An Actually Quite Simple Lasagne

It had been quite a while since I’d last made lasagne. I’m pretty sure that when I did it was Jamie Oliver’s “Simple Baked Lasagne” which is, quite frankly anything but. I seem to recall it took me 4 hours, a million ingredients and a dozen different cooking pans. It was incredibly delicious though so maybe I will blog that some other time. Under a different name though of course: “Jamie’s Far From Simple & Pretty Damn Labour Intensive But Super Delicious Lasagne”. Snappy.

This one though really is quite simple even if it is does use three different types of cheeses and two different types of meat. You only need a lasagne dish, frying pan and bowl. Plus, there is no bechamel to knock up. Yay!

In lieu of a bechamel you make a sort of cheesy sauce mixture which is where the three cheeses come in: Parmesan, ricotta and mozzarella. I was also going to add cream cheese - hence it’s appearance in the photo below - but changed my mind. If you can’t get a decent ricotta though, try cream cheese instead. Next time I’ll add maybe a couple of tablespoons extra cream, or maybe a little whole milk, just to make the cheese mixture easier to work with when layering up the lasagne.

I also used a mix of meats in the sauce: beef and Italian sausage meat but if you’d prefer to keep things more simple, just use all beef or maybe beef & pork mince. And if you actually prefer the slight sloppiness you get from bechamel please feel free to make one.

An Actually Simple Lasagne
serves 4-6

6 sheets fresh lasagne
For the Meat Sauce
1 tbsp olive oil
1 red onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
250g beef mince
250g spicy Italian sausage, meat removed from casings
400g tin chopped tomatoes, whizzed up with a stick blender (or use a finely pulped tin of tomatoes)
1 tbsp tomato purée
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
½ tsp dry oregano
1 ½ tbsp fresh basil, chopped
pinch red pepper flakes
100ml red wine
For the cheese mixture

250g ricotta
1 egg beaten
50g Parmesan, grated
1 ball mozzarella, grated
¼ tsp salt
⅛ tsp freshly ground black pepper
7.5g flat leaf parsley, chopped
50 ml cream
To finish

25g Parmesan, grated

In a large sauté pan, heat the olive oil and cook the onions, sprinkled with a little sea salt, for about five minutes over a medium heat. Add the garlic and cook one more minute.

Add the meats, allow to brown undisturbed for a few minutes and then stir and break up bigger lumps and cook until there is no pinkness. Turn up the heat if necessary to boil off any excess liquid.

Stir in the red wine, crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, about ¼ tsp salt and a good grind of pepper, oregano, basil, and red pepper flakes.

Bring to the boil then reduce to a fierce simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, mix the ricotta, most of the mozzarella (keep back a small handful), beaten egg, Parmesan, ½ tsp salt, ¼ teaspoon pepper and the chopped parsley & cream. Mix to combine and set aside.

Preheat oven to 200C.

Grease a lasagne dish with olive oil and while the meat sauce is cooking spoon out a little to just cover the bottom of the dish. On top lay 2 lasagne sheets, overlapping slightly.

Spoon in a third of the meat sauce then a third of the cheese sauce.

Repeat with two more lasagne sheets, one third of meat mixture, one third of cheese mixture.

Finish with two more sheets, the remaining meat sauce, the remaining cheese sauce then top with the remaining mozzarella and grated Parmesan.

Place in the oven on the middle shelf and cook for 30-35 minutes until golden and bubbling.

Allow to rest for five minutes then serve alongside a crisp salad.

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Tagliatelle with Olive Oil Poached Tomatoes

The aroma and flavor you get from poaching the tomatoes with some olive oil and a bit of garlic until you have a silky, slightly sweet, rich sauce is truly amazing.

You wouldn’t want to eat this every day as it is quite a bit of oil.. well, that is if you eat it like we do which is to mix the pasta in with the oil, serve that up and then dollop the tomatoes on top. I suppose you could just drain off most of the oil (reserving it for later use of course) and serve with the tomatoes and just a smidge of oil for lubrication.

I can guarantee though that once you smell this, and taste that oil you’ll be wanting to slurp it all up.


Olive Oil Poached Cherry Tomatoes with Tagliatelle
serves 2

150g tagliatelle (250g if it is fresh)
olive oil
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 large garlic clove, thinly sliced
20-24 cherry tomatoes (mixed colours if possible), halved
6-8 basil leaves, torn
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
7.5g butter
Parmesan, freshly grated, to serve

Add a decent amount of olive oil (you want to cover the base of the pan by about ⅛") to a large heavy bottomed frying or sauté pan over a medium heat. When the oil starts to shimmer add the shallots and a big pinch of salt. Sauté for a minute or two and then add the garlic and sauté for another minute or so until very fragrant.

Add the tomatoes and another bit of salt, reducing the heat to low. Stir around gently to coat the tomatoes with the oil.

Cover, and cook for 20-30 minutes. The tomatoes will have released some of their juices to mix with the oil creating a flavourful sauce.

Meanwhile bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook the tagliatelle according to package directions. Drain.

Remove the sauté pan from the heat and gently stir in the torn basil and butter.

Season carefully with more salt and some black pepper as necessary.

Add the tagliatelle to the pan and gently move around so that the pasta strands get coated in the sauce then divide the pasta between two plates and spoon the rest of the sauce and tomatoes over.

Serve immediately with a bowl of freshly grated Parmesan to help yourselves to.

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Chorizo & Asparagus 'Carbonara'

At the time of cooking, and indeed writing the first draft of this, I was trying to clear the freezer of random odds and ends in the hope that I would then have some space for a dump of freezer meals such as chilli, ragu etc for when the baby arrived and I suspected I wouldn’t have the time (or inclination as it turned out) to cook..

We had two lonely little cooking chorizo wallowing at the back of a drawer somewhere so I figured I’d chuck them into a pasta dish.

The basis of this then was HFW “3 good things” recipe where he uses, surprise surprise, pasta chorizo and asparagus. I wanted to make it a little more carbonara-esque though as, if I’m honest, I wasn’t convinced by the simplicity, so came up with this.


Chorizo & Asparagus “Carbonara”
serves 2

150g spaghetti
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cooking chorizo, diced
100g asparagus tips, woody ends snapped off and sliced into 3 cm lengths
2 large egg yolks
100ml double cream
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

Cook pasta in a large pot of salted boiling water and cook according to package instructions, adding the asparagus for the last 3-5 minutes (depending on how thick your asparagus is).

Meanwhile heat oil in a frying pan and add chorizo: cook for about 10 minutes until cooked through and crisp.

In a small bowl beat the egg yolks and cream together and lightly season.

When the pasta is done, drain (reserving a little of the cooking water) and return the pasta and asparagus to the pan then tip in the cooked chorizo and the egg mixture.

Stir everything together quickly so that the eggy sauce cooks in the heat of the pasta, adding a little pasta cooking water if needed to loosen the sauce a little (you probably won’t need to but it is always worth saving a little pasta water, just in case).

Serve immediately with some extra freshly ground black pepper and grated parmesan.

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Baked Gnocchi with Bacon & Bocconcini

Depending on what our plans are I tend to like to cook more complicated, drawn out recipes on a Sunday but on this occasion hubby (although he was only bf at the time!) was in Cambridge and I was in North London for the day so I wanted something quick yet lovely and comforting (comfort food for me is a 12 month a year thing - but was particularly so in my rather pregnant, at the time, condition).

The week before I was in Borough Market with my friend BGJ to pick up some bits and pieces and we tried some fresh gnocchi from one of the Italian stands there. Oh my god, they were so good so my plan had been to come up with a recipe (this) and go back to pick up some of the gnocchi to go in it.

Unfortunately life intervened and I couldn’t make it down there to pick up some of that incredible gnocchi but I still really wanted this so popped into a Tescburys to pick up some ready-made stuff.

I might be wrong but I wonder if that was the way to go - non-refrigerated shop bought gnocchi tends to be quite firm which I think would prove to be a good thing. I used ready-made gnocchi that was refrigerated with the fresh pastas and that was on the edge if I’m honest. I suspect that the more delicate homemade type would have collapsed into mush with the baking. But anyway - give this a go, it is pretty good.


Baked Gnocchi with Bacon, Mushrooms & Mozzarella
serves 2-4 (you may have leftovers)

1 pack shop-bought gnocchi (400-500g)
1 tsp olive oil
1 small banana shallot, finely chopped
150g bacon, chopped
100g mushrooms, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
¼ tsp red pepper flakes
1 400g tin chopped tomatoes
1 tsp tomato purée
125ml (small wine glass) white wine
handful cherry tomatoes, halved
½ tsp sugar
2 tbsp double cream
salt & pepper to taste
100g bocconcini, halved (or mozzarella, torn into chunks)
handful basil leaves, torn

Preheat oven to 200°C.

Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil and cook the gnocchi following packet directions. Drain.

Meanwhile heat the oil in a large heavy-based sauté pan over medium heat. Cook the onion, stirring, for 5 minutes until softened but not coloured.

Add bacon and cook, stirring, for a further 5 minutes or until the bacon is starting to crisp with most of the fat rendered. Add mushroom and garlic and cook for 3-4 minutes or until mushroom is soft.

Add the wine. Cook, scraping any bits from the base of the pan, for 3-4 minutes or until wine reduces by half. Stir in the tomatoes and tomato purée, sugar and red pepper flakes and simmer for 5 minutes.

Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the cream, basil and seasoning.

Add the drained gnocchi to the sauce and transfer to an oven-proof dish and top with the torn bocconcini.

Place in the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes until the mozzarella is melted and golden. Remove from the oven and allow to rest for 5 minutes before serving.

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Smoky Chicken Pasta

This is a something I had pinned to my pasta board and had wanted to cook for absolute ages as it just looked so damn good (sadly this is not the case with my photos). I wasn’t able to get the marinade specified though (and I now presume that this is probably available only in the US anyway) so kept putting it off.

In the end I decided to try it anyway using any smoky BBQ marinade that I could get my hands on (as it turned out, Nando’s) mixed with a little liquid smoke and lime juice.

I also employed the slow cooker for the chicken as from my experience thus far I knew this would be a good way of marinating and getting a pulled chicken effect in one.


Smoky Chicken Pasta
serves 3

225g Farfalle pasta
250ml double cream (I used Elmlea to save on calories)
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 cloves garlic, crushed
½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
½ tsp dried basil
20g butter
½ tbsp flour
125g bacon, cooked until quite crispy and crumbled / chopped
40g Parmesan cheese, grated
170ml Nandos’ smoky Portuguese BBQ peri peri marinade
juice of ½ lime
¼ tsp Stubbs mesquite liquid smoke
100ml water

Put chicken, marinade, lime juice and liquid smoke plus 100ml of water in a slow cooker. Give it a good stir then put it on low for about 4.5 hours.

Pull the marinated chicken out of the marinade liquid, allow to cool a little bit, then shred and pop back into the marinade in the slow cooker to keep warm.

Cook the pasta according to packet instructions.

While the pasta is cooking melt the butter In a small saucepan. Stir in the flour and cook for a minute or so until the flour starts to colour a little. Add the garlic, stir in and cook for 30 seconds to a minute more.

Add the cream, basil, pepper, parmesan cheese, and crumbled bacon. Stir together on a low heat for 5-10 minutes.

Add the chicken and marinade sauce to the creamy sauce. When the pasta is cooked combine with the sauce.

Serve immediately with a little bit more shredded Parmesan cheese on top.

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Lemon Asparagus & Artichoke Farfalle

It was hot the day I made this: hot and muggy and I was distinctly lacking in cooking motivation so I opted for pasta - one of the easiest things to fall back on when you just can’t really be bothered, in my opinion.

I have a document on my laptop just for pasta recipes and a board on pinterest too - we have pasta weekly so it makes sense that I have a lot of inspiration to keep things interesting. And the inspiration for this one can be found here. The original called for making a white sauce with flour, butter & milk but I opted for half fat crème fraîche and egg instead for the creamy sauce. A trick I had employed previously in fact in this pasta recipe.


Lemon Artichoke & Asparagus Farfalle
serves 2

150g farfalle pasta
½ tin artichoke hearts, drained, rinsed & quartered
10-15 asparagus tips, cut in 1-1½ in lengths
½ tbsp lemon juice + ½ tsp lemon zest
white wine
knob of butter
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 egg yolk
2 heaped tbsp crème fraîche
sea salt + freshly ground black pepper to taste
shaved parmesan or pecorino

Whisk together the yolk and crème fraîche in a small bowl and set aside.

Cook the pasta according to packet instructions.

Meanwhile, spray a large pan or non stick skillet with cooking spray. Add artichoke hearts, lemon juice, and lemon zest and cook over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes. Add asparagus with a splash of white wine and cook another 2-4 minutes until tender, stirring throughout.

Remove asparagus & artichoke from the pan with a slotted spoon and set aside.

Add butter and garlic to pan and stir for 1 minute until garlic is fragrant.

Tip in the pasta and pour over the crème fraîche, stirring to coat the pasta in the sauce. Carefully stir in the artichokes and asparagus.

Season with salt and pepper to taste and garnish with parmesan cheese.

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Italian Sausage & Chilli Pesto Pasta

This was inspired by a picture I saw on Pinterest that looked delicious but had no real accompanying recipe as such. The sauce has a base of fresh chilli pesto, bought from a stall at a weekly farmer’s market in the quadrant bit at the back of Guy’s Hospital (its a lovely space actually, a hidden part of London). I also grabbed some Italian sausages there, skinned them and crumbled up and fried the meat. Not much more to it really, some black olives (I used kalamata but I think those wrinkly, very salty cured ones that come in jars would be excellent in this), toasted pine nuts, a bit of basil and some Pecorino.

So thank you for whosoever pinned that particular picture: this is simplicity itself, and delicious with it.


Italian Sausage & Chilli Pesto Pasta
serves 2

2 Italian sausages, skinned and roughly crumbled
1 tsp garlic olive oil
glug red wine
4 tbsp chilli pesto
handful black olives, pitted and roughly chopped
2 tbsp pine nuts, toasted
small handful basil leaves, torn
200g wholewheat spaghetti
Pecorino, to serve

Put the pasta on to boil in salted water in a large pan.

Meanwhile fry off the sausage in the garlic oil until browned and resembling coarse mince. Add a glug of wine and let it bubble down before throwing in the olives and pesto.

When the pasta is al dente drain, reserving a little cooking water, and then mix the pasta in with the sausage and pesto sauce. Combine well and add a little of the cooking water to loosen the sauce slightly.

Serve immediately scattered with pines nuts, basil and Pecorino.

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Casarecce with Asparagus, Sausage & Ricotta

Casarecce is a fairly new pasta shape for me: basically short lengths of pasta that have been rolled across their width, with each side rolled in the opposite direction. The rolled length is then slightly twisted so that the pasta is in the shape of a "S" when viewed from the end.

You could however use any short pasta for this - the original recipe (I can’t, unfortunately, remember where that was) that I adapted for instance called for gemelli. Similarly any spicy sausage could be used too - I used sausages that have been seasoned in a Chorizo style rather than actual cooking chorizo and they worked very well.


Casarecce with Asparagus, Sausage & Ricotta 

serves 2

100g thin asparagus, trimmed and cut into 2 in lengths
150g casarecce
130-150g chorizo style sausages (2 fat sausages), removed from skins & “crumbled”
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 tbsp double cream
95g ricotta
15g Parmesan, finely grated
4 basil leaves (optional)
sea salt and freshly ground pepper (to taste)

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and add the asparagus. Cook for a few minutes until just tender then remove with a slotted spoon and plunge into iced water to stop cooking and refresh.

Bring the water to a boil again, add the pasta and cook according to packet directions.

Meanwhile heat a large sauté or frying pan and cook the sausage and onion until the meat is browned and the onions softened. Drain any fat that has rendered from the sausages and add the asparagus, cream, and a small pinch of salt and simmer for 2 minutes.

Drain the pasta, reserving some cooking water, and add the pasta to the sauté pan along with the ricotta, a good grind of black pepper and 2-3 tbsp of the reserved pasta water.

Stir around carefully so that everything is mixed well.

Add the Parmesan and stir again then serve immediately garnished with the basil leaves.

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