Cook once...eat twice?

Hi everyone,

No weekend blogging because I was suffering with a nasty headache on Saturday and yesterday was busy. Thank you for all the Halloween comments :)

As promised, the pasta bake recipe is below.

Recently I've been looking at ways to cut my food bill. We love food and we like to eat well...sometimes too many treats for me! However, things need to change a bit. I'm definitely not going on a diet (I will cheat after day three!) but I do intend to make some small changes to benefit us all. I have got very lazy lately, but baking the other day made me realise that I can fit this into my daily routine more often. As a result, I bought much less rubbish and treats and will attempt to make what we have been enjoying lately. I managed to reduce our shopping bill even though I bought baking supplies, so it just goes to show! 

Today I am going through my kitchen cupboards, fridge and freezers to see what we've got. I haven't meal planned for this week yet because I know we have plenty and I will 'shop' from my own stores! I bought lots of veg and hope to use the slow cooker as much as possible. Tonight we are having our roast (pork) and the rest of the week is undecided as yet! 

Something else I am trying is cooking once but eating twice. Sadly our microwave has died on us, but I can still do this. I cooked double the amount of mince we needed and made it into a tomato ragu style meat sauce (just mince, onion, herbs, Worcester sauce and passata.) the first day half was used for my pasta bake and the other half was stored in the fridge and turned into chilli the following day. It only took a few minutes to prepare and we didn't mind eating mince two days running. So here is my pasta bake recipe...

You will need:

Mince (I used beef)

Onion (finely chopped)

A sprinkle of herbs

A dash of Worcester sauce

A carton of passata

Pasta (anything you've got)

A white roux sauce (butter, flour, milk)

Grated cheese

I haven't given exact amounts because it is a throw in type of recipe that I made for my family. Just use the usual amounts of mince and pasta you need to feed your family (or do double for the following day like I did)

Method 

1). Brown the mince with the onion. Add the herbs and Worcester.

2). Simmer the mince with the passata while you prepare the remaining ingredients.

3). Put the pasta on to boil and cook until ready.

4). Make the white sauce by melting a little butter, stir in a tbsp of plain flour, then add the milk slowly until the sauce has thickened and is pourable. (I'm sure I don't need to tell you how to make a white sauce)!

5). Stir the drained pasta into the white sauce and pile into an oven dish.

6). Top with the meat sauce and sprinkle with grated cheese.

7). Cover with foil and bake @180oC for 15mins. Remove the foil and bake for another 10 mins. 

8). Serve with salad and garlic bread or veg.

You could cheat by buying the white and tomato sauces if you like. 

Feel free to ask questions if this is too basic! 

It was lovely! Easy peasy!

Thanks for reading,

Mandy x