Simple Bolognaise Sauce

Sous Chef J is keen on foods that "don't take much eating"... by which he means he doesn't have to wield a knife and fork to cut up.  So dishes using mince, slow cooking and pasta are always requested.  This is our take on a pasta sauce - served with spaghetti or other pasta and oodles of cheese. 

Ingredients we used were -

400g mince beef
400g tin chopped tomatoes
2-3 white onions, chopped
2-3 carrots, chopped finely
200ml rich beef stock (we used a Knorr stock pot)
1 Tablespoon tomato puree
oil (we used the remainder of the oil from a jar of preserved red peppers - thrifty as ever!)
freshly ground black pepper
grated cheese, to serve (we used mature cheddar today but parmesan or other works well too)

Having chopped the onions, they were cooked in some oil in our wok on a medium heat until they started to turn translucent.  Then the beef was added and cooked for a few minutes until it began to brown.  Next the tomato puree was added, stirred through and the wok lid was placed on and left to cook for about 10 minutes on a low heat.

At this point the carrots, which we'd chopped whilst cooking the mince mix, chopped tomatoes and stock were added to the wok.  The heat was turned up slightly and the sauce was left to cook down for about 25-30 minutes.... the lid left slightly ajar to allow some reduction (boiling off) of the sauce to happen. 

The sauce is served with pasta (today we used Salute spaghetti) and a salad.... and gone in a flash.  The spaghetti was cooked, drained and returned to a buttery pan, then the sauce was mixed through before serving.











We reserved half of the prepared amount, allowed it to cool, bagged and labelled it and froze to use later when time/inclination is lacking and a speedy supper is required.

This could be cooked in a slow cooker but it's supposed to be summer so we did it on the hob!

Simple Sausage Pasta

We were chatting on twitter about our favourite gluten free sausages last week - Sous Chef J has long been a fan of the Good Little Company's teeny weeny sausages but we haven't been able to find them in the supermarket for a while.  The final batch from the freezer had been used up so we entered into a conversation with the manufacturers and they reassured us the teeny weenies will be in stores again soon.   Sous Chef J likes the teeny weeny sausages as they are easier for him to eat and have a soft consistency.  He rates them as "the best gluten free sausages to eat." 

In the meantime, we were sent a parcel of the current range of sausages they have on sale which was very kind and much appreciated.  It contained  great BIG sausages and good little sausages (chipolatas).  The covering letter was addressed to J and explained about how the company donates meals through Christian aids food security projects. 

Now came the challenge to find a suitable recipe to tempt Sous Chef J to try the 'larger' sausages... I decided to use my old standby technique of 'rebranding' and thought a sausage used as a meat ball in a tomato sauce with pasta would be a good idea.

To make the re-brand into a tomato and meatball pasta sauce, we used:-

Sausages - cut into 2cm chunks (meatballs)
400g tin of chopped tomatoes
one small salad onion or a crushed clove of garlic
one Tablespoon tomato puree

The chopped onion and tomato puree were sauteed in a skillet for a few minutes.

Then we added the sausage meatball chunks and left them to cook for a little under 10 minutes until they were lightly cooked throughout.

At this point the tinned tomatoes were added and the lid was placed on the pan to allow the mix to boil.

Once boiling, the heat was reduced and the sausage mix was allowed to simmer whilst we cooked the pasta.  We chose to have Dove's Farm Gluten Free penne with our tomato sausage meatballs.

The tomato and sausage sauce could easily be cooked in a slow cooker - ready to use after a day out.  Just add all ingredients to the crock pot and cook on low for a few hours.

Speedy Mushroom Sauce

Things are not quite 'right' here at the moment. Sous Chef J is rather unwell (more on that in later posts, I should think) and, as a result our life is even more chaotic than usual.

Luckily, we were sent some samples of Boursin Cheese the other week and during a lunchtime fridge audit (those of you that follow me on twitter may recognise that term!) I spotted the Garlic and Herb Boursin loitering alongside a few mushrooms.  It wasn't a great leap of culinary genius that lead to my mind coming up with a plan to use them together but a moment of thinking "that'd go well together"... so I gathered the ingredients and set about trying an ad hoc concoction.

An onion was finely chopped and fried in a little oil over a low heat for a few minutes during which time the mushrooms were cleaned, de-stalked and chopped.   The 3 chestnut mushrooms (they were quite large) and a handful of button mushrooms were added to the frying onions and a knob of butter was added.  This was all then left over a low heat for about 10 minutes to sweat down.  A squeeze of lemon juice was added to the pan and mixed well.

The mushroom mix was then drained in a sieve to remove excess moisture.  It was then blitzed using our Braun stick blender.

Finally, a whole pack of "Boursin Ail & Fines Herbes" was added and quickly whizzed to combine.  The mix was then placed in a jar and stored in the fridge until teatime when we cooked some Dove's Farm Gluten Free Pasta, drained it, returned it to the cooking pan and mixed the mushroom sauce through. 

We thought it was delicious, although in his current, under the weather state, am sorry to report that Sous Chef J would "not even taste a molecule". 

However, we tried half of the summer flavour Sun Ripened Tomato, Onion and Chive Boursin stirred through the warm pasta and the young Chef's plate was cleared so fast, there was no time for a photo! 

To use up the remainder of the pack, we also added the cheese to a salad to accompany our steamed salmon the next night making another quick and tasty meal. 

Thanks to Kirsty for sending the samples.  They've provided us with the chance to make speedy, tasty food when we've really needed to be spending as little time as possible on daily chores. 

Pasta Royale

When there's not much time and/or we're short on supplies there's a 'dish' we all like.  Amongst other things it is very quick to make as well. (Apologies to the easily terrified amongst you - Sous Chef J was making use of his newly found werewolf gloves and thought they added something to the above pic!)

So how did we make this simple dish?  Easy! We gathered together pasta (today we used Salute Gluten free spaghetti), frozen peas, frozen sweetcorn (or you can use drained corn from a tin), grated cheese, a knob of butter and some tomato ketchup.  Cooked the pasta per instructions... and 4 minutes before the boiling time was done, added the peas and sweetcorn (you can add both/one or none of these depending on supplies/likes). Brought the pan back to boil and then cooked for remaining pasta cooking time.


Once we drained the pasta/veg mix (we used a sieve) we added the butter to the cooking pan and swirled it around a bit to melt it before adding the now drained pasta/veg.  Then we mixed the melted butter through, added a handful of grated cheese (we used mature cheddar but parmesan works well too), a dollop of ketchup and some freshly ground black pepper.  Combined it all together and served.

This can be made dairy free by omitting the butter and cheese - in this case, use a little oil and some chopped and sweated garlic in place of them. 

Hasta be Pasta!

Some times, usually when time or ingredients are limited, it just hasta be pasta for tea!  Sous chef J is a keen eater of pasta shapes and we find the Doves Farm gluten free organic pasta is one of our store cupboard staples.

As you'd expect, a store cupboard meal is pretty low on ingredients and sous chef J is well able to assemble them in record time.  The ingredients below feed three hungry people or four if a hearty green side salad is added...

Having gathered all the required ingredients, we chopped the onion and sweated it off in a little sunflower oil before adding the tin of chopped tomatoes to make the tomato sauce.  This was then brought to the boil and left to simmer, with the pan lid on, whilst we cooked the pasta shapes.

After about 10 minutes, we added the blocks of frozen spinach (this is something we don't always add, it can also be fresh spinach or even rocket leaves) and thoroughly mixed through.  It was then left to cook whilst we drained the pasta (having cooked it according to the instructions on the packet).

Once the pasta was drained, we melted a knob of butter in the pasta pan, added back the pasta and combined it with the tomato sauce before serving up with a topping of grated cheese (in this case sous chef J used mature cheddar).  Yummy, store cupboard food that is quick and easy to prepare. 

Couple of points to note:

• Our non-GF pals are happy to eat this pasta and don't realise it's Gluten Free.  

• We have tried saving this and having it as a cold lunchtime dish but, disappointingly, we have to confess it doesn't work very well as the pasta seems very rubbery once it's cooled.  Sous chef J point blank refuses to eat it cold now so make sure you finish off what you've cooked whilst it's fresh.