Lasagne

Corey's favourite meal is steak and kidney pie, just like his mother makes it. I don't like steak that much, and I'm not that keen on kidneys. I'll eat it, but it's not in my top 10 of meal choices. I tried to make it for him once, and failed to make it taste the way he liked it. I may attempt to make it again at some point in the future. Luckily I've discovered something I make that he likes almost as much. 

Unfortunately it takes me 4 - 6 hours to make. Trust me, it's worth it. It just means I can't make it as often as he'd like. Unfortunately it also means I can't have lasagna at a restaurant. It never, ever tastes as good. 

We had this as a main for our New Years eve dinner. I made a few changes to how I usually make it, and I'm probably going to stick with the changes as it tasted very good. 

Ingredients (all ingredients are rough measurements)

Olive oil

250 gs pancetta

1 Onion

2 Celery sticks

Garlic: to taste. I like my stuff fairly garlicky, others like it less so. 

500 gs Beef Mince

1 wine glass of white wine (plus an extra glass for the cook)

1 wine glass of milk

2 cans of chopped tomatoes

1 Mozzarella ball

400 mls White sauce (one day I will make my own. New Years eve was not my day)

200 mls cheese sauce (I use the bisto tubs and mix the white sauce and cheese sauce together)

2 carrots

1 courgette

Swartz Italian seasoning (if you have herbs like basil and oregano, use them instead)

Salt

Pepper

Lasagne sheets

Sometimes I add mushrooms, it all depends on whats in my fridge at the time. I say if there's anything you like in a bolognese, add that.

Chop all the vegetables into fairly small chunks. 

Fry the onion, garlic, celery and pancetta until the pancetta is cooked and the onion soft. Do this on a low to medium heat. You want to heat everything slowly. Brown the mince. 

Add the wine, chopped tomatoes, carrots, courgette and milk. This is when I add the mushrooms, too. Season to taste. Go crazy. If you like a bit of spice, add chillies. If you prefer it herby, add more herbs. I tend to change what I put in according to what I feel like on that day.

And now you wait. Stir every half an hour or so to ensure things don't burn. Reduce the sauce until its nice and thick. This can take anything from 3 to 4 hours. On New Years, because I had a tiny  pot and had to gradually add ingredients, it took me 5 hours. 

Make up the white sauce and cheese sauce. As I said, I tend to make up a 500ml jug where I make a mix of white sauce and cheese sauce together. I know, I know, not your typical lasagna white sauce layer, but the more cheese the merrier I say! Chop up the mozzarella ball. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees c.

Layer your lasagne as you like it. On the final layer of white/cheese sauce, I sprinkle the mozzarella on top. As much as you can sprinkle something that sticks to your fingers. 

Put it into the oven for 40 minutes. 

Enjoy. 

Trust me, it's tastier than it looks

Oh, the sauce I use for the lasagne is the same I use when making spaghetti bolognese. Yes, it's not a quick Monday after work meal, but this is a lovely Saturday or Sunday evening meal, and makes enough to be used the next day. And what the slow cooking creates is this gorgeous taste sensation.

Spaghetti Carbonara

Unfortunately, due to the need to get dinner cooked nice and quickly (Corey has to get up at 4:45 for work this week), I have no pretty pictures for this post :( I will make it up to you this weekend, though. I promise!)

I love Italian food. What I don't love is how some of the Italian's I've met (mostly the family I used to work for) are irrationally protective over "their" recipes. They are reluctant to add something different to food. They are horrified at the idea of their Nona's recipe being changed at all. I wasn't brought up like that (probably because I'm South African and not Italian...). My father never makes the same recipe twice. The basic ingredients are the same, but he'll add a little bit of this, or take out something that didn't quite work out before. Sometimes it doesn't work. But more often than not, it works really well. And I'm the same. I take a basic recipe and I tweak it, and change it. Unlike my Dad, though, when I discover something I like, I write it down, so that I know what I did last time. Although I still tweak and adapt according to what/s in the cupboard. But by tweaking I learn how certain things interact with others. I don't follow the culinary "rules", I follow my taste buds.

Why the discussion about Italian food? I thought I'd write that introduction before telling you about the spaghetti carbonara I made tonight. That's because this isn't the traditional carbonara, it's my own personal twist (at least, as of tonight...It'll probably change slightly next time!). 

Carbonara is quick and easy to make, although there is one point to which you have to follow the technique carefully. Anyone who's cooked it before knows what I'm talking about: the bit where you add the sauce. Before I get there, though, I'll explain how I made tonight's meal. 

Ingredients:

Pancetta (I often use chicken instead. I'm a girl on a budget! But tonight I thought I'd splurge a little)

Onions

Garlic

Button mushrooms

Cherry tomatoes (because I thought...why not?)

Spaghetti

Basil

Salt 

Pepper

For the sauce

1 egg

Parmesan cheese (to taste. I used about 3 teaspoons)

About 50 mls milk (it makes an ok cream substitute)

1) Chop up the onions, garlic, mushrooms and, if not already chopped, the pancetta. 

2) Put the spaghetti on to boil. Trust me, the rest of the food will be done in the 12 minutes it takes to cook.

3) Put a little oil in a pan, and fry up the onions, garlic, pancetta, mushrooms and put the cherry tomatoes in. I squashed the tomatoes as they started to burst from the heat. I fried everything at a medium temperature, turning up the heat near to the end of the cooking. Add a seasoning to taste.

4) Mix the egg, milk and Parmesan in a jug, beating it well.

5) Here's the important part. When the spaghetti is cooked, drain it. Turn the head off of the pan with the other ingredients in. I always add the spaghetti and give everything a good stir to mix it up. This allows everything to cool ever so slightly which is important. I then add the egg mixture and stir it all up again. You don't want the egg to scramble, so it's a good idea to give it a fairly brisk stir. 

6) Serve immediately. I also made some baby carrots to go with on the side. Because getting Corey to eat as many vegetables as I can is my aim in life.

Other additions I've made to carbonara: I've used cream instead of milk (the more traditional way of doing things!). I don't usually use cream because usage of cream in my flat is rare, and I hate seeing things go to waste/feeling like I HAVE to make something to use things up. I've added a bit of white wine when I had some left over and thought "why not?". That worked out alright. Not so certain I'll do it again, though. It's probably better if I just drink it all instead :-P

Tortilla pizza's

I bought some Warburtons tortilla wraps a few months ago, and at the back of the packet it had a recipe suggestion for tortilla pizza's. According to Joe this is something I'd made ages ago, but I'd forgotten all about that. Since Corey and I love our pizza's, but since I also want to eat better, this is the perfect way to have a treat without being too bad. It's also a nice and quick way to make home made pizza.

Here's how to make them yourself:

Ingredients
Tortilla wraps (they don't have to be square) 1 per person
Tomato puree
Cheddar cheese, grated
Mozzarella, chopped into smallish pieces (I go light mozzarella in an attempt to be healthy...)
Whatever topping you like. For ours we used chicken, peppers, mushroom, garlic and onions
Basil (I accidentally used parsley...explains why I didn't get a lovely basil taste)
Potatoes for chip making

The size of my kitchen

As you can tell from the above picture, I have a pretty tiny kitchen. So in order to do the pizzas, I usually chop everything up and put them into bowls.

More washing up, but easier to cook this way

I then preheat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade, and prepare the potatoes (after cleaning the chopping board and knife). I prefer chips with the skin on them, so I wash the potatoes, cut them into the size chips I want, place them in a large bowl, put some olive oil on them and sprinkle salt and pepper. Laying them flat on a baking tray, I put them in the oven for 20 minutes.

I then fry up the onions and garlic. The chicken is added, and cooked all the way through. Once that's done, the mushrooms and peppers are added.

I added a bit of balsamic vinegar to give it a bit of sweet and sour flavour

Once everything is cooked, the tomato puree is spread onto the tortilla bases. This is when I usually add some basil (or parsley this time). Half of the cheddar is put on the bases, and the fried up ingredients are then split between the two bases. Once that's done, I put the rest of the cheddar on and the mozzarella. Oh, and a bit more basil.

It may not be as pretty as Pizza Express, but it sure tastes good!

The pizza's are put in the oven for 10 minutes.

My kitchen makes everything look slightly yellow. Please excuse my inability to dish food up attractively!

Enjoy!

Times I burnt myself while cooking: 0
Times I cut myself while cooking: 0
Happy stomachs: 2