Red Pepper and Goat's Cheese Pasta

This recipe was fast and easy to make and it tasted incredible! It's definitely one of our favorite recipe's we've made so far and I'm sure we'll be making it again. Buying the pre-grilled red peppers makes the process even easier, although you can grill your own peppers if you want. The recipe calls for mixing in artichoke hearts and kalamata olives but I sadly couldn't find either in the store here so I just made it without them, still tasted amazing although I'm sure the artichokes and olives would give it an extra kick! I made a quick piece of cheese garlic bread for each of us as well so it was a great meal all together.

Ingredients

1/2 pound pasta (I used fettuccine noodles but you can use whatever you'd like)
2 tablespoons butter
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 cup heavy cream
4 ounces goats cheese
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
2 roasted red peppers, coarsely chopped
1 handful basil
Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions

1) Begin to cook the pasta as directed on the package. As the pasta is cooking you can make the rest of the sauce. Once the sauce is done the pasta will be perfect.

2) Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat, add the chopped garlic and cook about one minute.

3) Add the cream, goat's cheese, parmesan and roasted red peppers and simmer until the cheese has melted, stirring constantly so it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan.

4) Remove from heat, season with salt and pepper, add a handful of basil. You can puree with a hand blender if you'd like but I didn't and liked having the texture of the chopped peppers.

5) Drain the pasta and add it to the sauce, stirring until the pasta is coated.

6) Serve, and garnish with more parmesan and basil if desired.

Cauliflower macaroni cheese

Heather made this one last week after seeing a meat version of it on Jamie Oliver's 30 minute meals. I never would have thought of putting breadcrumbs on any kind of pasta bake, they go so well with it.


Ingredients:
1 head of cauliflower
500g macaroni
250g mature cheddar
4 slices of bread
2 cloves of garlic
250g crème fraîche
Rosemary
Olive oil

(Optional to add when serving:)
Parmesan cheese


Preparation:

1) Remove outer leaves from the cauliflower and cut it into 4 big pieces. Put those and the macaroni in a large saucepan and cover with boiling water.

2) Add some salt, pepper and olive oil, then put on high heat to cook. While that's cooking, pre-heat the oven to 220C (425F).

3) To make the breadcrumbs: Crumble the bread finely while adding the rosemary and a little olive oil. Or if you have a food processor that'll make it faster.

4) When the pasta and cauliflower are cooked, take them out of the saucepan but keep the water you cooked them in.

5) Get a deep dish or baking tray that you'll be putting in the oven, and put the macaroni and cauliflower in it. Add about 400ml of the cooking water and break the cauliflower up into bite size pieces.

6) Grate the cheddar and crush the garlic and in a bowl mix these with the crème fraîche. Add this mixture to the baking dish and stir well through the macaroni and cauliflower.

7) Once you have this all mixed and spread evenly over the dish, sprinkle the breadcrumbs on top.

8) Cook in the top shelf of the oven for 8-10 minutes, or until it starts bubbling and the breadcrumbs on top are going brown.

9) Add some parmesan on top if desired when serving.

Veg enchiladas

Heather made these for dinner last night and they were amazing. Especially the sauce, so much better than any store-bought ones.


Ingredients:
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup tomato paste
1 can black beans
Some grated cheese
10oz spinach
1 cup corn
2 cups zucchini
Veg broth
2 tbps olive oil
3 tbps cumin
6-8 flour tortilla wraps

(Optional for toppings:)
Guacamole
Black olives
Sour cream
Jalapeños


Preparation:

1) First to make the sauce: heat the olive oil in a saucepan, and add 2tbps of the cumin, the flour and the tomato paste.

2) Whisk for 1 minute, then whisk in the veg broth and water, and bring it to boil.

3) Reduce the heat and simmer for 5-7 minutes until it's thickened. Season with salt and pepper and it's ready. While that's simmering, pre-heat the oven to 200C (400F).

4) Cook the zuchinni and spinach.

5) Combine 2 cups of the grated cheese, beans, spinach, corn and zucchini. Add some salt, pepper and 1 tbps cumin.

6) Fill the tortillas with this mixture you've just made, and in a rectangular baking pan big enough for the tortillas place them seam down in the pan alongside each other.

7) Drizzle the sauce and a little more of the grated cheese on top, allowing some of the sauce to get down to the bottom of the tortillas too, and bake in the oven until it's bubbly.

8) Add any of the optional toppings you want (it's great with the guacamole and sour cream) and it's ready to serve.

Corn chowder

My friend Amanda made this one day when I was over for dinner years ago and I only got around to trying her recipe for it last night. I changed a few things from her recipe to make it faster to cook, it still turned out so good. You can change the amounts of water and cream as you're going along at the end depending on how the consistency looks.


Ingredients:
1/2 stick of butter (about 50g)
Half an onion
2 sticks of celery
2 cups of water
2 potatoes
200g frozen corn kernels
1 can of creamed corn
2 tbps sugar
1 tbps salt
A little pepper
3 tbps flour
About 250ml cream


Preparation:

1) Defrost the frozen corn.

2) Cook the potatoes, peel them and chop them into small cubes.

3) While the potatoes are cooking, get a large saucepan that you'll be using for the chowder and put in on medium heat.

4) Chop the celery and onion into very small pieces.

5) Melt the butter in the saucepan and toss in the flour, mix together constantly for a couple of minutes until it forms a roux.

6) Add the celery and onion to the mixture and stir them in. Cook for about 5-10 minutes until they're all soft but not going brown. Stir or toss around often so it doesn't stick to the bottom.

7) Add the water, potatoes, corn, creamed corn, sugar, salt and pepper and stir together well. Use a potato mashed to crush the ingredients together for a few minutes while that starts cooking. This will leave it fairly chunky. Alternatively, if you prefer it smoother you can use a wire whisk. Cover the saucepan and reduce the heat until it's just simmering. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring every few minutes.

8) Add the cream and stir well into the chowder. Leave it to simmer for another 5 minutes and it should be ready. You can add more cream or water during this step as necessary depending on how the consistency looks.

9) Leave to cool for a few minutes and it's ready to serve.