Pasta with a Ham, Broccoli and a Creamy Mustard Sauce

Another quick recipe, I suppose that is the point of this blog... Serve with garlic bread for a filling meal.

Ingredients

• Your Pasta of choice - Fresh or Dried
• 2 Garlic Cloves
• Half a head of Broccoli cut into small florets
• 300ml of Double Cream
• 2 tablespoons of English Mustard
• 4 slices of thick Ham
• 1 onion
• 140g of Cheddar Cheese - grated
• Salt and Pepper

Serves 4

Method

Take the broccoli and add it to a pan of boiling water. Simmer for four minutes. Drain and put to one side.

Start the dried pasta cooking (if using). If you are using fresh then get your big pan of water boiling in readiness.

Saute the onions for five minutes. Add the crushed garlic and continue cooking for a further minute. 

Start the fresh pasta cooking. Meanwhile, add the diced ham and cook for a minute. Finally add the cream and mustard stirring continuously. Once the mixture has almost reached the boil add the cooked pasta. Stir so that all the pasta is covered with the sauce.

Stir in the grated cheddar cheese, season and serve.

Korean style fried rice

This is an extremely quick and easy dish that you can use to get rid of odd vegetables and meat from the fridge. Considering how little is in it, the dish is very tasty.

Ingredients

• 4 Chicken breasts or beef steaks (whatever you fancy)
• 300g of Long grain, Basmati or Jasmine rice
• 1 bunch of spring onions (trimmed and sliced)
• Beansprouts
• Mushrooms (sliced)
• 2 tablespoons of Soy Sauce
• 1 tablespoon of chilli sauce (plus some for drizzling)
• 3 cloves of Garlic (crushed)
• 4 free range Eggs
• Toasted Sesame oil

Serves 4

Method

Cook the rice as per the associated cooking instructions and drain.

Griddle, grill or shallow fry the meat until cooked to your liking. Meanwhile, fry the mushrooms for 2 minutes in the sesame oil. Add the garlic, spring onions and beansprouts and fry for a couple more minutes. Add the chilli sauce and soy sauce then fry for a further minute. 

Start the egg frying in a seperate pan.

Stir the cooked rice into the sauce/veg mixture and warm for a few minutes.

Serve the rice in a bowl topped with sliced meat and the fried egg then drizzle with a little chilli sauce.

They key to this recipe is getting everything ready at the same time - it's just a case of playing it by ear.

I forgot to get a picture for this dish so have stolen one from the internet -
the dish looks like this but with the slided meat next to the egg.

Homemade Beefburger

Making a beefburger is ridiculously simple and does not require extensive use of herbs/spices/fillers and the like that many recipes seem to think is necessary. Seconds to make and not that long to cook - why would you buy ready made ones? This recipe is pretty much stolen with pride from the Ocado website - does the job nicely.

Ingredients

• 400g minced (ground) lean beef
• 2 tbsp Peroni Nastro Azzurro or similar beer
• 1 pinch Salt and pepper
• 1 dash Tabasco
• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Recipe

Put the beef in a bowl and mix with the beer (it's probably easiest to use your hands)

Mix in the salt, pepper and the tabasco sauce.

Turn it out onto a chopping board and form into four burger shaped rounds. You can also use silicone egg rings as a mould if you want them to be perfectly circular. On cooking the diameter shrinks a bit so it is probably worth making them slightly larger than the width of the bun.

Put the oil in a frying pan or griddle on a medium heat and cook, turning occasionally, until done (See Resources Pages for temperature charts for how well done the meat is).

Serve on a bun with whatever you fancy; cheese, onions, coleslaw...

Picture taken from the Ocado Website