Category: Recipes

Creamy pesto pasta – without the cream

I was thinking about where the recipes we cook come from the other day. Some are passed down through families for generations. Others we learn from friends, discover in recipe books and magazines, on TV shows or these days through the numerous websites and blogs now available to us. Others just develop from an idea. This recipe is one of the latter. I make no claims to it being a traditional pasta dish (in fact, I recall an Italian cook/chef noting at a demonstration that cream and pesto together in pasta was very wrong). However, it is a regular household favourite and wrong or not, I love it. I’ve even had an ex ask me for the recipe after we’d broken up!

The original idea came from watching an episode of Ready Steady Cook one day when I was home sick from work several years ago. One of the cooks made veal with a cream and pesto sauce and observed that the sauce was also good with pasta. I decided to give it a go and over time it developed into the dish below. The meat component depends on what I have in the fridge (or can be omitted altogether). This time I had some chorizo (I use this in it quite a lot), other times I’ve made this with leftover cooked chicken, or some pancetta or bacon. I’ve also used the same method to make a chicken and roast pumpkin pasta, but without the pesto.

I originally made this dish with cream. However, that isn’t the best for a regular weeknight dinner. I was amazed the first time I tried this with evaporated skim milk and corn flour in place of cream. The result is just as creamy and delicious. Another success in my quest to find ‘healthier’ replacements.  I haven’t made this with cream since. If you do want to make it with cream, just replace the evaporated skim milk and corn flour with about 200ml of cream. I have even made it without any milk/cream component at all, and just used some of the pasta water to create the sauce. But whichever method I use, I’m always happy with the results.Creamy pesto pasta - without the cream

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Lemon, Berry & Poppyseed muffins

I know breakfast is important, but I struggle to eat first thing in the morning. It takes me a bit of time to wake up enough to want to eat. So I usually eat my breakfast at work. A few years ago, this meant picking up a muffin from the bakery on my way to work. Not really the best start to the day. These days I’m a lot more organised (and making an effort to be healthier), and will take in fruit, cereal or home-made (and healthier) muffins for my breakfast.

A few years ago, I discovered the TV show Cook Yourself Thin. Two series of this show were filmed in the UK, with a different format each season. The general concept remained the same between the two series. Each episode focused on a person with weight issues and looked at their three (I think it was three) “downfall dishes”. Healthier, lower calorie dishes similar to the original were created as an alternative that could be cooked at home. I loved this show and I think it influenced what I try to do now, that is finding healthier alternatives to my favourites rather than cutting them out completely.  More recently the Hairy Bikers have done this with their book and TV series The Hairy Dieters, and I’ll cook something from their book soon (I of course bought the book as soon as I heard about it). I’m sure there are others out there as well that I haven’t discovered yet. If you know of any books or TV shows of a similar theme, please let me know.

But back to Cook Yourself Thin. These Lemon, Berry and Poppyseed muffins were the first recipe I tried from the series and I’ve made them several times since. They have quite a few replacement ingredients in them. The rice flour and almond meal make them gluten free (if you use gluten free baking powder). Courgette is used in place of butter or oil for moisture (you can’t taste it, I promise) and buttermilk is used in place of milk. I actually had some whey in the fridge from the cheese course I attended and I tried that instead of butter milk. The result was great (I think it actually made them lighter than usual) so I will be using that again next time I have some in the house. I like to wrap them individually once cooled and then freeze most of them. That way, I always have some in the freezer in case I need to grab something on my way to work. Once I get to work, I warm it in the microwave (removing the foil cases first if I’ve used them) and that is a quick breakfast or snack sorted.

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Take a break from the takeaway – Lamb burgers

As I’ve said before, even though I enjoy cooking, sometimes I struggle with the motivation to cook every night. A few months back, I was giving in to the temptation to have the night off cooking and buy something on the way home a few times too often. Then I started feeling run down and put on some weight. For the first time ever, I recorded a slightly high cholesterol level. No surprise, the change in what I was eating impacted on my health. It was a reminder to me of the importance of cooking and eating good food at home and the need to keep takeaway as an occasional treat rather than a regular option. For added motivation, I watched Super Size Me and read Fast Food Nation. I certainly lost my appetite for certain foods after that!

It’s not about denial or going cold turkey and not eating my favourite foods. Rather, for me at least, it’s about balance, making better choices and using some replacement ingredients when cooking. When I get the urge for fries/chips now (potatoes are one of my real weaknesses), I’ll microwave a potato instead and have it with a tiny bit of light sour cream.  When I make my creamy pesto pasta, I use light evaporated skim milk (with a bit of cornflour to thicken it) instead of full fat cream. I still get the flavours and satisfied feeling of the original dishes, but (to my knowledge at least), the changes make it lighter and better for me. And I still let myself have a treat now and then. Just not everyday.

These lamb ‘burgers’ are one of my favourite week-night dinners and an alternative to many people’s favourite fast food, the burger. Couscous is used in place of breadcrumbs and/or eggs in the burger, instead of a bun you wrap it up in a flatbread, and instead of cheese and mayo there is a tzatziki style dressing made with low fat yoghurt. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything when I eat these.

Take a break from the takeaway burgers

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Caramelised onion, tomato and prosciutto tart

This week seems to be the week of recipes inspired by other blogs. After trying a new recipe for the guilt free banana bread, I felt like going back to an old favourite for dinner Sunday night. I’ve also been asked by a friend to put this one up. Given it is a favourite of mine, I didn’t mind fulfilling the request.

I came across this recipe a year ago at Delicieux, an Australian vegetarian blog. Although not vegetarian myself, I do like cooking vegetarian dishes (I know that hasn’t been reflected in my blog yet…but I’ll get there) and I often find myself ordering a vegetarian dish at restaurants. I find more and more these days that the vegetarian options just seem so much more creative and interesting when I read them on the menu. For this dish I’ve added prosciutto and goats cheese resulting in a non-vegetarian version, but it’s just as nice without the prosciutto.

I  find I always have extra of the marinated tomatoes mix left whenever I make this. Rather than use less tomatoes, I like to add a couple of tablespoons of balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil to the remaining tomatoes and their juices, and use this as the dressing (with the tomatoes) for the salad greens. I usually get enough for six tarts from 4 large onions (although I used one less onion this time and still made the 6 tarts, so there wasn’t as much onion as usual – hence the gaps in the picture). You could also make these into smaller squares for a nice entrée or canapé.

with basil, prosciutto & goats cheese

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Guilt free banana bread

It’s weekend baking time again. When I started this blog a few weeks back, I wanted to try to bake something new each weekend, as well as trying at least one new savoury dish a week. And so far I’m on track. But after my mid-week decadent brownies, I thought I’d better try something a bit lighter this weekend. It’s all about moderation and balance right?

I often have an overripe banana or two leftover in my fruit bowl. And whenever I do, I pop them in the freezer. The skin goes quite black but the fruit inside is fine and is great for cooking.  This weekend I had a collection of about nine bananas built up in the freezer, so it was time to use some of them up and what better way to use them up than by making some banana bread?  I usually bake banana bread using Nigella’s recipe from her book How to be a Domestic Goddess. However, that recipe is definitely not guilt free. A few weeks back though, one of the food blogs I follow Not Quite Nigella posted a fat free banana bread recipe using apple sauce instead of butter or oil that I wanted to try.

So recipe chosen, it was time to cook. After a few setbacks (we had a short thunderstorm and the power was off for an hour or two), I finally got to baking. I made a few tweaks to the original recipe, such as adding some cinnamon and ginger (a half and quarter teaspoon of each – I think I might add a bit more next time). I might try it with brown sugar as well too next time. I couldn’t find any apple sauce at my local grocery store, so I used some tinned pie apples which I blended up. The smells that filled the house while it was cooking were wonderful and it was difficult to wait until it was finished to try it. The end result was a lovely moist and dense bread, but without feeling heavy, with a hint of spice. Definitely one I will be trying again.  I’m looking forward to having a slice for breakfast tomorrow.

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Chocolate fudge and raspberry brownies

I have a confession to make. I am not a chocoholic. Don’t get me wrong, I like chocolate. But if I was given the choice between a chocolate and a citrus dessert, the citrus would win every time. I much prefer my citrus coconut cupcakes to the death by chocolate ones I make, I would rather a berry sorbet than a chocolate ice-cream and if given the choice between a chocolate bar and nougat, nougat would win every time. The only exception to this is hot chocolate in winter. Give me a mug of hot chocolate with a shot of white chocolate liquor in it…yum.

When I do have chocolate, I prefer it with something (chocolate and caramel, cherries, citrus, berries, coconut – the list goes on and on). Yet for the last two and a half years I have made these fudgy chocolate brownies with just chocolate (dark chocolate melted for the cake mix then with milk chocolate bits mixed through). They are incredibly rich and I cook them so they are still gooey and fudgy in the centre (as a good brownie should be in my opinion). They are great hot with ice-cream as a dessert or cold straight from the fridge (like a cross between cake and fudge).  A few months ago however, I decided to try making them with frozen raspberries instead of the milk choc bits. Wow, what a difference. I find the raspberries cuts through some of the richness, as well as  adding to the moistness of the brownie. And I love the flavour. I won’t make them without the raspberries now.

The good thing about this recipe though is you can add whatever you want. It doesn’t have to be raspberries, you could use milk or white chocolate bits, maybe some nuts. In the second picture below I used both raspberries and white chocolate. Some orange zest would make jaffa brownies. Play around with the flavours and use what you like. The most important thing though is to use a good chocolate that you like. If you don’t like the chocolate before you cook the brownie, you aren’t going to like the end result.

Bitter dark chocolate – still warm and extra gooey!

click here for the recipe

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