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"I" - Italy - Baked Fusilli

Baked Fusilli recipe
 
Our little “Around the World for £4 or less” experiment took us to Italy this evening. What else would you cook on a budget from Italy? It had to be pasta really....
 
The Pasta should really have been Ziti which is a tubular pasta and would have held the sauce better. But we're tight, it's bitterly cold out and the local supermarket don't be a Gluten Free version anyway. Enough excuses, Fusilli did the job fine!
 
This is a recipe Sue created from two traditional recipes combined to keep it within of £4 budget. It's as traditional as possible.
 
Ingredients:-
 
Pasta of your choice ( We're not shapist here.....)
Oil (Olive if you have it. We didn't and used Vegetable Oil)
2 Onion chopped – 1 large, 1 small
3 cloves of Garlic minced
500g Minced Beef (Or Pork and Beef if you prefer)
2 tbsp Tomato Purée
1 tbsp dried Origano
1 tsp Dried Rosemary
½ tsp Chilli Flakes
1 tin chopped Tomatoes
5 tbsp Butter or Margarine
200g Cream Cheese (Philadelphia or shop own brand)
2 tbsp Basil, part to garnish
50 g Grated Italian style Cheese
100g Grated Mozzarella
1 Egg
Salt to season
 
Method:-
 
Making the Mariana Sauce
 
(1) Heat the tin of chopped Tomatoes and add the Butter, ½ tsp of Salt and an Onion sliced in half.
(2) Stir then let simmer for 15 minutes. 
(3) Remove the Onion and set the sauce aside.
 
Meat Sauce:-
 
(1) In a large frying pan add chopped Onion and Garlic to the Oil and fry until translucent.
(2) Add the Chilli flakes and Herbs and simmer.
(3) Add the mince and cook through until browned.
 
Pasta:-
 
(1) In a separate pan boil salted water, ad the Pasta and cook until Al Dente.
(2) Drain the Pasta.
(3) Add the mince mixture to the Mariana Sauce, add the Tomato Puree and a few spoonfulls of the Pasta water.
(4) Simmer for a further 10 minutes.
 
Cheese Sauce:-
 
(1) Mix the Cream Cheese and half of the grated Italian style Cheese, 1 Egg and a pinch of Salt.
 
Bringing it all together:-
 
(1) Drain the Pasta and add to the mince and sauce mixture. Stir and make sure the Pasta is well coated.
(2) In an ovenproof dish layer the Pasta mix then the Cream Cheese mix and repeat.
(3) Top off with Mozzarella and the remaining half of the Italian style grated Cheese.
(4) Bake at 180c until the topping is slightly browned and the whole disk is piping hot.
 
We served ours with a little dress salad and home-made Garlic bread.
 
 

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Dillkott recipe, eat well on universal credit

We thought we’d continue with the Swedish theme. Clearly we can’t get Wapiti (Elk) Meat locally, so we just went with boneless belly Pork and winged it…

Ingredients:-

500g of Belly Pork, cubed with the rind removed
1 Onion, chopped
2 Carrots, chopped
1 Leek, chopped
1 Parsnip, chopped
1 Bay Leaf
1 Sprig of Thyme
10 Peppercorns
Salt to season

Dill Reduction Ingredients:-

50g of Fresh Dill
120ml of Water
3 Tbsp of White Wine Vinegar
3 Peppercorns
40g of Sugar
120ml of Milk (Lactose free for us)
2 Tbsp of Ground Cashew Nuts
2 Tbsp of Cornflour mixed with a little water

Method:-

(1) Put the Pork in a pan and cover with cold water.
(2) Bring to the boil covered for a couple of minutes.
(3) Drain and rinse the Pork and clean out the pan.
(4) Return the Pork with the Onions, Carrot, Leek, Bay Leaf, Thyme, Peppercorn and season with Salt.
(5) Add enough water to cover everything and bring to the boil.
(6) Reduce the heat and simmer for about an hour.
(7) For the Dill reduction remove the fronds from the stems and set aside.
(8) Put the stems, Water,Peppercorns, Sugar and Vinegar in a pan and boil for 5 minutes.
(9) Set aside to cool.
(10) When the meat is cooked strain and reserve about 450ml of the stock.
(11) Return the Meat and Vegetables to the pan with the 450ml of stock.
(12) Whisk the Milk and Cashew Nuts together and add to the pan over a low heat.
(13) Add the Dill reduction and season to taste.
(14) Thicken with Cornflour and Water mixture stirring regularly.
(15) Serve garnished with the Dill fronds.

Although we loved the Dill flavours we found the sauce to be a bit too sweet for us. It was probably because we are , having to use Cashew Nuts + Lactose free Milk to replace Cream in sauces. So the sweetness of the Cashew Nuts, plus the Sugar and the sweetness of the root vegetables probably all combined.

 

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