5 ingredient tomato & mascarpone sauce

Here’s a quick mid-week recipe that always goes down well in our house. It’s made from 5 ingredients (excluding the salt and pasta!) and is a lovely creamy tomato sauce that works with any pasta. You can also easily adapt the recipe for meat-eaters by changing the sausage or switching for crispy bacon pieces.

Personally I think the sauce is really nice used on it’s own with just a little parmesan, if you want to leave out the sausages completely, or stir in a couple of handfuls of spinach to change things up.

Ingredients

Serves 4-6

• 6 veggie sausages, 1 cm slices

• 1 large onion, chopped finely

• 1 large garlic clove, grated

• 2 x 400g tinned tomato

• 100g mascarpone cheese

• 1 tsp sea salt

• 400g rigatoni

Method

• Heat ½ tbsp rapeseed or olive oil in a large shallow pan and cook on a medium heat for around 8-10 minutes until browned.

• Remove from the pan and set aside in a covered bowl.

• Heat a little more oil in the pan and then add the onions. Cook on a low heat for about 10 minutes until softened.

• Next add the garlic and stir in well. Allow to cook for about 1 minute.

• Pour in the tinned tomatoes and ½ a tin of water (swill out the remaining tomato juice) then simmer for 20 minutes.

• Cook the pasta after the sauce has been bubbling for 10 minutes, so they’re ready at the same time.

• At this point you can either break the tomatoes up with a wooden spoon or blitz the sauce with a hand blender. I prefer to do the latter, then add the mascarpone, salt and sausages. Stir well and make sure the cheese has completely melted and the sausages have warmed through.

• Serve with plenty of grated parmesan and a green salad.

white beans & roasted red pepper

Another day, another lockdown lunch: posh beans on toast. My son had the classic Heinz with a ton of cheese and I had these with red pepper!

I’ve kept the ingredients to a minimum, so it’s quick to prep and really good value. Two servings should only cost you about £1.50 plus toast or a baked potato. Masses of protein in the beans and a good dose of Vitamin C in the red pepper for very little cost!

Ingredients

Serves 2

• 1 red pepper, whole

• ½ onion, chopped finely

• 1 small garlic clove, minced

• 1 sprig rosemary

• 1 x 400g tin cannellini beans

• ½ tsp sea salt

• Small squeeze of lemon juice

Method

• Put the whole red peppers on a sheet of tin foil and place under a hot grill, blacken on all sides - this should take about 12-15 minutes, turning every 2-3. Wrap in the foil once cooked and leave to cool for 5 minutes, then peel, deseed and chop or tear into ½ cm wide strips.

• Heat about 1 tsp of olive oil in a medium sized saucepan and fry the onions gently for 10 minutes until softened. It’s fine if they brown a little.

• Then stir in the garlic and cook for about 1 minute.

• Next pour in the cannellini beans and add the rosemary strig, simmer for 20 minutes with the lid on but leaving a small gap for a little steam to escape.

• Serve on toasted sourdough or a baked potato topped with the red pepper. Feta or grilled halloumi would also work really well.

tip

• You might need to add a little extra water at the end to loosen the beans.

• You could also have them with a baked potato, grilled halloumi, veggie sausage or top with feta. Meat-eaters could top with crispy bacon or have with white fish, roast chicken or pork sausages.

Quick fish curry

This is a great healthy mid-week recipe that you can knock up in 30 minutes and hopefully you'll have most of the ingredients in your cupboard. Now I appreciate that not everyone will be totally stocked up, but if you like making curries then you probably have most of them below.

Ingredients

Serves 4

• 3 tbsp rapeseed oil

• 2 tsp mustard seeds

• 20 curry leaves

• 1 large onion, or 2 medium, finely sliced

• 1 clove garlic, chopped finely or minced

• 1 tsp dried chill flakes, or less if you don't like it hot

• 2 tins 400g tomatoes

• 3-4 tbsp coconut cream, or 1 x 400ml tin coconut milk

• 800g cod, or firm white fish

• 320g brown basmati

Method

• First heat up the oil in a large pan, add the mustard seeds and heat until they start to pop.

• Then add the curry leaves and warm through for 1-2 minutes.

• Next put in the onion and fry gently for about 10 minutes until soft, then add the garlic and chilli flakes, cook for 2 minutes.

• Pour in the tomatoes and simmer for 15 minutes before adding the coconut cream and 200ml of water, or just the tin of coconut milk. Simmer for 5 minutes.

• Add the fish and cook for 5-7 minutes, or until it has heated right through.

• Serve with basmati rice, a squeeze of lime and yoghurt

BBQ salmon with lemon & dill yoghurt dressing

We all love a BBQ don't we? There's nothing better than eating outside on the sunny day, drinking a few beers. One fine day last week I bought a side of salmon, Greek yoghurt, dill, some salad and set about making one of the tastiest and best looking BBQ dinners ever! Nothing too complicated, but it was just a really nice combo.

Salmon works really well on the grill as it's quite a firm, oily fish, so it stays together rather than flaking like cod. Make sure you get a piece with the skin still on. We had it with a yoghurt, dill, lemon and cucumber dressing; caprese salad and some fresh green leaves.

Serves 4

BBQ Salmon

Ingredients

• 500g half side salmon
• Bunch parsley
• 2 lemons / zest one of them

Cucumber & lemon yoghurt

• 5 tbsp Greek yoghurt
• 1/2 cucumber
• 1 tablespoon chopped dill
• Olive oil

Method

• Turn the salmon skin side up and make about 3 or 4 diagonal slashes across it.
• Push in a mixture of chopped parsley, lemon zest and some small thin slices of lemon; rub lightly with olive oil on both sides and set to one side while the BBQ coals go white and ready for cooking.
• Peel the cucumber; chop in half and take the watery seeds out of the middle. Grate the rest of the cucumber and put in a sieve for the water to drain out for around 10 minutes.
• Sprinkle with a little salt to help this process along, give it a squeeze with your hands from time to time. Dehydrating the cucumber in this way will make the dressing less watery and more flavoursome.  
• Place the fish on the grill skin side down and cook for around 4/5 minutes depending on how hot your grill is. It is a little hard to be precise with timings as BBQs are a bit of a law unto themselves! They're all so different. 
• Gently turn over the fish with a metal spatula and allow to cook for a further 4/5 minutes. Lift the skin and take a peak inside the flesh to check it is cooked. 

Lemon & cucumber dressing

• Mix together the yoghurt, fully squeezed out cucumber, juice of one lemon, plus zest to taste and season.
• Spinkle in some chopped dill, again, to taste and there you have a super fresh dressing for the salmon which lifts the whole dish.