Lauren Gemmell

Food, Fitness, and Technology

Tag: pasta

Chicken Orzo Risotto

It’s weird the way naming conventions in food work, isn’t it?

Orzo is a type of pasta, it’s small, and sort of rice shaped – like a pine nut. One of the best things about Orzo is that like rice you can use it to make a very fast risotto type dish, called an Orzotto.

Chicken Orzotto (Pasta)

In Italian orzo means barley, so back in 2010 when I made a risotto using pearl barley, it too was called orzotto. While pearl barley cooks into a delicious risotto dish, you can’t say it’s fast. It takes longer to cook pearl barley than it does to cook rice.

Risotto is a firm favourite in our household, but the rice version takes a bit long for a week night meal. This is where Orzo (pasta) steps in.

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Budget Bolognese Sauce

Budget or healthy, so often these two things don’t go hand in hand. Healthy fresh vegetables are for example are often more expensive than fast food.

This recipe combines the two by reducing the amount of red meat in your bolognese sauce and replacing it with puy lentils. Voila – healthier and more budget conscious!

Lentil Bolognese Sauce

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Grilled Trout and Roasted Tomato Pasta

Grilled Trout, tomatoes and pasta

Who here actually eats the amount of fish you are supposed to? I know I don’t and when I do I am stuck in the Salmon, Tuna and Cod rut.

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Better Bolognese Sauce

Sometimes you want to expend a little more effort to make something just that little bit special. A couple of weeks ago I talked about the average Bolognese, the recipe that I turn to when I need something quick, simple and that I’ll enjoy. This however is not quick or simple, but the taste makes it well worth the effort and the wait.

Over the past week and a half I have done no cooking, baking, re-heating what-so-ever, I have barely even stepped a foot in a kitchen! I got back from holiday and spent a couple of days feeling decidedly unwell, so it was a bunch of takeaways and frozen pizzas in this household! Yesterday was the first time I was starting to feel anything like cooking, and I wanted to make something special for The Other Half, to show how much I appreciated him looking after me.

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A turning point – Spaghetti Bolognese

I guess everyone writes about this meal on their blog, or maybe no one does because it’s just too common place. I don’t want to blog this because I believe that my recipe is better than anyone else’s, or because mine is somehow different to the average Bolognese. I want to write it because this is the average Bolognese.

spag_bol

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Caramelised Rainbow Chard Spaghetti

This week when I peaked inside my organic box and saw another bag of chard I groaned. It’s that small feeling of disappointment knowing of all the vegetables in the world – they keep sending me this. I could just ask them to never send me it again, but that feels like giving up. Admitting that this green and rainbow coloured leafy vegetable has defeated me.

It’s not that the vegetable doesn’t look pretty, it does, its pink, yellow and red stems look beautiful on a plate but it tastes metallic and bitter. Usually I sauté it and have it as a side, but in my vain attempts to make it taste better I over cook it and it becomes a green goo. But oh no, not this time.

A beautiful light colourful lunch

A beautiful light colourful lunch

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Macaroni Cheese and Salsa

It’s been a long running tradition that when I have to make dinner just for me, I make Macaroni Cheese. It’s a treat because my fiancee hates cheesy things so when he’s not around I go overboard. However Macaroni Cheese is just a bit on the plain side, it was perfect when I was a kid, but now I am looking for something that vaguely contains a vegetable in my dinner – that’s where the salsa comes in.

salsa

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