What's your favourite 'cook in a flash' meal?

Hi everyone, I would love to read about all your favourite quick meals. You know the ones. You come home late, tired and grumpy (and starving) and the pantry is looking a bit on the lean side...
For me, I trot out the old student meal - two minute noodles cooked with frozen mixed veg (stir fry mixes are great) and any old other veg lying around in the bottom of the crisper. Drain, chuck some grated cheese on top and voila! - dinner in about 4 minutes (and very cheap too)...
So how about you, what's your favourite 'chuck together' meal?

Spinach and Camembert Lasagne

Ingredients:

1 bunch english spinach
500g fresh ricotta cheese
50g parmesan cheese, finely grated
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
fresh lasagne pasta sheets
125g semi-dried tomatoes, thinly sliced
200g camembert cheese, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons pine nuts

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease your lasagne dish. Trim the stalks from the spinach and discard. Wash the leaves and shake off excess water, but don't dry them completely. Chop leaves.

2. Place ricotta in a bowl. Add parmesan, nutmeg and seasoning. Stir until well combined. Set aside one third of the mixture. Add spinach to the remaining ricotta mixture and mix until well combined.

3. Line the base of the lasagne dish with a sheet of pasta. Spread half the spinach mixture over the lasagne. Top with another lasagne sheet. Spread with the plain ricotta mixture and top with the semi-dried tomatoes. Add another layer of pasta and spread over the remaining spinach mixture. Top with a final layer of pasta.

4. Arrange camembert over lasagne and sprinkle with the pine nuts. Bake uncovered for 30 minutes. The top will puff up, but then settly when removed from the oven. Stand for 10 minutes.

Warm peach upside down cakes

Ingredients:
olive oil cooking spray
415 g can peach slices in natural juice, drained
2 tablespoons reduced fat spread, melted
1/4 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 cup self raising flour
150g light French Vanilla fruche
pure icing sugar to serve

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Lightly dpray base of four 1-cup capacity ramekins with oil. Line bases with baking paper. Arrange 2 to 3 peach slices over base of each ramekin. Finely chop remaining peaches.
2. Combine spread and sugar in a bowl. Whisk buttermilk, egg and vanilla together. Add to sugar mixture. Sift flour over batter and stir until well combined. Fold in chopped peaches.
3. Spoon batter over peach slices. Smooth surface. Bake for 20 - 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
4. Use a knife to loosen cakes. Turn out onto serving plates. Dust with icing sugar. Serve warm with Fruche.

Serves 4

Variation: Try replacing canned peaches with fresh peaches when in season, or canned apricots or pears.

Mexican bean tortillas

For my birthday, Meegan bought me an annual subscription to Super Food Ideas! I love trying out new recipes each month. Here's two yummy recipes from the October magazine that I made for my mum and brother on Saturday night.

Ingredients:
olive oil cooking spray
1 small brown onion, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tomatoes
420g can red kidney beans, drained, rinsed
1 tablespoon taco seasoning
1/4 teaspoon chilli powder
4 flour tortillas
1/2 green capsicum
3/4 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 cucumber, diced
1/2 cup coriander leaves
1/4 cup chunky tomato salsa
1/4 cup low fat yoghurt
2 iceberg lettuce leaves, shredded

Method:
1. Lightly spray a saucepan with oil. Heat over medium heat. Add onin and cook, stirring, for three minutes or until soft. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute. Finely chop 1 tomato. Add chopped tomato, beans, 1/4 cup cold water, taco seasoning and chilli powder to saucepan.
2. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat to medium low. Simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes or until liquid has reduced and thickened. Using a potato masher, roughly mash.
3. Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Lay tortillas on a workbench. Spread with bean mixture. Top with capsicum. Roll up tortillas tightly to enclose filling. Tranfer to a lightly greased baking dish. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake for 15 - 20 minutes or until cheese is melted and tortillas warmed through.
4. Meanwhile, dice remaining tomato. Combine tomato and cucumber in a small bowl. Slice tortillas in half and place on plates. Top with coriander. Serve with salsa, yoghurt, lettuce and tomato salad.

Serves 4

Tomato and goat's cheese crumble

Firstly some trivia. The English don't appear to use cups as a measurement in cooking and instead weigh absolutely everything. This sometimes poses a bit of a problem for me, who in an attempt to avoid acquiring possessions while o/s, hasn't purchased kitchen scales!

Now, I think this dish is truly delicious. But because one of the main ingredients is cheese, I tend to make it only for guests or a special occasion.

I serve it with rocket + roasted pumkin + balsamic mixed together as a salad and some warm, crusty olive bread. Yumbo.

Tomato and goat's cheese crumble

1kg / 2 1/4 lbs tomatoes (mixed varieties, including 1 punnet of cherry toms)
5 tablespoons olive oil
225g/8 ounces goat's cheese (firm or soft)
50g/2 ounces pine nuts
100g/4 ounces breadcrumbs
50g/2 ounces parmesan cheese, freshly grated
salt and pepper

1. Pre-heat the oven to 375 F, 190 C/ gas mark 5.
2. Roughly chop the tomatoes, leaving the cherry ones whole; heat 2 tablespoons oil in a pan, add the chopped tomatoes and seasoning and cook for 10 minutes (stirring occasionally) until softened; remove from the heat and stir in cherry tomatoes.
3. Spoon half the tomato mix into an oven proof dish (1 litre/1 ¾ pints size) and crumble half of the goat’s cheese on top; repeat the layers.
4. Heat remaining olive oil in a frying pan and lightly fry the pine nuts and breadcrumbs; remove from the heat and stir in half the parmesan; scatter breadcrumb mix over the tomatoes and cheese, then top with the rest of the parmesan.
5. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until golden.

Cheers to Damien for introducing me to this recipe!

Lemon Meringue Pudding

I made this one for guests on Friday night and it was a big hit. It uses a sponge base instead of the traditional pastry base.

Ingredients - pudding
200 g bought sponge cake
430ml cream
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 teaspoon of finely grated lemon rind
80ml lemon juice
6 eggs
165 g caster sugar
280g jar of lemon butter

Ingredients - meringue topping
3 egg whites
165g caster sugar

Method
1. Preheat oven to moderately low. Lightly grease a round 2 litre ovenproof dish.
2. Cut sponge cake into 3 cm pieces. Place pieces randomly in prepared dish. Combine cream, extract, rind and juice in a small saucepan overlow heat, stirring until hot.
3. Whisk eggs and sugar in a large bowl until combined. Whisking constantly, pour hot cream mixture into egg mixture and then pour into dish over sponge cake. Bake, uncovered, in a moderately low oven for 45 minutes. Remove pudding from the oven and increase the oven temperature to moderate.
4. Cool pudding for 10 minutes, then, using rubber spatula, carefully spread lemon butter over the surface.
5. Make meringue topping. Spoon topping over pudding to completely cover surface. Bake, uncovered, in a moderate oven for about 15 minutes or until browned lightly.

Method - meringue topping
Beat egg whites in a small bowl with electric mixer until soft peaks form, add sugar, a tablespoon at a time, beating until sugar disovles between additions.

Serve hot with cream or ice cream. Serves 8.

Pho Ga

This recipe is all the things I love - quick, easy, and tasty! "Pho Ga" is basically a Vietnamese soup with chicken and rice noodles.

Here's what you'll need:

• Chicken (100 - 200g per serve)
• Garlic (1/2 - 1 clove per serve)
• Ginger (about 1/2 as much as the garlic)
• Peanut oil
  
• Chili flakes (optional, but good for some spice)
• Chicken stock/broth (about 500ml per serve)
• Rice noodles
• Corriander (or "cilantro" for the Americans)
• Mung beans ("bean sprouts")
• Escallots (optional)

And here's what you do:

1. Throw some water on to boil - enough to cook your desired quantity of noodles.
2. While you're waiting, cut the chicken into thin slices, crush the garlic, and crush (or chop into tiny pieces) the ginger. Ideally, if you have a mortar and pestle, you could use it to mash the ginger, garlic, and chili flakes into some sort of paste.
3. By now the water should be boiling, so turn it off, and put the rice noodles in, then cover it up. Let them sit there until the end of the preparation.
4. Throw some peanut oil into a large wok. Cook the chicken, garlic, ginger, and chili flakes for about a minute - enough so the outside of the chicken looks fairly cooked, but not cooked right through.
5. Add the chicken stock, and bring to the boil. Once it's boiling, the chicken will take about 8-10 minutes to cook through.
6. While you're waiting on the chicken to cook, wash your mung beans, seperate the corriander leaves from the stalks (chuck the stalks out), and cut up the eschallots.
7. When the chicken is just about cooked, pour in a little bit of fish sauce for flavour. Drain and serve the noodles, then spoon the chicken soup over the noodles and then garnish with the corriander, eschallots, and mung beans.
8. Eat, and enjoy!

Note: Best served with lots of Tuong Ot Sriracha on top!

Lentil, broccoli and mushroom stew

Having noticed The Cookbook hadn’t been posted to for a little while, I thought I would get organised and finally post one I’ve been meaning to a for while now. And it looks like Meegs had the same idea!

Here’s a super-easy one that’s fairly nutritious and something a bit different.

25g butter
6 shallots, finely slices
1 clove garlic, chopped
100g mushrooms, sliced
125g green lentils
1 vegetable stock cube, made up with 600ml water
100ml white wine
1 red pepper, sliced
freshly ground black pepper
200g broccoli, small florets
2 tablespoons single cream

1. Melt the butter over a moderate heat and fry the shallots with the garlic. Add the mushrooms and cook for 2-3 minutes.

2. Add the lentils, vegetable stock and white wine. Season well.

3. Bring to the boil and boil for 10 minutes. Reduce the heat, add the pepper, cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the broccoli and cook for a further 10-15 minutes. Stir occasionally, adding more water if necessary.

4. Adjust the seasoning to taste, and stir in the single cream before serving.

I served it with rice, but crusty bread would be just as good.

Scones

Here's a super easy and fail-safe scone recipe from Super Food Ideas that I've tried and tested a few times now.

Ingredients:
Plain flour for dusting
3 cups of self raising flour
80g butter, cubed
1 - 1 1/4 cups milk

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 200°C. Lightly dust a baking tray with flour, or line the tray with baking paper. Sift self raising flour into a large bowl.
2. Using your fingertips, rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
3. Make a well in the centre and add 1 cup of milk. Mix with a flat-bladed knife until the mixture forms a soft dough, you may need to add more milk to get to the right consistency. Turn on to a lightly floured surface and knead gently until smooth.
4. Pat the dough into a 2cm thick round. Using a 5cm round cutter, cut out aprrox 12 rounds. Press the dough back together and cut out remaining rounds. Place scones on to the baking tray, about 1 cm apart. Sprinkle the tops with a little plain flour.
5. Bake for 20 - 25 minutes or until golden and well risen.
6. Serve warm with jam and cream.

Tuna Mornay

You know those days when you have hardly anything in the pantry and don't really want to face grocery shopping or take away for dinner? This is one recipe that I call on frequently!
(Thanks Mum)

Ingredients
1 oz butter
1 1/2 ozs grated cheese
1 tblsp flour
1 cup milk
1 chopped onion
pinch of salt
1 medium size tin of tuna
4 potatoes (approx)


Method
Preheat the oven to 180°c.
Peel, finely slice and cook the potatoes until just tender, set aside for later.
Melt butter in a saucepan with the chopped onion.
Blend in the flour and salt.
Add the milk, stirring constantly until thick.
Add the tuna and most of the cheese. Leave enough to sprinkle over the top for baking.
Layer the potatoes in an oven proof dish.
Top with the tuna sauce and sprinkle the left over cheese on top.
Bake in the oven until golden brown.