This is one of our favourite stir fry combinations. I can’t find if I’ve shared it or not previously, so maybe I haven’t, although it’s one we’ve been eating for years. My favourite flavour ‘profile’ is a sweet/salty combo, which is exactly what the Oyster sauce and honey give to this dish.

In the above picture I left out the cashews because the little fella was eating it too, but we normally have cashews in this dish.

I apologise for the lack of sauce measurements. I don’t measure, just slosh it in. Add a little of both the oyster sauce and honey, a tablespoon or two to start, give it a good mix, taste and adjust. Add more honey if you like it sweeter, add more of both if you like your stir fry saucy.

If you toss noodles through the stir fry, particularly rice noodles, they will absorb some of the extra sauce, giving them lots of flavour. I used hokkein noodles in the picture above.

Below are the vegetable that I usually use, but as always, add what you have in the crisper. Mushrooms or snow peas make a nice addition. Serves 2 – 4 a flexible dish; add more or less depending on serving needs.

Method

1. Chop all ingredients first so that they are ready. The meat will be more tender if you cut it against the grain thinly, cook it very briefly at high heat until just cooked through (it will continue to cook once you remove it from the pan and you will be adding it back later, so no need to cook it to death now) and avoid boiling it in the sauce later. This goes with all types of meat in any stir fry, although you can cook beef or lamb so that it is still a little pink and it will be cooked through by the end.  I defrost the beans by soaking them for a minute or two in boiling water from the kettle.
2. Heat a wok or pan to high, add a little oil (not olive it will burn) and stir fry chicken in batches until just cooked through. Remove from wok.
3. Turn down the heat a little and add onion and stir fry for a minute or two until tender. Add capsicum and garlic and stir fry for a further minute.
4. Add vegetables and continue to stir fry for a couple of minutes before adding the sauces, stirring, tasting and adjusting. Cook until the vegetables are at your preferred tenderness. Meanwhile, prepare rice or noodles.
5. Add the cashews and chicken stir until chicken is heated through. Serve with rice or noodles.

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Well two weeks stretched into four, a lot longer writing hiatus than I had intended, but it was a much needed break. I have a little confession to make: I haven’t been so much sick as morning all day and night sick . We have another member of the family on the way, due at the end of June.

As I’ve spent much of the last few weeks either in bed or indisposed, cooking has been well and truly off the agenda and there is a dearth of new recipes from our household at the moment and a very empty fridge and pantry from lack of shopping.

I fell back on this old staple to use up what we had on hand; this is a very flexible recipe that you can adjust with whatever ingredients you have in the fridge. Adding cooked chicken gives it a nice protein boost, but as our freezer was empty (for the first time in years), our pasta was vegetarian. The mustard and paprika along with the cheese make a tasty sauce.

Method

1. Melt the butter over medium heat and cook onion until soft and translucent without browning. Add the garlic and cook for a further minute or so.
2. Stir in the flour and cook for another minute. The mixture should look bubbly.
3. Add the milk a little at a time, stirring constantly to make a smooth sauce. Add enough milk to get the consistency you like. The sauce will thicken slightly as it cooks and it is always best to add less than you need and then add more later to thin the sauce out rather than adding too much.
4. Add the paprika, mustard and cheese and stir until the cheese has melted. Now the most important part: taste the sauce and adjust to your liking.
5. Stir in the cooked pasta and vegetables and heat through before serving.

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This dish is especially quick and easy if you use leftover chicken and leftover cooked pasta. If you don’t have leftover roast chicken, slice and sauté 1 – 2 chicken breasts in a little oil beforehand. Serves 4.

Method

1. Cook pasta until al dente. Set aside. Preheat oven to 180°C.
2. In a little oil or butter, fry mushrooms until just tender. Remove from pan and set aside.
3. Add the butter and garlic and sauté for half a minute or so. Stir in the flour and cook for a further minute or two to cook out the raw flour taste.
4. Add the milk, stirring constantly until if forms a ‘thickish’ sauce. You may need more or less milk.
5. Stir in the parmesan cheese until melted. Add the cooked chicken, sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms and cooked pasta.
6. Pour pasta mixture into greased baking dish, top with tasty cheese and bake for 20 minutes or until cheese is bubbling and golden. Serve with a green salad.

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The little fella is pretty good with his vegetables, but broccoli always ends up on the floor. Unless it’s covered in cheesy sauce! This is so easy if you use leftover veg and pasta, otherwise steam some finger food sized vegetables to make this dish. Exact measurements will depend on how much leftovers you have, I find a little sauce goes a long way – just enough to make things tasty but still ‘pick-up-able’ (and ‘clean-up-able’ for mum).

Method

1. Sauté onion in butter over low heat until soft. Stir in the flour and cook for a minute before adding the milk and stirring well over low heat to make a thick sauce.
2. Stir in the grated cheese, pasta and vegetables and heat through.

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I’ve been making a variation of roast pumpkin risotto for quite a few years now. I think it was the first risotto variation I ever made and I got the original recipe off the back of a stock packet.

Well the other day I had an inspiration. I’ll roast the pumpkin in honey. It was yum. It was a revelation. Several days later I came across a recipe for – you guessed it – honey roasted pumpkin risotto. My idea isn’t such a unique revelation after all. I get that a lot. Nevertheless, this is my version of the risotto. Serves 2 –4

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200°C. On a baking sheet, toss the pumpkin in the oil, garlic, rosemary and honey. Bake for 20 – 30 minutes or until cooked through, giving the pan a shake halfway through cooking.
2. Meanwhile, heat a little oil or butter in a saucepan over medium heat and sauté onion until soft. Add the rice, stirring to coat in the oil.
3. Add the wine and stir until absorbed into the rice. Add a little stock at a time, stirring until it is absorbed. Keep adding stock and stirring until the rice is cooked through.
4. Stir in the parmesan cheese, salt and pepper (to taste – you have to taste) and cream if using. Gently stir in the cooked pumpkin and serve.

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Another risotto dish, another asparagus dish. Cheap and tasty. Leave out the chicken to make this a vegetarian dish. I love asparagus season and try to cook with it as much as possible while it’s fresh and cheap.

Method

1. Steam asparagus until just tender. Set aside.
2. Brown chicken in batches over high heat until just cooked through. Set aside with asparagus.
3. Heat a little olive oil or butter in a saucepan and sauté onion over medium heat until translucent. Add garlic and cook for a further minute. Stir in rice so that it is coated with the oil.
4. Stir in lemon zest and juice until absorbed. Add the stock, a ladle at a time and stir through until absorbed. Continue to do this until the rice is al dente or cooked to your liking. You may need more or less stock.
5. Add the cream if using and stir in the parmesan cheese. Season to taste, then gently stir in the chicken and asparagus before serving. Serves 2-3.

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The menu plan said ratatouille and polenta, but I really didn’t feel like cooking it. This is what I came up with instead. This is versatile: add whatever vegetables you like. A handful of Kalamata olives would go nicely. Fresh basil instead of dried tastes sensational. Add a dollop of cream at the end for a bit of, well, creaminess. We always have a little bacon in the freezer, but for a true pantry staple pasta dish, leave the bacon (and even the vegetables) out and it still tastes good.

Method

Cook pasta according to packet directions

Heat frypan and sauté bacon for a minute or two. Add onion, garlic and capsicum and sauté until the onion is translucent.

Add the mushrooms and dried basil and toss for a minute or two before adding the tomatoes.

Bring to the boil and simmer for a couple of minutes to reduce the sauce slightly.

Serve on pasta top, with grated cheese.

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This pasta dish is a family favourite. Sweet and salty is one of my favourite taste combinations. For the die hard meat eater, this dish would also be nice with some chicken breast tossed through. Just slice and brown through before cooking the onions, then add it back in with the spinach or rocket at the end of the cooking to reheat.

Serves 4 – just halve for less.

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F). Toss pumpkin with garlic, rosemary oil, salt and pepper and bake for 30 minutes or until soft and golden.
2. Meanwhile, cook pasta until al dente. Sauté onions over low to medium heat until soft and translucent (about 5 minutes). Add the honey and cook for a further 2 minutes until the onion starts to caramelise. Add the stock and simmer for 5 minutes or until reduced slightly.
3. Add the spinach or rocket to the onion mix and toss for a few minutes until wilted slightly. Add the pumpkin, cooked pasta and feta and toss to combine. Serve with grated parmesan.

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Why make bolognaise from scratch when you can get it pretty cheap and easy from a bottle? That’s what I thought anyway until I didn’t have any in the cupboard and decided to make it myself. I have never gone back to the store bought bottled pasta sauce.

This makes a very rich, tasty bolognaise. And it’s not that much harder or more time consuming than the bottled variety. It is a foundation recipe, though. You can add anything you like: olives, sun dried tomatoes, carrots, zucchini, corn, kidney beans, extra garlic, fresh herbs, spices… endless possibilities. Or you could remove ingredients that you don’t like or don’t have on hand like the capsicum or mushrooms. A tasty variation is adding a couple of crushed cloves to the sauce. It adds a subtle but lovely aroma to your bolognaise.

Of course, instead of serving this over spaghetti, you could make a simple white sauce, layer with a few sheets of pasta, grate some cheese over the top and have lasagne instead.

Method

1. Brown mince over medium heat, breaking up lumps with a spoon. Remove and drain in a colander.
2. Sauté onion until soft, add in the capsicum and garlic and cook for a couple more minutes then the mushrooms and cook for a minute more.
3. Add in the tomato paste and herbs and cook for half a minute or so to caramelise the paste a little, then add in the mince, stirring.
4. Add the tomatoes, wine if using (use the wine to rinse out the tomato tin), sugar, salt and pepper.
5. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 10 – 20 minutes while the pasta cooks so that the sauce reduces, thickens and the flavours intensify.
6. Serve over pasta with a generous scattering of freshly grated parmesan.

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This dish was inspired by a recipe that used tuna instead of chicken, so a tin of tuna makes a good substitute. Alternatively, this dish could be made to use up leftover roast chicken or BBQ chicken, reducing the preparation and cooking time as well as the cost. This makes 2 very large bowls of pasta, add a little extra of the cream, tomato paste, chicken and peas to serve 4.

Method

• Soak peas for a few minutes in boiling water to defrost
• Brown chicken in batches in some olive oil
• Sauté onion and garlic until soft and golden
• Return chicken to the pan and stir in the tomato paste
• Add the cream and the peas and simmer over low heat until the peas are cooked through
• Add capers, heat for a minute or two, stir in the parsley and serve over pasta

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