got stashed in the freezer without ill effects! The stock pots I have a seemingly lifetime supply of from doing some bits with Knorr over the past few years. The vegetable puree is 'Taste the Difference' branded but I got two tubes for a pound, so works out pennies per squirt, and the handful of pasta shapes despite being utterly cute Alphabet shaped from an Italian deli for the small amount I used also doesn't amount to much. and that was it apart from good old friends Mr Salt and Mr Pepper!

Ingredients:

4 frozen pork and herb sausages

One bag 3 bean casserole mix

1 knorr herb stock pot

1 large squirt roasted vegetable and tomato puree

Handful small pasta shapes

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1) In a large lidded saute pan heat the oil and fry the sausages until nicely browned all over, add the veg pack and fry for a further five minutes. Meanwhile boil the kettle.

2) Add the stock pot to the pan along with the tomato puree, mix well and cover with boiling water Simmer for 20 minutes, covered.

3) The sausages should by now be cooked through and soft enough to cut, either use your spatula to cut into small pieces or remove and slice seperately, then return to the pan along with a nice sprinkle of pasta over. Top up with boiling water and simmer until the pasta has cooked through and there is your desired amount of liquid - great for mopping with bread after!

Sausages are great for dicing up into dishes like mine, stretching out cheaper ingredients at the same time as well as providing a tasty bit of protein too!

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I am sending my bargain Sausage Casserole over to Credit Crunch Munch for November, over at Dinner With Crayons, which was created by Fuss Free Flavours and Fab Food 4 All

Peashoot, Bacon and Ricotta Penne

As much as I have learned to now love cooking just for myself, I really do prefer to share my food. And even more so if I have little helpers to assist! There is something about sharing that ignites my inner 'feeder' setting, no one ever leaves hungry!

My eldest niece A is also a little culinary gem of the future and eats far more ‘weird stuff’ than I did at her age and makes a great sous chef in the kitchen! I hope to bring you lots more of recipes me make together, however we are both rather greedy and have often forgotten to take pictures!

We made this great, speedy and surprisingly frugal pasta dish a few months back but I just hadn't gotten around to posting it …. Its full of bold flavours and was thoroughly tasty!

Serves two:

Ingredients

125g ricotta
Cooking Bacon trim - a rough handful
100g bag peashoots
2 heaped tbsp Purple basil
Black pepper
200g penne pasta

1) Boil pasta as per packet instructions

2) Meanwhile, when the pasta is almost cooked through, fry the bacon in its own fat until browned, turn off the heat. Drain the pasta, reserving about half a cupful.

3) Gently stir in ricotta to the bacon pan along with a little of the reserved cooking water to loosen slightly, add to the pasta, wilt in the peashoots and basil, season with black pepper and garnish with a few more leaves.

                            

Whilst it has sadly died off now, the purple basil was a delight to grow and made an interesting sight on the kitchen windowsill! When warmth beckons again upon the windowsill I hopefully will be able to seed some more!

Budgets are definitely tightening for a lot, I know mine has been both ends of the spectrum over the past few years, what with redundancies, moving and illness and as a result I have managed to become very thrifty in the kitchen - and this dish whilst including the luxury item of peashoots, everything else was  already to hand. 

The Bacon was a real economical purchase – I picked up Sainsbury’s cooking bacon for the first time  - heck it was getting chopped up anyway who cares if its pretty rashers - it was a huge packet for 99p and I froze four separate portions, which contained about 6 chunky rashers and various, meaty, not too fatty/rindy offcuts that I had expected! I costed this dish as being approximately £2.10 to serve two, a winner I think for something so fresh and tasty! The ricotta was also leftover from cheesecake so was a great use up of it too!

This is also being sent over to Helen's Credit Crunch Munch event:

Winter Barbecue Sauce with Sausage Bites - Video Recipe!

Dearest friends, family and visitors to my blog – please be kind to me – for I am finally...cooking on film! Its possibly the most scariest thing I've done since agreeing to go para-sailing in Mexico a few years back but it was a lot of fun to do!

You can watch me here on Youtube or directly through Facebook

Over the next four weeks, I will be road testing four fabulous Russell Hobbs kitchen gadgets from their new Allure range and I have created some tasty recipes for you!

First up is my very special Winter Barbecue Sauce:

Which was made using this little beast - the Mini Ball Chopper:

The sausage bites are optional – the sauce tastes great so pair it with whatever meats or vegetables you fancy! The sauce has a perfect balance of spice, sweet and sour and is perfect for warming up a cold winters night!

The sauce takes 30 minutes to make, I oven baked some delicious ‘Jimmy’s Farm’ free range pork sausages, then cut them into bitesize chunks and speared with cocktail sticks. Great for serving up at parties!

Makes one large bowl of dipping sauce

1 medium red pepper, roughly diced
1 medium yellow pepper, roughly diced
1 red onion, diced
1 dsp of flora cuisine or olive oil
4 dates
1 bramley apple
Approx 2 tbsp fresh thyme, chopped, plus extra to garnish
3 tbsp red wine vinegar
160ml water

Sugar and Spice mix:
3 tbsp Natural dark Muscovado unrefined cane sugar
2 tsp smoked paprika
Scant tsp colmans English mustard powder
½ tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp garlic puree

Method:

Step one:

Firstly, place the dates in freshly boiled water and leave to soak.

Heat the pan over a moderate flame, add the oil, heat through and add the onions, stir then cover with a lid. After 5 minutes add the chopped up peppers, stirring occasionally and keep covered. You want them to gently cook, not burn or brown too much, add a little more oil if needed.

Step two

Peel, core and dice the apple. Remove the dates from their bath, stone and roughly chop then add them along with the apples to the pan, stir and re-cover, gently simmer.

Step three

After a further five or so minutes, the apple should be softening, stir in the vinegar, stir well and allow to evaporate, stir in the sugar and spice mixture, cover and simmer for a further minute

Step four

Add the water slowly to the mixture, stir gently, re-cover the pan and bring gently to the boil and simmer for a further 2-3 minutes,stirring occasionally then remove from the heat

Step Five

Transfer the mixture into the mini ball chopper, blitz in a couple of bursts to lightly blend the sauce - you don't want to puree it. Then simply serve in a pretty bowl garnished with a few extra thyme leaves!

The sauce can be frozen without any loss in quality, and thawed quickly in the microwave for emergency dipping!