Showing posts with label savoury. Show all posts

Roasted Vegetable and Chicken Pesto Pasta




I was sat on the phone to my mom yesterday and was telling her about my ridiculous cravings for pesto. Pesto has been all I've been thinking about since I saw some pesto pasta on Insta a few days ago, so you know... I had to have it. A few months ago I had an unfortunate incident with 'normal' pesto where I had a complete brain freeze and forgot it has about half a gallon of cheese in and suffered from the consequences and I've been a bit emotionally scarred since! Then I remembered I've seen pesto in the dairy free section of my local supermarket and that was that. I dragged my mildly hungover bum into Morrisons and grabbed some. It was £2.50 which I think is a bit steep but to banish a craving I'm totally on board. I had some veggies to use up and as I am currently in the midst of an roasted asparagus and broccoli moment I chucked them in alongside some chicken. A dead easy meal which I hope you'll enjoy, and if you're following slimming world- its only 3.5 syns a portion. This will make for 2 portions- perfect for a couples dinner or lunches to drag into work, or in my case, the library...

Ingredients                                                                               Equipment
Jar of dairy free pesto- I used Saclas Basil Pesto                 Chopping Board                   Oven
Any leftover vegetables you need to use up                        Saucepan                               Hob
Cooked chicken cut into cubes                                               Bowl                                        Colander
1 cup or 2 big handfuls of pasta                                             Baking Tray


Method
  1. Chop any veg and cooked chicken that you need to on your board
  2. Heat your oven to 180°C and put your vegetables on the baking tray. Pop them in the oven for about 15 minutes until soft and starting to crisp and go brown.
  3. Put your pasta into a saucepan of hot tapwater and put on the hob to boil until soft when poked through with a fork
  4. Drain your pasta using the colander and add back into the saucepan
  5. Add in your roasted vegetables and chunks of chicken and stir to combine
  6. Add into this 2 tablespoons of pesto and stir to combine again
  7. Plate up to serve (or put into lunch boxes)







Happy Eating!






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Easy 15 Minute Salmon Pasta

Tonight's dinner was this beautiful 10 minute healthy as creation. We had salmon to use up so I came up with this filling salmon pasta. You can add whatever veg you fancy to the dish, we used a veggy pack from Sainsbury's which had brocolli, sugar snap beans and asparagus. We also added feta (just check that it doesn't have cows milk in) as I like the sharpness that feta gives and the calcium too as I am really worried about where I can get some from. On my pasta I added some Tabasco as I love the combo of that and the beans! This really was the simplest pasta dish and was so delicious too! Enjoy! This made 2 portions.


Ingredients:

-2 salmon fillets, ours were microwaveable-
-pasta enough for 2 portions-
-any veg you fancy-
-40g feta cheese-
-half a tub of pasata-
-optional Tabasco-

Method:
1) Pop your pasta on to boil.
2) when the pasta starts to soften, boil your veg and microwave your salmon (or to manufacturers instructions) for about 4 minutes for both.
3) drain your pasta and veg when soft and cooked.
4) place inside the same saucepan and pour in your pasata. Bring to the boil.
5) when the salmon is cooked plate up or mix into the pasta, and then pop your pasta on the plate.

This is stupidly filling and delicious and was made in about 10-15 minutes depending on your pasta and how long it takes to boil! Sprinkle some Tabasco on if you're feeling the heat!

Enjoy!

Happy cooking!

xoxox


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Spicy Chicken and Chorizo Stew

It's felt like years since we last blogged, even though it has only been little over a week! Life gets in the way sometimes, and quite a lot of the time it's pretty difficult to plan things to cook for the blog as I'm in Sheffield at Uni and Caitlin's at home. I feel like we are getting into the rhythm of blogging, not sounding too blunt and being a bit softer. Neither of us are that impressive with English (unlike our English obsessed sister) so it's still definitely a getting there process for us. I never want blogging for me or Caitlin to feel pressurised or not fun anymore. It's a hobby we can do together and I love that, considering we're apart for weeks at a time. So I'll stop boring you all with our lives and it's onto the recipe!
 
Whilst I was sat at work, I couldn't stop thinking about beans and chorizo. Considering one of my passionate food hells is baked beans I thought this was a bit coco bananas! But it got to the point where it was nigh on obsessive, and as I was due to go food shopping anyway I thought why the heck not buy some stuff and mash it together and see what happens! So what was created was the chicken and chorizo stew. I'm not really sure why it is called a stew, but to be honest I couldn't think of a more suitable name for this! It's based on tomato and has a heck lot of garlic and chilli in for flavour and a nice warm kick up the bum! I used a small tin of cannelloni beans for this, alongside some chorizo sausage and turkey (I used turkey as it was cheaper in the shops but can be made with either chicken or turkey!). It really filled me up and I missed the feeling of being full up but in a healthier way, and not just from KFC (which may or may not have been happening far too often recently). The tomato makes for a delicious base to the dish and everything else compliments beautiful, and would even taste delicious with added bacon or no chilli if you wished! Quite a lot of the amounts here are rough estimates, just splash however much you want in of everything to your own tastes! We hope you all enjoy!

Spicy Chicken and Chorizo Stew

Ingredients:
-splash of oil for the pan-
-500g chicken or turkey, diced-
-2 small chorizo sausages-
-50g onion-
-1 small tin of cannelloni beans-
-1 large tin of tomatoes-
-1 small tin of sweetcorn-
-30g tomato puree-
-30g crushed chilli-
-30g garlic puree-

Method to the madness:

1) Pop oil into pan, and add the diced meat, chorizo sausage and onions. Cook for 3-4 minutes until the meat is cooked through.

2) Add in the beans, sweetcorn and tomato, stir through.


3) Add in your garlic, tomato puree and chilli, stir again and simmer down for around 10 minutes.
 
Look at that beautiful uni hall stove, so pretty...

4) When reduced down, meat cooked and the flavour is what you require, take off the heat, pop in your bowl and tuck in!
 

So in under 20 minutes you should be left with a super simple, quick and hearty meal, enough to feed 2-3 people depending on sides! As you can see I enjoyed mine with a cider and I regret nothing!
 

We hope you enjoy!
 
Happy Baking!
 
xoxox

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Yummy Rustic Homemade Pizza

Eating without dairy doesn't mean that we have to exclude all the yummy things in life, such as our personal favourite: pizza! This pizza is made entirely from scratch, using all cheap ingredients that are really easy to find! The pizza base might take a while to prepare (has to double in size like bread doesn't it?) but you can freeze the base which will speed things up for the future. On the plus side, the sauce takes a mere 5 minutes to make, and doesn't involve scales (which makes for excellent Uni grub!)
 Hope you all enjoy!


Ingredients:
For the base:
2 1/2 average mug size scoops of flour (strong or normal, we have used strong wholemeal)
-1 sachet of quick dry yeast-
-250ml of warm (not hot!) water-
-4 capfuls of virgin or sunflower oil-
-2 pinches of salt-

For the sauce:
-Half a tin of plum tomatoes-
-Half a chopped onion-
-4 chopped sundried tomatoes or tomato puree-
-Splash of tomato ketchup-
-2 chopped cloves of garlic-
For the topping:
We enjoyed our pizza with buffalo mozzarella and salami, but you can go for anything you want!
Method:
Pre-heat the oven to 200°C
For the base:
1) Measure out all ingredients and into a bowl add the flour, yeast and salt.


2)  Make a little well in the middle of the flour, and then add the oil and slowly pour in the warm water.  Roll this mixture into whole ball of dough, at this point it doesn't matter if it is a little bit wet as the rolling flour will absorb this.


3) Spread a little of the flour onto a surface and knead the dough for about 5 minutes. Then put back in a bowl and cover with cling film or a damp towel, and place somewhere warm until it doubles in size.
4) Once doubled in size (shouldn't take more than 20-30 minutes) take out of the bowl and knead again for a couple of minutes.

5) Split the dough into portions and then roll out into any shape until about 1/2 cm thick. Pop onto a pizza tray and pre-cook for about 12 minutes to make sure the dough cooks thoroughly when the yummy toppings are added!

For the Sauce:
1) In a saucepan fry the chopped Onion and Garlic until soft. Then add the chopped sundried tomatoes (or puree), and then the Plum tomatoes. Add a splash of tomato ketchup and reduce and cook for about 5 minutes.

2) Puree the sauce if you want a smooth sauce or leave chunky for a little bit more texture.


Once the base is partially cooked and quite hard to the touch, add the sauce and then the fun bit- your chosen toppings!
 Pop into the oven for another 10- 15 minutes until the toppings are melted and cooked, and the base is starting to crisp and brown.


Take out of the oven and enjoy!


xoxox

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