Tomato Sauce with Meatballs

The most time consuming part of this recipe is the Tomato Sauce. But once that is cooked a real simple meat ball to add is with Sausage meat. It is all real easy in that you will just squeeze out the sausage meat into even sized balls and cook on medium to high heat.

Then you will add it all together with your cooked pasta & serve with grated cheese

Tomato Sauce

This is by far and away the best Italian Tomato pasta sauce I have ever tasted.

A good tomato sauce was something that always interested me but I was never happy with my efforts until I was shown this recipe by a good friend. What I learnt the most from it is that simplicity works.

The sauce has a few layers or stages to it and all up you will want to set aside about 2 hours to cook it. Within this time you do not have to be standing by the side of the sauce as you will cook everything on a low heat and only are needed to stir and keep a watchful eye on the sauce.

Potato & Roast Vegetable Mini Quiches

In my recent post regarding 'the €5 meal' I realized that the Quiche recipe I used cost €7 to make & the only reason for this was that I was using a larger baking dish for 3-4 people. In recent months I have become addicted to Pastry Pies so last night I wanted to try and make my own individual quiches, when made this way are considerly cheaper and really tasty as all of the flavours are condensed into individual servings.

What I decided to do this time is a Vegetarian Quiche with Potato & Roast vegetables and I served it with a light salad

Vegetarian Club Sandwich

There is nothing quite like a good sandwich, it is something that I am quite the expert at, I got to say. So what makes the perfect sandwich? 

Essientially it is ingredients that all compliment each other in taste and flavour, something you got to be able to take in your hands. If you eat your sandwich with a knife & fork there is something wrong….

If you check the Sandwich section to my blog you will see some other sandwich ideas but today I am going to talk about the Club Sandwich. 

There are a few golden rules in my book here before we start:

- The Club Sandwich is always a triple decker affair

- The Bread should be really fresh
- You will toast the middle piece of bread and let this get cool – this will offer the sandwich a delicious crispy crunch when you bite into it
- Use only fresh ingredients for best results (treat yourself to top quality tomatoes and cheese)
- Divide your sandwich into 2 distinct sandwichs that will sit on top of each other. You want the flavours here to compliment each other and not battle against each other.
- Use my Tomato Chutney in this sandwich

Roasted Vegetable Pasta

This pasta dish is perfect for a Vegetarian option or if you feel like a light & tasty pasta. Roasting the vegetables is similar to my previous post of Roast Vegetable Lasagne but this time you will add them to your pasta with a combination of cheddar cheese & a mustard/chilli/coriander cream sauce.

The Cream sauce is very much up to you, I like to use grained mustard with a hint of sweet chilli sauce with chopped coriander leaves. I find the mustard brings out the flavours in the dish. Also as I like things spicy I add 2 devil eye chilli’s when roasting the vegetables so if that is not for you do not put them in.

All up you get a very tasty pasta dish that is super easy to make, serve with my Mozzarella Garlic Bread for that perfect compliment

Nutty Chocolate Cake

I must admit that I do not have a sweet tooth so much so that mostly all of the baking in the house is done by my girlfriend. With this realisation I set about trying to replicate one of her favourite cake recipes and a favourite with all whenever it is baked. A Chocolate & Nut Cake.

The key to success here is to remember to get as much air into your mixture when you are folding in the ingredients. Also remember to grease your baking tin well. For best results it is best to leave overnight in a fridge so the cake will set completely

Prepare yourself for some serious Chocolate & Nut overload.....

Lime & Coriander Salmon Filo Parcels

The below recipe is a super healthy alternative when you are looking for that something different with a piece of Salmon. What I love about it is that the Salmon is wrapped in a light filo pastry & will cook in the lime & herb marinate in such a way that everything fuses together for a delicious crispy salmon parcel of goodness. Personally I like to spice mine up with some devil eye chillis but if you do not like things spicy you can skip this step.

All is cooked in a hot oven & can be served with your choice of sides.