Healthy and Delicious Mushroom Straganoff

Straganoff is a Russian dish normally made with beef strips but a few clever substitutes can turn this traditional creamy casserole into a low fat, low calorie and delicious meal.

Mushroom Straganoff

Ingredients: (Serves 3)

• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1 onion (I used two small onions)
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 400g mixed mushrooms
• 250ml vegetable or beef stock
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 3 tablespoons low fat sour cream (I used low fat cream with a squeeze of lemon juice)
• small bunch of parsley, roughly chopped
• 250g cooked brown wild rice

Ingredients

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a large pan and soften the onion for about 5 minutes.
2. Add the garlic and the paprika and cook for 1 minute more.
3. Add the mushrooms and cook on a high heat, stirring often for about 5 minutes.
4. Pour in the stock and the Worcestershire sauce. Bring to the boil for 5 minutes until the sauce thickens.
5. Then turn off the heat and stir in the cream and the parsley. Make sure the pan isn't too hot or the sauce may split.
6. Serve with the cooked rice.

Healthy and delicious

Scrumptious Butternut and Sage lasagne

I went to a fresh fruit and vegetable grocer on the weekend and there was a special on butternut, so as you do I bought a few packs and decided to use the butternut in creative ways. So tonight, I decided to make a butternut and sage lasagna. It was an experiment and turned out well, my family was well impressed. I used the smooth cottage cheese as an alternative to a Béchamel sauce, for a low fat and low calorie alternative but for a more luxurious option use a basic Béchamel sauce.

 

Butternut and Sage Lasagne

Ingredients: (Serves 4)

• 750g butternut
• 1 small red onion diced
• 250g lasagna sheets (I used spinach lasagna sheets as I had some left over)
• 5 cloves of garlic
• Handful of fresh sage
• 250g low fat cream cheese
• 200g mozzarella
• 5ml nutmeg
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper

The main ingredients

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.
2. Cut the butternut into smallish pieces and place in a roasting pan with the dice onion, fresh sage and whole garlic cloves. And a good few glugs of Olive oil
3. While the butternut is in the oven, grate half of the cheese and mix with the cottage cheese, salt, pepper and the nutmeg.
4. Roast the butternut until soft and golden this should take 30 minutes approximately.
5. When the butternut is soft mash into a rough mash.
6. Layer the butternut mix, pasta and “white sauce” in alternate layers with the cheese and some sage leaves ontop.
7. Bake in the oven for 30mins or until the pasta is cooked.

Perfection!

Use yesterday's Pesto recipe and make today's Pesto Pasta!

For lunch today I decided to use what I made yesterday, add a couple of minor ingredients and make a delcious Pesto Pasta. The dish came out beautifully... Appealing to the eye as well as to the tastebuds! Try it, it won't disappoint.

Simple Coriander and Almond Pesto Pasta

Ingredients:

• 1 batch of the coriander and almond pesto (recipe on blog)
• 250ml sour cream/creme fraiche (I used creme fraiche)
• 1 bag of pasta
• 1 handful of shaved almonds
• Parmesan cheese, grated.

Ingredients

Method:

1. Boil your pasta in boiling, salted water.
2. While your pasta is boiling, in a bowl, mix together your pesto and sour cream/creme fraiche, creating a light green in colour and creamy consistency'd sauce (add more or less to your liking)
3. Fry the almonds in a dry frying pan (lightly toasting them). Be careful to not burn them.
4. When the Pasta is al dente, drain, and put into your desired serving bowl.
5. Pour the sour cream/creme fraiche and pesto mixture over the pasta and toss. (making sure that all the pasta has some sauce on it)
6. Put the desired portions into serving dishes, sprinkle with toasted almonds and some freshly grated parmesan, serve and enjoy!

Enjoy!

Vegetarian option for the day...

This vegetarian dish (Melenzane Parmigiana) is delicious. Whenever we have a glut of aubergines in our vegetable garden this is one of our "go to" recipes! It is flavoursome, filling and fairly easy to prepare. Try it if you haven't before...or even if you have and you know you'd enjoy it! The recipe called for basil leaves, but in Cape Town basil is not in season at the moment, so I went and bought some basil pesto to replace it. It actually worked really well and gave the dish a wonderful taste. Unfortunately I did not put the basil pesto in the "ingredients" photograph as I went to buy it at the last minute.

Here is the recipe:

Melenzane Parmigiana

Ingredients:

• 3 medium aubergines
• 125ml olive oil + extra for greasing the dish and frying the onion.
• 1 onion, peeled and finely chopped.
• 2 large cloves garlic, crushed
• 120ml flat leaf parsley, chopped finely
• 1 tablespoon dried oreganum
• 1 tin tomaoes/ 6 really ripe tomatoes, peeled.
• 25ml tomato paste
• salt and pepper
• 250g sliced/grated mozzerella
• 250ml basil leaves chopped/ 50ml basil pesto
• 100g parmesan grated
• 400ml cream (only if you planning on freezing this dish and reheating it)

Ingredients

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade
2. Slice the aubergines lengthwise in thickish slices (Don't peel), lay them in a collinder and sprinkle with salt and allow them to drain for 10- 15 minutes.
3. Fry aubergine slices in olive oil until soft and cooked, put aside.
4. Fry the onion in a pot until soft and translucent. Add the garlic, parsley and oregano and fry over a low heat for 1-2 minutes. Do not burn the garlic.
5. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, pinch of salt and black pepper to the onion and garlic mixture. Cover and cook gently for +/- 35 minutes. (If it seems to watery, reduce it for a bit with the lid off)
6. Grease a deep baking dish with olive oil.
7. Cover the bottom layer with aubergine, follow with a layer of the tomato sauce, then a layer of mozzerella. Repeat until you have run out of one of the ingredients.
8. Finally sprinkle with a generous layer of parmesan.
9. Bake for +/- 40 minutes.
10. If you freeze this dish and reheat it, then about 3 minutes before removing it from the oven add 50ml or more cream (depending on the size of your dish) .
11. Serve with a side, green salad, enjoy!

Ready to enjoy!

Recipe Source: Sumptuous, Marlene Van Der Westhuizen

Vegetarian Pasta Dish

You may feel as though I am repeating one of the previous pasta recipes that has been posted on this blog, but this one has some slight alterations and I thought I might as well share it with you. This tomato based pasta dish is really so versatile and one can basically do anything to it, but here is what I did with it this weekend.

Here is the recipe

Creamy Tomato and mushroom pasta, with toasted almonds:

Ingredients:

• 1 bag of penne pasta
• 10 or more field mushrooms, diced (chunky rather than sliced)  
• 1 punnet of cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1 tin chopped, peeled tomatoes
• 45ml cream
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped
• 5ml chilli flakes or 1 dried chilli chopped.
• 15ml tomato paste
• 30ml olive oil + extra for pasta

Some things that I added at the last minute that aren't in the picture, but that are an asset to the recipe are:

• 60ml red wine
• 5ml dried oreganum
• 100ml shaved almonds, toasted
• salt and pepper
• Parmesan

Ingredients

Method:

1. Bring a large pot of water to the boil, add salt to the water.
2. Add the pasta to the boiling water and allow to cook until al dente. Then drain.
3. In a smallish pot heat up the olive oil and add the garlic. Cook for 1 to 2 minutes.
4. Add the mushrooms to the garlic and olive oil and brown.
5. Add the tomatoes to the mushroom mixture and fry for 1-2 minutes.
6. Then add the tinned tomatoes and tomato paste and allow to simmer for 3 to 5 minutes.
7. Add the red wine and allow to simmer for 5 minutes.
8. Add the oreganum and chilli flakes and cream and allow to simmer for 2 minutes.
9. Taste sauce and add an appropriate amount of seasoning.
10. Pour some olive oil over the cooked pasta to help it not to stick together. 
11. To dish, fill a bowl with the pasta, add sauce, sprinkle with grated parmesan and toasted almonds and enjoy!



Wonderful!



Pasta with Butternut, Sage and Pine Nuts

I’m forever searching the Internet on food blogs or websites or whatever comes my way for new and exciting recipes to try. My dad found this recipe and it looked delish so I just had to try it. This is a great vegetarian meal, you wont miss the meat at all.  Butternut and sage is a classic combination and this is a great twist on an old favorite. Give it a try...

Pan- Fried Pasta with Butternut, Fried Sage, and Pine Nuts

Ingredients: (serves 4)

• 1 medium butternut
• 1 small sweet onion, peeled and diced
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• Olive Oil
• Salt and pepper
• ½ cup of sage leaves
• 500g Farfalle pasta
• ¾ cups pine nuts, toasted
• About one cup of Parmesan shaved or finely grated



Ingredients



 

Method:

1. Heat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
2. Cut the butternut in half and scoop out the strings and seeds out of the middle.
3. Cut the squash into about 2.5cm cubes.
4. Toss the onion, garlic, a drizzle of olive oil and salt and pepper.
5. Mince about half of the fresh sage leaves and toss with the butternut.
6. Spread the butternut mixture in a thin layer on a large baking sheet and roast for about 40 minutes or until the squash is soft.
7. Heat the salted pasta water till boiling and cook the Farfalle until al dente. Drain and set aside.
8. As the squash finishes roasting, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large high-sided sauté pan.  The oil is ready when it pops and sputters (don’t let it start smoking). Drop the rest of the sage leaves and fry for about a minute or until they begin to shrivel up.
9. Remove with a slotted spoon and salt lightly. Crush with the back of a spoon.
10. Add half the pasta to the pan, along with half the roasted butternut mixture. Crumble in half the sage. Cook, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes or until the pasta is heated through and getting crispy on some of the edges.
11. Add the pine nuts and cook for another minute. Stir in half of the cheese.
12. (Don’t forget to add salt and pepper to taste)

 For a more luxurious version bacon and creamy Danish feta could be added.



Frying the pasta with the butternut





Delicious and ready to enjoy


Pictures courtesy of The Kitchn Food Blog
www.thekitchn.com/recipe-pasta-with-buternut-sq-64966