Category: Comforting

For the times when you need the edible equivalent of a hug.
Easy Gnocchi

Easy Gnocchi

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Four steps. Four ingredients. Four sentences. Boom!

No but seriously. I’ve been turning to pasta so much during my time at uni so far that the time has come to look beyond pasta. Admittedly gnocchi isn’t the most different thing I could have turned to, but it’s so quick and comforting that it’s perfect if you want to shake things up a little. Especially now that you can buy packs of semi-cooked ready-made gnocchi in most supermarkets you can rustle yourself up a bowl of this in minutes. As a tip I’d say that in order to get the best tasting dish you can buy a good a quality passata or tomato sauce. The one I used for the dish photographed here was a budget range one and it was so sour that it made the whole thing taste really meh, but if you get a good one (maybe even with herbs in if you want to be a little fancy) it’ll transform the whole dish!

Recipe

Serves 2

Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

  • 1 Packet of Gnocchi (around 500g)
  • 400g Tomato passata
  • Fresh bail to garnish (optional)
  • Cheddar cheese or Parmesan to finish

Method

  1. Put a pan of water on a high heat and leave to boil.
  2. Add the gnocchi and cook to the packet’s instructions.
  3. Drain the gnocchi and add the passata. Stir to combine and then leave with the lid on for a few minutes to warm the passata through.
  4. Pop the gnocchi into two bowls and top with the basil and a little grated cheese!

Thanks for reading!

Emma x
Lentil and Kidney Bean Bolognese

Lentil and Kidney Bean Bolognese

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We all have that one vegan friend. You know, the one who eats falafel and carrot sticks and likes to remind you that they’re vegan? Well soon that’s gonna be me! My friend Kat and I are planning on going Vegan for Veganuary, however as that’s a pretty big step we’ve decided to work our way up to it by first going vegetarian and refined sugar free for November (bring on the hummus and carrot sticks!). I was veggie a couple of years ago, and so I’ve got a few recipes up my sleeve to start with like this insanely good Bolognese. This is something I made all the time way back when and I now make it way more than the beef version. It’s full of beans and lentils so it’s got lots of protein in it and as lentils can be kept in the cupboard for years you can rustle this up whenever you want! For any meat eaters out there who are thinking why make something meat-esk, just use meat, try this. It tastes amazing. You won’t regret it.

Recipe

Serves 4

Time: 25 minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 tbsp Oil
  • 1 White onion
  • 2 Carrots
  • 2 Garlic cloves
  • 500g Red lentils
  • 400g Chopped tomatoes
  • 1 tbsp Tomato puree
  • 1L Vgetable stock
  • 1 tsp Mixed herbs
  • 500g Spaghetti
  • 400g Kidney beans
  • Chedda cheese, grated to serve (optional)
  • Fresh Basil to serve (optional)

Method

  1. Put the oil into a large saucepan. Peel and then finely dice the onions and then add them to the oil. Place over a medium-high heat and fry until starting to caramelise.
  2. Peel the carrots and garlic cloves and then dice them. You want the carrots in chunks and the garlic to be finely diced. Add to the onions, mix and then fry for another 2-3 minutes until soft.
  3. Put the lentils, chopped tomatoes, tomato puree and vegetable stock into the pan and leave to simmer for 15-20 minutes until the lentils have cooked through.
  4. Meanwhile put another pan of water on a high heat for the spaghetti. Bring to the boil and then add the spaghetti and cook to the packet’s instructions (normally about 10 minutes).
  5. Add the mixed herbs, kidney beans to the bolognese mix and leave to simmer for another 3-5 minutes.
  6. Drain the spaghetti and serve with the bolognese, grated cheese and a little basil!

Thanks for reading!

Emma x

 
Easy Chocolate Pudding with Chocolate Custard

Easy Chocolate Pudding with Chocolate Custard

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From an easy main to an easy dessert, I love making complicated things but there are those times when you just need something you can throw together without thinking about it. Being a student I’m truly experiencing the struggles of little money, little space and little time, so that’s when something like this becomes a godsend. This can be made in the oven or a microwave and so it’s the perfect last-minute, ‘I need chocolate cake now’ kind of dessert.

Of course no good fudgy sponge cake is complete without a good dollop of custard. For this one I’ve used custard powder. Whilst I think fresh custard made with eggs is always a lot nicer, you can’t deny the ease and speed at which you can make custard with a powder mix, so in the interest of preserving your sanity this custard recipe is as quick and as easy as you could want it to be! By extension though, if you don’t want to bother making custard at all, or if you don’t have a hob at your disposal you can use packet custard and then either add cocoa powder to it or just leave it as a vanilla custard.

Recipe

Serves  8

Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients

For the sponge

  • 180g Butter
  • 80g Light brown sugar
  • 50g Cocoa powder
  • 3 Large eggs
  • 2 tbsp Whole milk
  • 175g Self raising flour

For the custard

  • 400ml Milk
  • 5 tbsp Custard powder
  • 5 tbsp Light brown sugar
  • 25g Cocoa powder

To serve

  • Fresh berries (e.g blueberries, strawberries or raspberries)
  • Ice cream or Sorbet (I recommend raspberry sorbet with this!)

Method

  1. Take a 1L pudding bowl and butter the inside (this can be any kind of bowl but just make sure it’s not metal as it’ll be going into the microwave).
  2. Put the butter and sugar into a bowl and beat until smooth. Add the cocoa powder to the mix and then stir until combined.
  3. Add the eggs and milk to the batter and whisk them in, followed by the flour to get a pourable mixture.
  4. Pour the mixture into the greased pudding bowl and cover loosely with clingfilm. Then microwave for 4 ½ minutes on high heat until cooked through. Check the pudding with a skewer to make sure the centre’s not raw, and then leave the pudding to rest for a few minutes.
  5. Meanwhile make the custard. Put the milk into a pan and bring to the boil.
  6. Put the custard powder, sugar and cocoa powder into a bowl and whisk together. Pour a little of the milk onto the mixture and whisk in to make a smooth paste. Then slowly pour the rest of the warm milk into the mixture, whisking constantly, until combined.
  7. Pour the custard mix back into the pan and then cook whilst whisking over a medium heat until the mixture thickens.
  8. Turn the pudding out onto a plate and then pour some of the custard over the top. Serve slices of the pudding with the rest of the custard, fresh berries and sorbet/ice-cream!

Thanks for reading!

Emma x
Easy Spaghetti Carbonara

Easy Spaghetti Carbonara

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Things I have learnt from uni so far:

  1. Do not boil pasta in a kettle (thanks for that one Ivo).
  2. Banana and pasta is not a bad combination, but equally I would not recommended it.
  3. You can have too many chilli flakes in tuna pasta.
  4. There’s nothing you can do to pasta that will make it taste bad. Apart from puree it.

Ok so, I’m not cooking for myself this year at uni, but I am getting to cook for myself at the weekend! I thought would be this really cool thing to look forward to but apart from my experimental pumpkin pie (fyi a golden syrup bottle does not work as a rolling pin!) I’ve returned to just making a LOT of pasta. As this seems to be a uni staple I thought I’d represent one of m’ faves on here.

There seems to be something at Oxford called the 5th week blues, which is basically the wave of sadness and despair that hits everyone just after the half way mark in the term. Having just blindly walked into too much to do, with the words ‘do not over commit’ ringing strongly in my ears as I continue to over commit myself, I turn to a big bowl of this to solve all my problems. 5(ish) ingredients, 2 pans, easy to portion. What’s not to love?

Recipe

Serves 2

Time: 10-20 minutes (depending on how quickly your spaghetti cooks)

Ingredients

  • 4 Rashers of Bacon (or 2 slices of ham)
  • 8 Chestnut mushrooms (or one large closed cup mushroom)
  • 50g Dried spaghetti
  • 300ml Double cream
  • 50g Cheddar cheese, grated
  • A few leaves of fresh basil (optional)

Method

  1. Take a large sauce pan and put over a medium-high heat. Chop the bacon into strips with scissors into the pan and fry until cooked through and crispy.
  2. Meanwhile chop the mushrooms into rough slices (or dice it if you’re using a large mushroom). Add the mushroom to the pan with the bacon. Fry for 2-3 minutes, stirring occasionally until the bacon is crispy and the mushrooms have shrunk.
  3. Whilst waiting for the bacon to crisp up, put a pan of water on a high heat to pre-boil for the pasta. Once boiled add the spaghetti and a pinch of salt. Stir once and then leave the pasta to boil to the packet’s instructions (about 10 minutes).
  4. To finish off the sauce pour the cream over the bacon and mushrooms. Then add the grated cheese and stir until the cheese has melted. Leave on a low heat to warm the cream through and simmer gently, but do not boil.
  5. Drain the spaghetti once it’s ready and then add it to the sauce. Mix everything together and then serve with fresh basil!

Thanks for reading!

Emma x
Chicken Ramen

Chicken Ramen

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Ladies and gentlemen, I have flu. Like really bad flu. Like the rip your nostrils out, shove a fog horn down your throat kinda flu. So whilst I was going to do something more halloween-y for today’s post, I’ve resorted to what I’d actually want to be eating right now – this soothing bowl of chicken ramen soup. Think of this as pot noodle+. It’s pretty quick to make, and I can safely say that no matter how hung over, ill or dead you are, you will be able to make this. So if you’re like me right now and you feel like the walking dead, rustle yourself up (or find a nice person to do that bit for you) and glug down a decent bowl of this and I promise you you’ll feel a little bit better.

Recipe

Serves 2

Time: 25 minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 Chicken Breasts
  • 1L Chicken stock
  • 2 ‘Layers’ of Noodles
  • 4 Spring onions
  • 2 Handfuls of Baby spinach

Method

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 180˚C. Put the chicken breasts on a sheet of tin foil and then wrap it up around the chicken so the join of the foil is on top. Then put this in a small roasting tin and roast in the oven for 15-20 minutes until cooked all the way through (so it’s not pink inside).
  2. Put the chicken stock into a pan and heat up. (You can make this by putting 1L of water into a pan with a chicken stock cube and bringing it up to the boil.)
  3. Add the noodles and boil until they’re soft but not too floppy.
  4. Meanwhile take the spring onions and chop the tops and tails off them. Then finely slice them into little discs. Add half the spring onions to the stock, keeping the other half for later.
  5. Once the chicken is ready slice it into 1cm slices.
  6. Ladle the stock into 2 bowls. Then portion the noodles between the bowls.
  7. Top with the slices chicken breast, the rest of the spring onions, and a handful of baby spinach on each bowl. Serve!

(Note: If you don’t have an oven you can chop the chicken into chunks and then poach it in the stock until it’s cooked all the way through!)

Thanks for reading!

Emma x