Pastitsio - Greek pasta bake

 

 

The theme for this month's global cooking challenge, hosted by Chris at Cooking Around the World, is Greece. I'd already made these prawn enchiladas with feta cheese, which is a rather tenuous link to Greece perhaps, so I wanted to see if I could think of something else. Then I remembered a dish that I've made before, but not for a long time; it's easy to make and good for this time of year. Pastitsio, or Pasticcio, is a Greek pasta bake that has a layer of minced beef, a bechamel sauce and pasta on top.

 I found a recipe online and adapted it to suit ingredients I had and also gave it a healthier spin by using fat free Greek yoghurt instead of cheese in the sauce.

 

Serves 4

You need:

Fry Light

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, crushed

500g beef mince

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 beef stock cube

400g tin chopped tomatoes

1 tbsp. dried oregano

400g pasta - macaroni or penne

50g ricotta cheese

200ml fat free Greek yogurt

50ml milk

50g grated parmesan

grated cheese to sprinkle on top (optional)

 

First fry the onion and the mince in the Fry Light until browned. Meanwhile cook the pasta in a pan of boiling salted water and preheat the oven to 180C.



 

Add the garlic, cinnamon, stock cube, tin of tomatoes and oregano to the beef and simmer until the sauce has thickened.

In a small bowl, mix the ricotta, parmesan and Greek yogurt then carefully stir in the milk.

Drain the cooked pasta and stir in the cheese sauce.

Transfer the mince to a large ovenproof casserole dish.

Spoon the pasta on top and sprinkle with cheese.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until the cheese has melted.

Serve with green vegetables - this makes a great lunch or dinner.

I'm sending this to Chris at Cooking Around the World for his Greek challenge this month.

Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato Lasagne

 

 

 

 Most vegetarian lasagnes that I have come across before use mushrooms or aubergine, neither of which I like. My boyfriend's mum came over for dinner last night and she's vegetarian, (and doesn't like aubergine either) so I decided to find a vegetarian lasagne recipe that we would both like. I also made a simple meat lasagne for my boyfriend, and made dessert, so I was busy!

 

I found a recipe on BBC Food for a butternut squash and sweet potato lasagne, that looked lovely. I decided to leave out the spinach as I don't like it. I also added more liquid to the cheese sauce but even then found the final dish a little dry - it had a lovely flavour but I would have liked more sauce, so that is something to bear in mind if you are going to make it. I also left out the pine nuts as I didn't really have time to go hunting for them in my cupboard (I'm sure I had some somewhere) as I was making two other dishes at the same time and I wasn't sure whether I wanted the crunch of nuts in the lasagne in any case. It was fine to use parmesan as my boyfriend's mum does eat it (not all parmesan is actually vegetarian as it uses rennet but some people don't eat meat because they don't like it, not for ethical reasons).

 

For the version that I made, you need:

50g parmesan (or vegetarian alternative)

50g breadcrumbs (I used dried)

2 x 350g packets prepared sweet potato and butternut squash

pinch of salt

12 lasagne sheets

for the sauce:

100g parmesan

squeeze of ginger puree or 2cm piece fresh ginger, grated

400g ricotta cheese

100ml milk

2 egg yolks

pinch of grated nutmeg

pinch of salt

 

I bought these packets of butternut squash and sweet potato from Tesco; they were 2 for £2 and saved me a lot of time. Bring to the boil in a pan of salted water and simmer until tender.

 

Meanwhile make the white sauce. Finely grate the parmesan and mix in a bowl with the ricotta, ginger, egg yolks, nutmeg and salt. I then stirred in the milk to make a thick white sauce.

When the butternut squash and sweet potato is cooked, drain and mash. Season to taste. I also recommend pre cooking your lasagne sheets for a few minutes in a pan of water even if the packet says no precooking is necessary, as there isn't much liquid in this dish.

I used a small square roasting tin with high sides; four lasagne sheets were enough to cover the base (which I had sprayed with Fry Light). Spread 1/3 of the butternut squash and sweet potato mixture over the top, cover with 1/3 of the cheese mixture and another layer of lasagne sheets until you have used all the vegetables and the sauce.

Not a great photo but trust me this tastes really good.

Mix the 50g grated parmesan and the breadcrumbs and sprinkle over the top.

Bake in the oven for about 25 minutes. Serve with green vegetables, or salad, or garlic bread.

You can see how the cheese sauce has thickened; I think having the egg in it makes it cook whereas I would have preferred a more runny sauce. This was very tasty though and definitely a good idea for a vegetarian lasagne.

 I'd already decided to make this when I saw that the theme for this month's Pasta Please was vegetarian lasagne, which is good timing! So I am sending this to Lisa at Food and Spice who is hosting the challenge this month on behalf of Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes.

Hotel Chocolat Cocoa Pasta - Two Recipes and a Review

 

 

When Hotel Chocolat offered to send me some of their cocoa pasta I was intrigued; I had no idea whether it would be sweet or savoury and what you would even do with pasta that tastes like chocolate. Luckily they had two recipes on their website so I decided to make both and write about my experience here.

 



 

They also sent me some of their cocoa pesto, which is part of Hotel Chocolat's new Cocoa Cuisine range - other items in the range include cocoa mayo, white chocolate horseradish, and cocoa and chilli oil. The pasta costs £5 for 250g and the Cocoa Pesto, which costs £8 for a 190g jar, contains rough-chopped basil, crunchy pine nuts, Italian cheese and nutty roast cocoa nibs.

 

 

There are two recipe suggestions for the Cocoa Pasta on the website, firstly Chocolate Pasta with Pesto, Ricotta and Broccoli, and secondly a Nigella Lawson recipe, Chocolate Pasta with Caramel and Pecans. I decided to make them both, on different days.

 

 

Chocolate Pasta with Pesto, Ricotta and Broccoli

serves 2

175g Hotel Chocolat Chocolate Pasta

100g Hotel Chocolat Cocoa Pesto

100g ricotta cheese

25g grated parmesan cheese

75g broccoli florets

salt and pepper

 Bring the pasta to the boil in a saucepan and cook until al dente. Drain but reserve a little of the cooking water. Meanwhile cook the broccoli - you could do this at the same time in the same pan as the pasta.



 

Here's the Cocoa Pesto, it looks very interesting!

Return the pasta to the pan and stir in the pesto, ricotta and half the parmesan and season. Add a couple of spoonfuls of the cooking water to loosen the sauce.

 Return the pan to the heat and add the broccoli; toss until combined and heated through. Sprinkle with the rest of the parmesan.

I actually used thinly sliced parmesan (using the wide blade on my cheesegrater) to put on top. This was an interesting dish with a slightly bitter flavour - I'm not sure if that comes from the pesto or the pasta. To be honest it wasn't entirely to my taste but it wasn't bad and was certainly different - I think it would be fun to serve at a dinner party and see people's reactions to the idea of chocolate pasta!

The other recipe was a dessert recipe and as I have a sweet tooth I had high hopes for this one.

Chocolate Pasta with Caramel and Pecans
serves 1
75g Hotel Chocolat cocoa pasta
pinch of salt
25g pecans, chopped
25g butter, softened
25g brown sugar
50ml double cream

Cook the pasta with a pinch of salt until al dente. Drain but reserve some of the cooking liquid.
Dry fry the pecans over a medium heat then transfer to a bowl.

Add the butter and sugar to the frying pan and heat until the sugar has dissolved.

Pour in the cream, add the pecans and pinch of salt and remove from the heat.

Toss the drained pasta with the caramel sauce with a spoonful or two of the cooking sauce if needed.

I really enjoyed this dish, I imagine largely thanks to the caramel sauce, and it didn't seem strange at all eating pasta as a dessert. I guess if you can have bread pudding and rice pudding there's no reason you can't eat pasta as a pudding!

Overall I found the chocolate pasta very interesting and more versatile than I imagined; I wasn't so keen on the pesto and probably wouldn't buy that again and the pasta is a little expensive to buy every week but I would try this again. If you haven't already checked out Hotel Choocolat's Cocoa Cuisine range then I urge you to have a look at some of their more unusual ingredients!