green beans and pasta

I reviewed the contents of the veg drawer last night - to my shame, there were two small turnips going mouldy, so they had to go.  A wide assortment of carrots was hurled into the slow cooker for carrot and coriander soup for lunch today.  And there were a lot of green beans.

We like green beans, but we tend to do the same sort of stuff with them every time, and I wanted to try something different, so this is what I did.  It was lovely - perfect summer food.

Topped and tailed the beans, and then cut them into chunks of about 2cm.  Set them to simmer for about  seven minutes, I guess.

Put on some pasta quills to boil.

Got Pete to grate a lot of parmesan, rummaged for the tired half lemon in the fridge, and went and cut some fennel fronds from the garden, which I chopped up small.

Combined beans, pasta, parmesan, black pepper, lemon juice, fennel and some cream, and scoffed from bowls.

Followed it with local strawberries and a home made brownie.  Lovely.

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green beans and tomato

We’re a bit over veg’d this week, as we bought mushrooms and asparagus as well as the box, and so we’re starting to panic a bit over what’s left this week, given another box arrives tomorrow.  Think I’ll have to cancel next week’s …

Tonight, we looked at the large number of runner beans, and I used half of them thus:

Topped and tailed the beans, cut them into chunks of about - oh - 3cm, I guess, and simmered them for about six minutes.  While that was going on, Pete chopped an onion and some garlic, and I sautéd them in some olive oil till soft, then added a carton of passata (sieved tomatoes, for those who haven’t tried it).

Put some fusilli on to boil.

We had half a bunch of parsley in the fridge, left from making a beef stroganoff on Saturday (bad, bad …) - I wouldn’t normally buy parsley at this time of year, but mine has been slow to take off in the herb garden this year.   So Pete chopped up the remains and we added it to the tomatoey mix close to the end; added some fresh ground pepper too.

We topped it with grated parmesan, and it was really nice - very simple summer food. It would work with all sorts of veg, I reckon.

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pasta with meatballs and courgettes

Using up:  sausagemeat

Apologies for the lack of posting - Pete and I have been laid low from the lurgy, and very little has been happening in the cooking department.  We made the last of the goose into a risotto, and then we had macaroni cheese on Wednesday - one of the best comfort foods in the world.

While rummaging through the fridge yesterday, I found some sausagemeat - not enough to turn into sausage rolls, but enough to do something with.

I turned a couple of slices of bread into breadcrumbs in the Magimix, then combined the sausage meat with enough crumbs to make a nice texture, and added some dried oregano.  Browned them off in some olive oil, then popped them in the Remoska to continue cooking while I did the rest.  I love that little gadget, and now I want a bigger one!

Chopped an onion and a few cloves of garlic, and sautéd them down in some olive oil.  Sliced up a couple of courgettes and added them to the pan, and stirred about a bit, then hurled in a tin of tomatoes and a chopped dried chilli, and a sloosh of red wine.

Left that lot to cook while I boiled some quick pasta.  When it was done, I transferred the meatballs to a casserole dish, added the pasta, then poured the tomato and veg over it, stirred it about a bit, and popped a chopped mozarella on the top, and some basil leaves.

Gas 6 / 200 for 25 minutes.  Lovely.

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cabbage, bacon and mozzarella

We seem to have a cabbage glut - two of them in the fridge at the start of the week, which is bad planning. I mandolined half of one on Monday for this week’s soup, so only one and a half to go …

There were a few bits (I couldn’t call them rashers, really) of streaky smoked bacon in the fridge, so they were derinded and chopped up, and sautéd in olive oil with some onion.

Bunged some pasta on to boil, thinly sliced the half cabbage left from Monday, and added it to the onion/bacon mix. Stirred it around to coat in oil, added black pepper and about a tablespoon of water, and put a lid on it for about 10 minutes.

Drained the pasta, added it to the cabbage pan and dolloped in a chopped up mozzarella.

Served it in bowls - quick, easy, tasty.

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sausage supper

using up: polish sausage

Pete is very fond of kabanos sossidge for his luncheon, which we buy in bulk from Costco. However, the trip before last, they had no kabanos (and no Beurre Isigny either, which was a bit of a blow), so he bought a few packs of sausage from one of the Polish shops.  They weren’t nearly as nice, and some of them have languished in the fridge and need using up.

Last night, I took some of them and made a meal out of them.

Chopped one red onion three cloves of garlic, and a courgette.  Sautéd them in some olive oil (now there’s a change, dear reader!), added some chopped sage leaves and then the chunked sausage.  Added some feta to the mix at the end.

Put some macaroni in bowls, dobbed the mix on the top.  Very nice. I don’t know why people say they don’t have time to cook - this took 20 minutes start to finish,

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sausage, runner beans and stuff

Using up: runner beans, sausages

Apologies for lack of posting - we have been camping for a few days in West Wales, and we should have taken an ark rather than a tent.

I brought back three fat butcher’s sausages, and this is what I did.

Drizzled the sossidge with a little olive oil, and set them in a tray in the oven at gas 6.

Headed, tailed and sliced up the runner beans that were ten days old {mea culpa], put them in a pan with cold water, brought to the boil, and simmered for 8 minutes.

Chopped up an onion and some garlic, removed some of the sausage-y oil from their pan, added a bit more to it, and sauteéd it in a pan.  Chopped sage and rosemary from the garden, and added to the pan.

Drained the green beans, and put in about 2/3rd of them - the rest will go into a wrap with some other bits for a lunch.  Looked at it all and decided it wasn’t quite right, so opened a jar of roast yellow peppers, cut up about half, and slung them in.

Cooked some macaroni, and while that was going on, cut the sausages into 1″ chunks and put them in the frying pan.

Then macaroni and cubed feta added, with a good grate of black pepper.  It really was *delicious*.

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from veg to meatballs to pasta bake

Using up: veg

As stated last week, we are over-vegged, and need to use it up before we go away for the long weekend that’s coming up.

So, on Friday night, I chopped up four red peppers, two onions, several mushrooms, and four (I think) courgettes.  These were sautéd down in my huge shallow Circulon pan (the one that’s too big to go in any of the cupboards) with some olive oil, a fair bit of garlic, and sage and oregano from the garden.

Then I took a bag of Ikea meatballs (great standby for the freezer!) and turfed them into the mix, and added a carton of creamed tomatoes (another great standby).  Bit of salt and pepper, and left to cook through for about 20 minutes.  We consumed two goodly portions with spaghetti.

On Saturday morning, I put another 3 meals’ worth into 2-portion tubs, and froze them, keeping back about 300ml of veggy sauce.

And on Sunday evening feeling, as we were, rather depleted, due to an *excellent* party on Saturday, 120 miles from home, we boiled some pasta shells, dumped a can of borlotti beans into the leftover sauce, and mixed the pasta and sauce together.  A mozzarella chopped over the top, and some basil from the garden, 20 minutes in the oven - bosh.  Dinner.  Hardly any effort, and really nice.

So, one bag of meatballs, an assortment of tired vegetables, a tin of borlotti beans and a carton of passata - 10 meals.  Gotta be good :)

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off on holiday

So you won’t see anything about me using stuff up for a week or so - someone *else* is going to cook for us, for a change.

Last night’s supper, which I forgot to photograph, was thus (really scraping the back ofr the fridge):

1 red onion chopped, added to the frying pan with a packet of cubed pancetta, and sautéed with some garlic.  Added some fresh oregano from the garden.

Boiled some fusilli pasta, and when cooked, added it to the pan with a mozzarella.

It was very nice.  We finished it with some Maltesers - well, you don’t want them to go to waste either, do you?

My breakfast for the past two mornings has been 2 hard boiled eggs.  I’m really quite looking forward to some gourmet food.

Be good while we’re gone.

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pasta bake with red pepper

Using up: a red pepper, mozzarella

We’re off for a week’s holiday on Friday (hurrah!), so meals this week are going to be quite odd, I suspect :)

Here’s one of our standby meals; we eat this kind of thing often.

Cut one red pepper in half, remove the seeds and pith, cut into thin strips.  Chop 3/4 of a courgette (I wanted the last bit for a stir fry) into dice, ditto an onion and some garlic (whatever you feel appropriate - we like *lots*).  Sauté these in some olive oil slowly until the veg are softed - you want a nice silky feeling for the peppers.  Add a chopped dried chilli if you like such things; we do.

Boil some pasta - conchiglie are nice for this; they’re the ones that look like conch shells.  When the pasta is cooked, drain it and hurl it into the veg pan, and stir it all together.

Then decant into an ovenproof dish, and top with a mozzarella, cut into cubes.  Some basil or parsley works really well on the top too.

Bake for 25-30 minutes on gas mark 6.

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pasta with butternut squash and feta

Using up: the other half of the feta, the other half of the squash, a lone rasher of bacon

Peeled the squash and cut it into cubes. Chopped an onion roughly, ditto some garlic, and a rasher of back bacon.  All in a frying pan with some olive oil, and some oregano from our herb garden.

Put a lid on the pan, and left for about 20 minutes.

Then cooked some 8 minute fusilli, drained it and put it with the vegetables (thus giving the veg about 30 minutes in all, to get the squash into that gorgeous disintegrating phase), and half a block of feta.  Stirred it all about till the feta melted, then served in bowls.

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