What's your *not* secret recipe?

[MooseBreath]

Like pretty much every mum, I am bored of my usual meals on rotation.

Everybody seems to make food in their own style, which is such an interesting concept. I like my cooking, but I feel like I should branch out and try things differently. Cook books are fine, but are filled with recipes I don't care about amongst the gems. Pinterest is a minefield of crap.

So just for fun, I am including my favourite recipe and ask that posters leave theirs! Bog standard is totally fine (the easier the better), but a different style could change things up!

Mediterranean Pasta (serves 4)
15 minutes!
Ingredients
350g Penne pasta
2 chicken breasts
Chilli pepper
Red pepper
1/2 Red onion
75g Baby spinach
10 Kalamata olives
3 Garlic cloves
Feta cheese (to taste)
Pine nuts (to taste)
Chilli flakes (to taste)
4tbsp Olive oil
Salt
Pepper

1. Boil pasta
2. Flatten and grill chicken breasts seasoned with salt and pepper
3. Chop onion, peppers, olives, and mince garlic
4. In a large skillet, heat oil
5. Fry onion, peppers, garlic, and chilli flakes for 5 minutes
6. Drain pasta
7. Add pasta, spinach, and olives to skillet. Mix well and heat until spinach wilts
8. Season with salt and pepper
9. Dish up. Crumble feta on top as desired, add pine nuts as desired. Top with 1/2 a chicken breast per dish.

*Inspired by lazycatkitchen

I hope this helps someone with the monotony of meal planning!

An easy one - I adapted this from an M&S ready meal my DM used to like. IMO my version is better!

For 2, one tin of salmon, skin and bones removed, flaked.
Stir into a white sauce, with S&P, a little grated cheese and a splash of white wine added.
Add to cooked pasta (I use penne) plus plenty of broccoli florets, cooked to just al dente and very well drained.
Done.

My roasted vegetable and vegan n'duja pasta sauce. (Obviously you can use regular n'duja).

Roast veg and vegan n’duja pasta

Roast aubergine, courgette, pepper (all cut into cubes) onion (cut into wedges) and unpeeled garlic in olive oil and seasoning until cooked with lightly blackened edges.

Put roasted onion, garlic and 3 teaspoons of nduja paste (more if you want it spicy) in blender and blitz to a smooth paste.

Fry off blended onion etc in olive oil. Add a tin of tomatoes. Add sugar. Add roasted veg. Reduce sauce down to a thick consistency.

Stir through pasta

Step 1: own a slow cooker.
Step 2: dump in the following:

500g frozen beef mince
2* tins refried beans
1* pack of sliced frozen papers
1* tin of kidney beans
1* pack of sliced frozen red onions
Chilli, garlic and paprika to taste (I'd recommend at least 2 tbsp due to the volume, butore can be added later).
1tbsp decaf coffee and 1tbsp cocoa powder

Step 3: stir
Step 4: when the day is over, dinner is served.

Some of these look delicious! Thank you everyone!

One of my favourite and easiest pasta dishes is pasta with fried chorizo slices, mozzarella and tomatoes.
I just tear the chorizo into little bits and put it on the pan for a couple minutes until crispy. Then chop the tomatoes and mozzarella up and mix it all together. Better if the mozarella is melted so I put it in the microwave with the pasta for a minute or two before adding the rest. 🍝

Half an onion, two or three cloves of garlic, teaspoon of ginger, coriander and a pinch of chilli flakes, wizz in food processor to chop finely, add a pack of smoked salmon trimmings and two salmon fillets wizz again until a soft slightly chunky consistency shape into burgers and cook in oven for 20 or 30 mins until cooked. Alternatively shape round an egg to make salmon ‘scotch eggs’ which is what we are having for tea with new potatoes and salad.