Nigella Lawson's Roasted Poussin and Sweet Potatoes

I just have to share this youtube video with you as the recipe is so fast, yet so tasty and it would make an impressive main course for a dinner party. We tried it on Saturday and the sweet potatoes sprinkled with cinnamon are just to die for. IMHO, this is not an everyday dish at all. Enjoy!

Fresh Filled Pasta with Spinach, Basil & Pinenuts

Here's an idea to turn filled, fresh shop-bought pasta into something delicious and healthy. This takes only about 5 minutes to prepare as only the pasta needscooking!

1 packet of the filled, fresh pasta of your choice
a couple of handfuls of fresh spinach, washed and roughly chopped
a small handful of fresh basil leaves, torn
1-2 tbsp toasted pinenuts
extra virgin olive oil
freshly ground black pepper
sea salt
1 garlic clove (optional)
freshly grated parmesan
balsamic glaze (optional)

1. Boil the pasta in salted boiling water according to packet instructions.
2. Meanwhile, prepare the spinach and basil leaves.
3. If you have pinenuts but they aren't toasted, heat a non-stick pan. When the pan is hot, add the pinenuts and keep moving them around so they brown evenly without burning. Set aside when ready.
4. Drain the pasta, return to the saucepan and drizzle with olive oil. Season with pepper (I don't add any salt at this point but that's a matter of taste).
5. Squeeze a garlic clove over the paste (if used), then add the spinach, basil and pinenuts and toss gently together. The spinach will wilt from the heat of the pasta.
6. Serve on 2 plates and add some freshly grated parmesan, a drizzle of olive oil and a drizzle of balsamic glaze.

Jamie Oliver Fish Pie

STOP PRESS: Just found Jamie's recipe on his website - though there he doesn't use spinach.



While having a look for free stuff on iTunes, my other half came across a number of short Jamie Oliver video podcasts aimed at people who are scared of cooking or think that making tasty food takes hours. These little clips are between 7.5 and 9.5 minutes long. Most of them are meat dishes so not that interesting for me but this healthier, quicker version of a traditional fish pie is really yummy. We've had it twice now ;) but I have to say we used half the amount of fish with the amount of veggies below. The idea is to be creative and add whatever veg you fancy.

In many of these recipes he uses a box grater rather than chopping things up with a knife.

750 g fresh fish, mixed or just one type according to taste and pocket (e.g. salmon, cod, smoked haddock, prawns, scallops, pollock, etc. - whatever you fancy, whatever your pocket)
1 carrot, coarsely grated
2 celery sticks, coarsely grated
150 g cheddar (gouda would work just fine IMO), coarsely grated
1/2 red chilli, finely grated
2 tomatoes, roughly chopped
juice of 1 lemon
pepper
salt
4 tbsp olive oil
1 handful fresh spinach
chopped parseley

potatoes for mashing
butter
milk
pepper
salt
freshly grated nutmeg

1. Grate the veg and cheese with a box grater and transfer to a large oven-proof dish.

2. Chop the fish into inch-sized chunks and add to dish. Top with the spinach leaves and parseley.

3. Squeeze over the lemon juice. Season with pepper and salt and add the oil.

4. Mix it all together with your hands or a large spoon and smooth out.

5. Top with the mash ensuring everything is well covered.

6. Cook in a preheated oven at 200 °C/gas mark 5 for 40 minutes.


Alternatives:
Chop a couple of spring onions.
If no celery is available, you can use a small onion.
Add 1-2 garlic cloves to the mix (garlic press or chopped very finely)

Tomatoes filled with pesto rice and grilled fillet of plaice

Another FastFeast to start the week with. If you have some left-over rice - great. If not, it can still be quick using any variety of white as it'll only take 10 minutes to cook. Preparation for this takes minutes, the cooking time takes a little longer but for the most part this can happen on its own.

plaice fillets
boiled rice
2 vine tomatoes per person
pesto, shop-bought or home-made
freshly ground pepper
sea salt
lemon
lettuce
vinaigrette

1. If necessary, boil some rice. Mix the rice with pesto.

2. Cut the top off the tomatoes and set aside to use as a lid. Core the tomatoes and discard the seeds. Optionally season the inside of the tomatoes with pepper and salt. Stuff with pesto rice and put the 'lids' back on. Drizzle with a little oil.

3. Lightly oil an oven-proof dish and spoon some rice into it. Place the tomatoes onto the rice base, pressing them in so they don't fall over. Cover with tin foil and cook in a pre-heated oven (200°C/gas mark 5) for 20 minutes. Remove the foil, turn up the heat a notch and bake for another 5 minutes to brown.

4. Meanwhile season the fish with pepper and salt and drizzle with olive oil.

5. Cover the rack of the grill pan with tin foil and lightly oil. Place the plaice skin side down onto the tin foil.

6. Preheat the grill and grill the plaice at a medium heat for 5-8 minutes until done. You'll know the fish is cooked when it comes away easily from the skin.

7. Either serve each portion with a lemon wedge or squeeze some lemon juice over the fish. Serve on warm plates with the stuffed tomatoes and some additional rice and a crispy salad.

Peppers Stuffed with Pesto Rice

After spending two afternoons cooking, it seemed like a good idea to pull some of the creations together into a main course. With the right preparation, this can be a FastFeast - at least when it comes to throwing it together.

2 red peppers, halved and deseeded
2 yellow peppers, halved and deseeded
2 green peppers, halved and deseeded
whole grain rice
rocket pesto
12 small mushrooms, chopped quite small
2 sweet red chillis, halved, deseeded and sliced
sea salt

1. Season the inside of the peppers with a little salt.

2. Heat a little olive oil in a non-stick pan and sauté the chillis for a minute or two, then push to the side and add the mushrooms. Fry the mushrooms at a high heat till they're brown taking care the chillis don't get burned. Mix both chillis and mushrooms and season with a touch of salt.

3. Meanwhile, mix the rice with some rocket pesto.

4. When the mushrooms are done, take of the heat, add the rice and mix well.

5. Spoon the mixture into the pepper halves, cover with tin foil and bake at gas mark 6-7/200°C for 45-60 minutes (our gas oven is kind of slow).

Serve as a vegetarian main course or as a side to fish/meat with a salad. I had a bit of that raw beetroot salad left from yesterday which made a colourful addition to the peppers.

Stuffed Beetroot

If you want to speed up this dish, use the pre-cooked beetroot available in the supermarkets. Just make sure there is no vinegar added. That way it probably classifies as a FastFeast ;)


2 large or several small beetroot, cooked in their skins
pepper, salt

filling:
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 pointed red peppers, diced (ordinary red peppers will do as well)
3-4 handfuls fresh spinach, washed and coarsely chopped
1 red onion, chopped
2tbsp toasted pine nuts
extra virgin olive oil
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
2-3 handfuls of fresh herbs (parsley, basil, coriander, etc.)

optionally cheese to top, e. g. mozzarella, grated parmesan, etc.

1. Bring a pan of water to the boil, add salt and pepper and cook the beetroot until it's tender. This can take 60-90 minutes. Remove from the water and leave to cool before removing their skins. Then, cut them in half and with a teaspoon scoop out the flesh to make room for the filling. Set the flesh aside and use in a salad or eat as is.

2. For the filling, heat some olive oil and sauté the onion and garlic at a low to medium heat. Add the chopped pepper and sauté for another 5 minutes. Season with pepper and salt.

3. Add the spinach and mix it in to let it wilt.

4. Lastly, add the pine nuts and fresh herbs.


5. Spoon the mixture into the beetroot halves and top with cheese if used. This dish is also lovely cold, if no cheese is used. Perfect for picnics and BBQs.

6. Cover with tin foil and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes at gas mark 7.


Serve with potato wedges. Without cheese, it's not only perfect for vegans but also a lovely side dish for fish or meat.

Variations:
1. Use dried Herbes de Provence if no fresh herbs are at hand. In this case, add them to the pan while sautéing the onion and garlic.
2. Instead of red peppers you may also use roasted peppers out of a jar. Just chop them up and add them with the herbs and pine nuts.
3. Try it with Feta. Just crumble up the Feta and mix into the filling at the same time as the herbs and pine nuts.

Pan Panache #2: Rice in the Pan

I actually made twice the amount of the rice from this recipe so had enough left over for a quick meal for two a couple of days later. Sorry, there is no picture, we were too hungry ;)

rice for two
garlic flavoured extra virgin olive oil
350g mushrooms, sliced
1 bunch spring onions sliced - these were from the organic box and tasted fantastic!
freshly ground black pepper and salt to taste
fresh chopped herbs (basil, rocket, coriander)

Heat the oil a large frying pan and sauté the mushrooms in one half and the spring onions in the other. The spring onions were ready a little quicker than the mushrooms, so I pushed them away from the heat until the mushrooms had browned.

Stir mushrooms and spring onions together, season, add the rice and heat through.

At the end stir in the herbs and serve immediately.

Summer Squash and Pasta

As so often on a Monday night, cooking dinner is more of a chore than pleasure. So it's got to be something quick without compromising on taste and healthy ingredients. And we've still got an organic summer squash from last week as well as a couple of packets of fresh filled pasta in the fridge.

1 summer squash, roughly the size of a large grapefruit, cut into segments
2tbsp extra virgin olive oil, to fry for the squash
balsamic glaze
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
a couple of packets of fresh, filled pasta - any flavour will do
salted boiling water
about a dozen fresh sage leaves, cut lengthways into strips
2tbsp extra virgin olive oil, to infuse with the sage leaves

1. Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan and brown the squash segments at a medium to high heat on both sides.

2. Season with pepper and salt. You could serve it now still slighlty raw but hot through and with a bite. Or, put on a lid and keep cooking until the squash is tender. Whichever you prefer, drizzle with a little balsamic glaze before serving.

3. Boil the pasta in salted water according to instructions. Most fresh pasta only takes a couple of minutes.

4. Meanwhile heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and add the sage leaves. Stir for a minute at a low heat.

5. Drain the pasta, return to the saucepan and carefully mix in the sage and olive oil. If the pasta is quite rich, the sage will help make it seem less heavy.

Arrange on warmed plates and serve immediately. This is lovely with a fresh leafy salad.



Variation:
If using other fresh pasta or dried, such as tagliatelle, rigatoni, etc., you could use a little butter to cook the sage in instead of olive oil. In Bologna, they even serve tortelloni with butter and sage and it's delicious.