Tuesday Tasties

So, as you've probably gathered, I enjoy my food. Some people just see it as a necessary thing which has the sole purpose of providing our bodies with fuel, but me? I am always thinking about my next meal.

Nothing annoys me more than when I've ordered food which sounds delicious, looks incredibly and tastes, well disappointing with so little seasoning the dish never really had a chance to shine.

Creating something delicious in your own kitchen doesn't have to be costly or time consuming. When I get home from work, the first thing I do is exercise, when I'm finished, I don’t really have the will or the energy to slave over dinner. Instead I prefer something simple which is incredibly rewarding to eat.

Come the weekend, it’s all systems are go and I enjoy taking my time with more time consuming dishes. Today, I thought I’d share with you a couple of dishes which are currently making their way to my table; one being ideal for a mid-week meal as it’s cheap, easy and requires virtually no preparation and the other being one of my favourite autumnal puddings.

Meatballs with Roasted Tomato Sauce 

 

This is a generous portion for two - but can stretch to four. The tomato sauce can be made on it's own for other Italian dishes as well, the orange juice makes it lovely and sweet.  To make this you'll need:

• 2 red onions cut into wedges
• 6 tomatoes cut into quarters
• Olive oil
• 1 teaspoon of red wine vinegar
• 2 crushed garlic cloves
• The juice from one orange
• 1 pack of 12 meatballs
• Torn basil
• 150g pasta
• Parmesan 

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees and grab a dish. Then pop in your tomatoes, onions, red wine vinegar, olive oil and some salt and pepper. It should look like this:

Stick this in the oven for 10 minutes.  While the tomatoes and onions are roasting, mix the orange juice with the garlic.  Once the 10 minutes are up add the meatballs on top and pour over the orange and garlic mixture.  

Stick this back into the oven for 20 minutes to brown up.  While your meatballs are cooking, cook the pasta according to the instructions on the packet, I like to use some whole-wheat pasta for this, but fresh pasta is great if you fancy being a little naughty.

Take the meatballs out of the oven.  Remove the meatballs and add all of the tomato/onion mixture to a blender and blitz it up with some fresh basil.

Plate it up, if you want to you can mix the sauce with the pasta to thicken it up a little.  Top with some parmesan

Plumable

This serves 4 generous portions, I like mine with fresh vanilla custard but you can have it with ice cream if you prefer.

 

• 450g of apples, peeled, cored and cut into chunks
• 2 tablespoons of apple juice
• 200g of plums cut in half
• 100g plain flour
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• 25g butter
• 70g brown sugar
• 85ml soured cream
• 1 egg, beaten
• Some sliced almonds

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and grab yourself a dish.

Pop the apples in a saucepan with the apple juice and cook until they are starting to soften.  Once they've softened slightly then add the plums.  Cook these until the apples have completely softened (but not so much they're turning to mush!) and take off the heat.

Now it's time to make your topping, add the flour, baking powder and butter to a bowl.  Rub together with your finger tips until it goes all crumbly.  Stir in the soured cream, 50g of the sugar and the egg. It should be quite a thick texture by this stage.

Next - it's time for the fun part!  Add all of the fruit to your dish, it should be a lovely saucy mess!

Plop your topping, well, on top I suppose in big spoonfuls, it doesn't need to be pretty. Sprinkle over the leftover sugar and your almonds.  It'll look like this:

Now stick it in the oven for 30 minutes or until the top is golden and you can spot the juices bubbling away.  If it looks like it needs a little longer, you can always cover it with some foil to stop it browning to much.

Then it's time to scoff away.

I hope you've enjoyed the recipes, please feel free to leave me a comment below if you can think of any other recipes you'd like me to share.  I've got oodles of sweet treats, easy mid-week meals and comforting dishes tucked away.

Both of the recipes are inspired by ideas I've read in the Waitrose Kitchen Magazine - I've tweaked them to suit my own tastes and more convenient for two.