my ultimate comfort bolognese.

A comforting Italian inspired bolognese recipe, ideal to batch cook for an easy midweek meal. Combining pork and beef mince, this hearty recipe goes towards your five a day with sweet, softened red peppers and slightly salty black olives. Serve up with your favourite pasta and a good grating of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. Though for me it has to be spaghetti. Classic.

prosciutto wrapped burrata with a chargrilled asparagus, courgette and grana padano salad.

A deliciously light salad which embraces the beautifully cured taste of Prosciutto di San Daniele and delicate shavings of Grana Padano cheese. The recipe calls for creamy burrata wrapped in thinly sliced prosciutto, on a bed of charred asparagus spears and ribbons of courgette. Finish with lashings of salty Grana Padano, fresh basil and a twist of cracked black pepper.

Balancing fresh and nutritious vegetables with indulgent ingredients, this dish would be perfect as a simple starter or al fresco lunch. This colourful combination would be stunning paired with a cold glass of light bodied Pinot Grigio or Sauvignon Blanc.

#trymymenu: a taste of italy.

Inspired by my recent trip to Rome, I recreated my favourite flavours in the form of a three course Italian menu. With StressFreePrint on hand to print out my very own illustrated menu designs, I opted for Italian simplicity for a stress free dinner party. With classic (and super simple) bruschetta to start, I went on to serve my Rome bought trofie pasta along with truffle butter from Ad Hoc. To finish, I tried my hand at making timeless tiramisu, which is perfect to prepare ahead for dinner party desserts!

salmon tortellini in parsley pesto.

the latest of my pasta adventures involved my love of salmon, attempts at tiny tortellini and a pesto adapted for seafood with a hint of parsley. i love making homemade pasta when i've got a spare weekend afternoon as i find it very therapeutic to make and then of course you have a lovely weekend meal at the end of it. 

roast vegetable & four cheese ravioli bake.

what can i say? i love pasta. i think a lot of people avoid pasta dishes as they immediately think about the carbs. however in my opinion, if you have pasta with lots of rich vegetables and proteins then it can be a quick and easy way to make a healthy and colourful square meal. 

when i saw that foodies 100 were collaborating with giovanni rana in a food challenge where you can win a pasta masterclass, i knew i'd have to enter. if you read my blog you'll know i love to experiment with pasta. 

so incorporating the giovanni delicato cheese ravioli into a layered up vegetarian lasagne, i created a ravoli bake, or perhaps a ravagne? with the four cheeses ricotta, parmigiano reggiano, gorgonzola, pecorino romano along with roasted vegetables in this recipe, you get two of your five a day whilst indulging in the cheesy ravioli layers.

christmas in july with carluccio's.

i couldn't have been happier upon arriving at carluccio's christmas in july event and being met with an ice cold, freshly squeezed lemon granita and glorious italian summer grub. on such a boiling hot day, i'm not sure if i could have gulped down a piece of dense christmas cake and some mulled wine. this refreshing feast was hosted at the bond street carluccio's, where i was introduced to the new foodie products and gifts for christmas 2014.

balsamic prosciutto, mozzarella and rocket salad.

another simple italian supper in the form of a prosciutto, mozzarella and rocket salad drizzled with balsamic vinegar. like the caprese salad, this is very easy to put together and allows great tasting ingredients to harmonise on the plate. 

amalfi white, melbourne, derbyshire.

with an italian brasseire restaurant, prosecco and cocktail bar, an opulent ballroom and even a cookery school, the newly opened amalfi white in melbourne has something to allure your tastebuds for all occasions. over the festive period, i happened to visit twice and found this out for sure. my dad, who often spends christmas abroad, booked a weekend lunch sitting to enjoy a family meal before he went off to sunny madeira. coincidentally, myself and school friends arranged an evening catch up over cocktails just days after. 

cini restaurant and bar, leicester.

recently, i met my mum and sister after work at a local italian i've been meaning to try out for so long: cini. just a walk away from my offices, this traditional italian restaurant with a modern finish has a deal that between 5-7pm they serve the lunch menu where all the mains are £7. so i sipped on an ice cold glass of rose whilst i looked through the menu of fresh ravioli, pizzas, calzones, italian salads and pasta dishes which you could choose to have penne or spaghetti. 

midlands foodie meet up at peter pizzeria, loughborough.

after the fun foodie meet up at kayal last month, we naturally decided to arrange another. getting to talk about food for a good few hours and not being embarrassed to take pictures of each other's meals - what foodie wouldn't like that? so since last time the loughborough foodies came over to leicester, this time i made my way to loughborough to try the newly opened peter pizzeria on ashby square. there were a couple of new faces too - local baker louise who created the "something divine" chocolate dessert on the peter pizzera menu and chocolatier dan of loughborough's chocolate alchemy. 

homemade ravioli filled with sun dried tomatoes and boursin.

 

as you may have noticed - i'm really getting into pasta making lately. my pasta machine really has been one of the best christmas gifts i've ever received! i've been getting my friends into it making it with me too - which is really fun even if it does test their patience a little :)

so my boyfriend and i decided to have a go at making homemade ravioli - i have to give credit to him that he thought of the sun dried tomato and boursin cheese filling which worked really well.

begin by making the homemade pasta dough as in this post - we used 200g pasta flour and 2 eggs which i find makes 2 portions. then fill with your favourite ingredients like so...

 

five-a-day vegetable lasagne.

just wanted to share this yummy and healthy (ish) vegetable lasagne i made for my friends at the weekend. one of my friends is a veggie so i decided to plonk as many vegetables as i thought would go together into a pan, add tomato sauce and layer up in a lasagne. 

i was pretty pleased with the results and they even went back for seconds... yay! i like to think this would be almost all your five a day in one go. though the cheese probably cancels that out. let me know if you try it! :)

this was also the first thing i've made in my new kitchen. if you follow me on twitter you'll know i've been super busy moving house lately - still got lots of posts to write up even from my old kitchen!

product review: really cheesy lactose free lasagne with lactofree.

shopping list
for the lasagne
♥ 500g lean beef mince
♥ 6 fresh lasagne sheets
♥ 400g your favourite tomato based cooking sauce
♥ lactofree cheese, grated
♥ one onion, chopped
♥ three cloves of garlic, chopped

for the white sauce
♥ 1l of lactofree milk/dairy drink
♥ 50g flour
♥ 50g soya butter

as you may have noticed from my posts about flourless brownies and vegan pumpkin soup, i quite like having a go at trying out recipes for friends with special dietary requirements. i love making lasagne and can't imagine having to cut it out of my diet should i discover i couldn't eat ingredients containing lactose. so here i present you - lactose free lasagne with products from lactofree! 

preheat the over to 200 degrees celsius.

begin by making lasagne in the regular way - here i added in the onions and garlic followed by the meat. then, once the meat has browned add in the tomato sauce. i used oil here, but if you like to use butter with your onions and garlic you can of course use a little of the soya butter.

for the white sauce, begin by adding in the 50g of soya butter. i believe lacto free also do a butter but they didn't stock it in this particular supermarket.

once the butter has melted, add in the flour like in picture 4. once thickened, slowly add in the milk bit by bit until it starts to look like picture 6. if it needs thickening up, add a little more flour. i don't have a picture of this bit as it required me to have about 3 pairs of hands so sorry about that. however, it then ends up looking whiter and whiter as in the following pictures. it should take around 10 minutes on a medium heat.

layer up the lasagne as you normally would. here i have lightly boiled the fresh lasagne sheets for around 5 minutes. for an extra cheesy taste i added in sprinkles of grated lactofree cheese on each layer.

on the last layer, add lots of lovely lactose free cheese and put in the oven for 30-45 minutes. and there you have it - noone would ever know the difference! :)

la torre, coalville, leicestershire.

an absolute little gem of north west leicestershire, i was lucky enough to be taken here for my birthday last week. in the nicest way possible, the town of coalville isn't the most obvious of places for an authentic italian bistro. but i can't recommend it enough and was so pleased to see that, judging by the bustling atmosphere for a thursday night, other people agree. 

as you can see, the presentation of the food speaks volumes too. i had a stunning fillet steak wrapped in parma ham, topped with dolcelatte cheese and served on a bed of rocket. known as the filleto dolce parma, this comes in at £18.90 and comes with fresh seasonal veg. don't be put off by prices though - there were lots of other dishes around the £10 mark. i was just making the most of my birthday! :)

now, anything with steak, parma ham and rocket and i'm sold. i'm not really a fan of strong cheese but i trusted that the chef knew better than me and didn't ask for it to be altered. i'm SO glad i just went with it - it was divine! i asked for it rare and as you can see from my (sorry a tad messy) picture, the meat was perfectly cooked. 

for dessert, i had a special which was a chocolate terrine. it came quite cold and melted in the mouth. i was slightly disappointed as i don't really like cold chocolate (people that put chocolate in the fridge truly baffle me) and expected more of a mousse in a pot. but hey, it's chocolate right?

www.latorrecoalville.co.uk

prawn and pea risotto.

shopping list
♥ 200g arborio risotto rice
♥ 180g frozen jumbo prawns
♥ 100g peas
♥ 200ml vegetable stock
♥ one white onion, chopped
♥ two garlic cloves, chopped
♥ block of parmigiano reggiano
♥ a knob of butter
♥ lots of black pepper

makes two large portions.

so i decided to make risotto for my lovely friend nicky. with her as chief taster of course!

begin by caramelising the garlic and onion in a pan on a low heat with butter. 

after about ten minutes, add the risotto rice and lightly toast by moving around the pan for about thirty seconds before adding the stock. 

next, simmer for around 20 minutes whilst adding the stock bit by bit. add a little bit of cheese and stir it in - especially if you like your risotto extra creamy! 

don't be afraid to make more stock if you think it needs more - just don't let it stick to the pan and keep on stirring.

lastly, add the prawns about ten minutes before the end and peas five minutes before the end. it should (hopefully) all come together so that the prawns and peas have defrosted at the same time the rice is cooked.  

serve with a little black pepper, grated cheese and a smile.

salmon and spinach lasagne.

shopping list

♥ three salmon fillets
♥ one bag of spinach
♥ one white onion
♥ three cloves of garlic
♥ three fresh lasagne sheets
♥ 250g mascapone
♥ a handful of dill





begin by wrapping up the salmon steaks in tin foil with a splash of olive oil and a little black pepper. put them in the oven for around 20 minutes whilst you prepare the filling for the other layers.












for the spinach layer, begin by cooking the chopped onion and garlic in a pan with a touch of oil or butter. then little by little add the spinach until wilted. this will take around ten minutes.





next, prepare the mascapone layer by mixing in a handful of dill and lots of black pepper. 




by this time your salmon should be mostly cooked and flakey enough to make a salmon layer - the key is that it still stays quite chunky. don't worry if it isn't fully cooked as it will be when baked later.



i began by putting the salmon in the bottom of the lasagne dish, followed by the spinach and onion mixture, followed by a sheet of lasagne.




then put a layer of mascapone, salmon and spinach. any order is fine really as long as have two layers of salmon and enough mascapone to go on the top at the end.


bake for 30 minutes at 200 degrees, or until the top is golden brown. 

and voila! 

swanky spag bol.

shopping list 

♥ your favourite cut of steak - i use either rump or sirloin

 ♥ around 75g of fresh tagliatelle or linguine pasta per person 

♥ half a dozen cherry tomatoes per person 

♥ 400g chopped tomatoes 

♥ one red onion, chopped
♥ two cloves of crushed garlic
♥ a twist of black pepper

♥ a knob of butter

forget measly minced beef, 7p tins of pasta sauce and trying to pass off stale spaghetti as "al dente." some of us student types like to live in style. so here i present to you a posh(ish) alternative to good old spag bol with nice chunky cuts of steak, fresh pasta and homemade sauce.

begin by turning the hob to a medium heat and throwing half the knob of butter into a frying or grill pan. when the pan is nice and hot, place in the steak and grind a little pepper on top. try to only turn the steak once; around three minutes each side for rare, five minutes each side for medium and seven minutes each side for well done. when you are happy with your steak lay it to one side on a clean, flat surface to rest. (probably not a student worktop then).

next is to make the pasta sauce and cook the pasta. boil a kettle and leave the pasta to cook on a back hob whilst you have the pasta sauce on the go.

for the pasta sauce, use the remaining butter in a saucepan to soften the crushed garlic and chopping onions on a medium heat for a around five minutes. next tip in the chopped tomatoes and whole cherry tomatoes and leave to simmer for a further five minutes.

now that you have all the components ready for this culinary creation, slice up the steak into lovely chunks, discarding the fattier edges if you wish. it should be lovely and pink inside. unless you foolishly opted for 'well done', ahem.

next throw in the steak to the sauce and keep on a low-ish heat as to make sure it is all hot and cooked through but try not to cook the steak any further. drain the pasta ready to serve. if you like, add torn basil leaves, grated Parmesan or black pepper to taste.

and abracadabra, your new favourite italian dish.

oh and if you aren't already convinced, click on the picture of the finished result, where that particular time i used a mix of egg and spinach fresh pasta and rump steak. i feel like the thumbnail doesn't do it justice.


thanks for stopping by my blog :)

♥