A month of meals for less than £5 – and a weekly menu plan

Posted on January 6, 2014 by annie

Happy New Year!

It’s January. The celebrations are over and it’s back to normality. No more over-indulging. In fact probably a bit of under-indulging wouldn’t go amiss in this household – so it’s back to budget menu planning with a bump!

I haven’t posted menu plans (or anything much) for a while leading up to Christmas. We had a bit of illness in the family over the last few weeks so there hasn’t been a lot of time, but fortunately everyone is now recovering well. But I feel I owe you an update on my aim to have a whole month of meals for less than a fiver.

To be honest I wasn’t quite sure that I would manage it without repeating meals several times, but we did manage four week’s worth of low cost meals, without having to compromise on taste – and without the family noticing (apart from the coley kurma disaster!). I need to catch up on recipes, but I’ll try to gradually publish the menu plans together with accompanying recipes in the next few weeks.

Keeping below £5 for the whole main course (including side dishes and vegetables) can be a bit of a challenge and it has made me look closer at using more vegetables, more pulses and estimating portion sizes better.

And I’ve found some great new recipes


If you want to see the individual menu plans with recipe links here they are:

  1. Week 1: Roast Sausages and a Weekly Menu Plan

  2. Week 2: More Low Cost Meals and a Weekly Menu Plan

  3. Week 3: Another Week – Another Budget Menu Plan

  4. Week 4: Week Four and a Fourth Budget Menu Plan


Saucepans

So this weeks menu plan = £20.17 for five meals

Monday
Mini Toad in the holes, potatoes and beans £3.77

Tuesday
Cock-a-leekie Stew and homemade bread £3.42

Wednesday
Shepherds Pie and peas £4.87
(Cook double and use the leftovers for tomorrow)

Thursday
Lasagna and salad £3.93

Friday
Ham, spring onion and parmesan quiche with coleslaw £4.18

– 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 –

What’s your week look like? And what’s your favourite money-saving tip??

Have a good week!

As usual I’m linking up to Mrs M’s Meal Planning Monday
Meal Planning Monday

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Chocolate Chip Cookies

Posted on January 4, 2014 by annie

How do you spend your holidays?

We enjoy cycling and walking and as we had a few days off over New Year were hoping to get out. As you may well know the weather has been terrible, so it was inevitable, I guess, that this plan wasn’t going to work. But that didn’t stop us being disappointed when we woke up a couple of days ago to yet more rain.

Lake-district-rain

I have to admit that I don’t much enjoy cycling in the rain, so we had a long leisurely breakfast to see if that would change anything …

Lake-district-rain2

Ah well.

Baking seemed like a reasonable alternative in the circumstances. Something warm and chocolate-y and comforting to console ourselves with and make us feel more inclined to go out next time to cycle off the calories. Of course, holiday homes aren’t the best places to start a baking project – no recipe book, no weighing scales and limited equipment were our main problems. Cookies seemed to solve the problem of no cake tins – Chocolate Chip Cookies to be precise. Baking Son was sure he could remember the recipe, so the only remaining problem was no weighing scales.

American recipes measure ingredients in ‘cups’ so that was one possible answer. Rummaging through the cupboards we found a measuring jug but sadly this only measured in mls and fl ozs – so could we work out how many mls of flour would equal 250g??

Well yes it is possible and if you ever need to know the answer (or at least our answer) 250g flour is about 445 mls and 250g brown sugar is 300 mls.

But – of course – the easiest answer is to buy a 500g bag of brown sugar and plain flour and use half of each (and I really don’t want to tell you how long it took us to think of that one!)

Choc-chip-cookies

And in case you were wondering, the cookies were everything we’d hoped for – warm from the oven with a crunchy outside and slightly chewy centre.

Here’s the recipe. Remembered from a book we have at home which is called ‘Baking’ and is from delicious. magazine

Chocolate Chip Cookies

(Makes ~28)
Choc-chip-cookies4

Ingredients

  • 125g butter
  • 250g soft brown sugar
  • 250g plain flour
  • 1 egg
  • 1 teaspoon of baking powder
  • few drops of vanilla extract
  • 150g mixed chocolate – we used a mixture of white and dark

Directions

  1. Heat the oven to 180°C
  2. Soften the butter in a mixing bowl
  3. Add the sugar and cream together. Add the egg and mix
  4. Sift the flour into the mixture and stir in. Also add the baking powder, vanilla and the chocolate chips.
  5. Line a baking tray with baking parchment. Put dollops of cookie mixture (about a large teaspoonful) well spaced apart, and cook in middle of the oven for about 10 minutes until lightly browned. Make sure you don’t overcook them – even by a couple of minutes – or you’ll lose that chewy center.
  6. Leave to cool for 15 mins of so and then peel off the baking paper. If they still stick, leave them to cool for a few more minutes. Best eaten warm, sitting inside gazing out at the rain!

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Lemon Cream Brandy Snap Baskets with Frosted Grapes

Posted on December 31, 2013 by annie

Well, Christmas is finally over, and I hope you had a good day?

I love it when Christmas Day finally arrives. A day with the family is always fun, but there’s also the delicious realisation that there is no more preparation that you can do. The shops are shut, the fridge and freezer are full to bursting, all the presents are wrapped (even if you had to stay up till 1 in the morning wrapping them!), and anything you’ve forgotten just has to be done without!

The days between Christmas and New Year are fun too. The pressure is off and its a perfect time for relaxed entertaining.

This isn’t really the time to be trying new recipes but these lemon creams are really simple – a delicious mix of velvety lemon cream and crisp gingery brandy snap that literally just melts in the mouth. They are more of an assembly job than a real recipe, which makes them just about perfect for serving up if you’re entertaining friends and you need something that doesn’t take much time.

Lemon-Curd-Baskets2

Whilst you can make these puddings from scratch with your own home-made lemon curd, they really don’t suffer much if you buy the component parts ready-made and assemble at home. The recipe here gives you enough mixture to divide into 6 individual ramekins – serve with brandy snaps or lemon shortbreads. Or, for a more ‘retro’ look use brandy snap baskets as I’ve shown here. They use slightly less mixture than the ramekins so you will have some left over to finish the next day (shame!). Just don’t assemble them too far ahead if you’re using baskets as they will go soggy.

lemon-curd-grapes

You can change around the fruit too. I’ve used candied peel and grapes, but we had to have frosted grapes as making those on Christmas Eve is one of our family traditions. Or you could try blueberries or raspberries when they’re in season.

Happy New Year!

Lemon Cream Brandy Snap Baskets

(serves 6)

Lemon-curd-brandy-snaps

Ingredients

  • 6 Brandy snap baskets
    (buy ready-made or make them according to a recipe such as this and make the ‘baskets’ by molding the brandy snaps over the bottom of a small cup or ramekin)
  • 450 mls double cream
  • About ¾ of a jar (~325g) of really good lemon curd (I used Waitrose seriously zesty lemon curd)
  • Frosted grapes or strips of candied peel to decorate
    (either make your own – or you can buy it ready-made for the ‘convenience’ version of this recipe)

Method

  1. Whip the cream until slightly thickened

  2. Add about ¾ of the jar of lemon curd to the cream and whip again briefly. The cream thickens up when you add the lemon so you shouldn’t need to whisk much. Have a quick taste to see if you would prefer it more lemony and add more lemon curd if you wish.

  3. Fill the brandy snap baskets with the lemon cream. I find this easiest to do using a piping bag with a fairly wide nozzle – or spoon it in carefully.

  4. Decorate with strips of candied peel – home-made or shop bought.
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Creamy Pasta with Roast Vegetables

Posted on November 30, 2013 by annie

This is really simple food (my favourite sort!)

It’s one of those recipes that we have regularly on busy days – a really easy weekday supper that you can just pop in the oven till its done. To cut down on time even more I have tried freezing the ingredients ready to defrost and cook, but the courgettes and tomatoes don’t do well in the freezer. But you can chop and freeze the other ingredients beforehand if you wish, to cut down on prep time.

Creamy-Pasta-with-Roast-Vegetables

AND its reasonably priced too, so it made the grade for our week of meals for less than a fiver.

Creamy Pasta with Roast Vegetables

(Serves 4)
Roast-peppersCost: ~£4.52
Time taken: 40 minutes
Family rating: ★★★★

Ingredients

  • 1 onion
  • 1 medium courgette
  • 2 mixed peppers (I used 1 red and 1 yellow)
  • 150g bacon
  • 4 medium tomatoes
  • About 12 fresh basil leaves
  • A little oil
  • pasta 350g
  • crème fraiche – ½ a 200g tub
  • cheddar ~150g – grated

Directions

  1. Wash and coarsely chop the onion, courgette, peppers and tomatoes.

  2. Slice the bacon into strips and place in a roasting tray with the vegetables, and stir in the basil leaves and oil.

  3. Roast in the oven at 200ºC for about 30 minutes until cooked – stir halfway through, and at that point put the pasta onto cook.

  4. Serve pasta with vegetables and dollops of creme fraiche and grated cheese


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Week Four and a Fourth Budget Menu Plan

Posted on November 26, 2013 by annie

Oh dear this post is so-o-o late!

My week hasn’t started well. Having menu planned at the weekend, I then did the on-line shopping only to end it so late that they had locked out all the delivery slots for the next day. Then yesterday, I had to take my Mum to the doctors so didn’t have any time to write posts. So here we are at Tuesday, and to be perfectly honest I would have probably missed this week except for the fact that I did say (at the beginning of November) that I would try a whole month of budget menus, and this is week four.

So how’s it going? Last week’s highlight was the Smoked Mackerel Risotto – smoked mackerel is my new favourite food. And I will post the Chicken and Mushroom Orzotto and Chicken Korma – both great ways to use up cooked chicken.

On to this week – I’ve given approximate prices here – not because I haven’t worked them out exactly, but it is difficult. For example, say that a recipe calls for half a tub of creme fraiche, but you end up not using the other half – do you end up costing it at 38p for the half that you use, or the 77p it cost for the whole tub?

Monday
Creamy Pasta with Roast Vegetables ~£3.91


Tuesday
Shepherds Pie £4.80

Wednesday
Cheat’s Lasagna with salad £3.90

Cheat's Lasagna

Cheat’s Lasagna


Thursday
Roast Spiced Cod Coley £4.25
I’ll try making these with frozen coley fillets (£3 for 6) to keep costs down.

Friday
Turkey stir-fry ~£4.75

Turkey stir-fry

Turkey stir-fry

As usual I’m linking up with Mrs M’s menu planning Monday – where you can find lots of other ideas from all the lovely meal planners there.

Have a good week!

Meal Planning Monday

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A Picture of Success! And three Make-in-the-Microwave Pasta Sauces

Posted on November 22, 2013 by annie

OK – I agree, this picture might not look very exciting at first glance – but I was VERY pleased to get it!

You may wonder why a picture of a tray of flapjacks is something to get excited about. But these are Flapjacks with a difference. Student Son made them. All. on. his. own.

Yep, all those cooking lessons paid off – well to an extent. To be honest, one out of five recipes is more than I expected.

Apart from that he has eaten pasta. ‘What with?’, I asked, only to be told that it was just that. Pasta.

Sometimes Tortellini (as a treat), or maybe with some grated cheese but that’s about it.

So, in an effort to expand his diet beyond Pasta and Flapjacks, I’ve posted three microwave sauces so he can at least add something to the pasta.

The impetus to try them out was looking for things a non-cooking student could make easily, but they are all so simple, quick and easy – and one-dish too – that they are worth having in your recipe collection. We’re having macaroni cheese tonight (supper in minutes after a long day is fine by me!).

AND they each cost less than £1.00 per portion

Creamy Tomato Sauce

(serves 2)
Bacon and Tomato Pasta Sauce

Ingredients

  • 1 small onion
  • A little oil or butter
  • 1 clove garlic, chopped or a squidge of garlic puree (optional)
  • 1 (400g) tin chopped tomatoes
  • ½ teaspoon dried mixed herbs
  • 1-2 tablespoons creme fraiche
  • A couple of tablespoons of grated cheddar

Directions:

  1. Peel the onion, chop into quarters and slice each thinly.

  2. Put in a microwaveable bowl with a little butter or a drizzle of oil and a pinch of salt – stir and heat on high for 3 minutes.

  3. Add the garlic and the tomatoes, stir and cover with cling film (the tomato sauce can spit). Pierce holes in the cling-film and heat again for another 2 minutes – stir. Heat for another 2 minutes if you want the sauce a little thicker.

  4. Add a tablespoon of creme fraiche to the mixture (more if you like) and serve with cooked pasta and grated cheese.


Mushroom Sauce

(Serves 1)

Mushroom_Pasta_Sauce

Ingredients

  • 1 small onion
  • a small knob of butter
  • 4-5 mushrooms (about 80g)
  • 1 clove garlic, chopped or a squidge of garlic puree
  • 2 tablespoons creme fraiche
  • A couple of tablespoons of grated grana padano

Directions

  1. Peel the onion and chop up small

  2. Melt a teaspoon of butter in a microwaveable bowl and heat for a few seconds to melt

  3. Stir in the onions slices and a pinch of salt. Cover with clinic film, pierce holes in film and heat for 4 minutes on high

  4. While that’s cooking wash, peel if you like and slice the mushrooms evenly

  5. Add the garlic, mushrooms and a couple of tablespoons of water to the bowl and stir

  6. Cook for 3 minutes on high – stir and cook for another minute or so if needed

  7. Add 2 tablespoons of creme fraiche to the mushrooms. If the sauce needs more liquid add a tablespoon or two of pasta cooking water.

  8. Serve with pasta and the grated cheese – either as it is with some salad, or it goes well with some grilled pork chops to make a quick supper


Cheese Sauce

(Serves 1)
Macaroni-cheese2

Ingredients

  • 20g butter
  • 15g plain flour (2 level tablesp)
  • 200 mls milk
  • 60g grated mature cheddar cheese + extra
  • ½ teaspoon English mustard
  • Salt and Black Pepper
  1. Whilst the pasta is cooking, put 20g butter in a microwaveable bowl. Heat for 30 secs in the microwave to melt.

  2. Stir in 15g plain flour (2 tablespoon).

  3. Add 200mls milk to the butter/flour mixture: start with a tablespoonful at a time, stirring well into the butter mixture till it is a smooth consistency, before adding more milk.

  4. Add 60g grated cheddar to the sauce.

  5. Heat the sauce in the microwave, stirring after every minute. Continue until it has boiled for 1 minute.

  6. Check the pasta at some stage during this.

  7. Taste the sauce and add ½ teaspoon English mustard (optional but nice). Then add salt and pepper to taste (it doesn’t seem to need a lot of salt so go carefully).

  8. Heat for a further 30 seconds.

  9. Mix with the pasta and anything else you feel like adding (vegetables, ham, sweetcorn etc). If you have a grill then top with a little more grated cheese and heat under the grill until the cheese is golden and melted
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Another week – another Budget Menu Plan

Posted on November 18, 2013 by annie

Well, this is my third week of cost-cutting for us – the aim being to produce 5 meals a week for under £5 a time (for four people). Yes, we are only three at home now, but we had family to stay last week which was lovely.

So far, so good. It’s not always easy to do as several of the recipes are new to us – but we’ve had some great new finds and I think it’s fair to say that the family haven’t noticed much change in quality. And my food bills do seem to be getting smaller as I get better at finding cheaper alternatives (for example I found frozen chicken thighs at between £2-3/kg the other day which seem pretty good value with fresh in the same shop being £4-5/kg – unless, of course, you want supper in a hurry!).

This week’s highlights were the Smoked Mackerel Fishcakes – tasty, quick comfort food @ £4.77 for fishcakes, lemon dressing and salad. Second was Ham and Lentil Stew – another warming, comforting recipe which took about 30 minutes to make and together with Homemade bread cost around £3.00. I’ll post the recipe shortly.

This week looks like a fairly quiet week on the home front. So I’m going to persevere in my drive to cut our food bills. We had a big roast chicken at the weekend so we’re going to be using that up. Please let me know if you’ve any ideas – all thoughts welcome!

Saucepans

Monday
Chicken and Mushroom Orzotto ~£2.50

Chicken and Mushroom Orzotto

Chicken and Mushroom Orzotto


Tuesday
Chicken Kurma with rice ~£4.00

Chicken kurma with rice

Chicken kurma with rice


Wednesday
Smoked Mackerel Risotto ~£4.00

Thursday
Pasta with Tomato and Creme Fraiche Sauce ~£3.00


Friday
Sausage Casserole ~£4.00

As usual I’m linking up to Mrs M’s Meal Planning Monday when you can find other good ideas for what to eat this week.
Meal Planning Monday
Have a good week!

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Smoked Mackerel Fishcakes

Posted on November 17, 2013 by annie

This picture may need a bit of explaining, but I need your help for this.

Close your eyes – no, that won’t work – Wake up your taste buds and just imagine: a forkful of creamy fishcake … flavoured with smokey mackerel … with just an edge of horseradish … complemented by the rich lemon dressing … all mingling together in melt-in-the-mouth deliciousness.

Well, these Smoked Mackerel Fishcakes were surprisingly good – and hopefully you now don’t need a photo to convince you! You see, the photos didn’t come out so well.

It’s not always easy being a food blogger, is it?
Let’s face it, not only do you have to decide what to write about, you then have to develop a recipe that is so lovely you want to pass it on (a process that doesn’t always go to plan). Then you have to present it looking so deliciously tasty that it’s worth a photo. And then you have to dust off your photography skills and take stunning photos of it (whilst fending off your starving family who just want to eat it NOW)!

It’s a good day for me when that all works.

So even though it was Wednesday that I stumbled across this cheap, oh-so-tasty recipe that had everyone clamouring for more, I have hesitated to post it as the photos didn’t do it justice. Everyone (including me) was just too hungry so we were quick to give up and just EAT them. They were lovely, but if you want the recipe you will have to take my word for it. I will try again though next time we have them.

There are a number of recipes about for Smoked Mackerel Fishcakes and this is an amalgamation of several of them. It’s probably nearest to this one. I’ve given the recipe as I have tweaked it a little and added a lemony mayonnaise dressing which complemented the smoked mackerel flavour beautifully. This was one of those recipes that was an instant success. As you’ve heard my family aren’t afraid to say when they don’t like something, but (fortunately) will also compliment the successes. I’m told this more than made up for the deeply unpopular fish curry last week!

If you’re in a rush or just feeling lazy (not me ever) you don’t need to egg and breadcrumb them. I think fishcakes taste fractionally nicer when crumbed so it’s worth the extra effort.

If you want some other ideas of what to do with Smoked Mackerel have a look at this other post (Five ways with Smoked Mackerel).

Smoked Mackerel Fishcakes

(Serves 4)
Smoked-mackerel-fishcakes3Cost: ~£3.77
Time taken: Under half an hour (+ half an hour chilling if you wish)
Family rating: ★★★★★

Ingredients

  • 600g mashed potato
  • 250g smoked mackerel fillet
  • 1 tbsp chopped parsley
  • 4 teasp creamed horseradish
  • Salt and pepper
  • 1-2 eggs
  • About 8 tablespoons of flour
  • About 8 tablespoons of breadcrumbs
  • 3 tablesp mayonnaise
  • 3 tablesp natural yoghurt
  • juice from ½ a lemon

Directions

  1. Skin and flake the smoked mackerel, removing small bones if you find any. Shred into small pieces and place in a mixing bowl.

  2. Add the mashed potato, parsley, horseradish and some salt and pepper. Mix till all combined. Taste (it’s all cooked now) and tweak the horseradish or seasoning if you wish.

  3. Using large tablespoon-fuls, make the mixture into patties. You should have enough to make 8-9 quite large fishcakes.

  4. Place flour, beaten egg (start with one) and breadcrumbs into 3 separate bowls. Dip each fishcake in turn into the flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs. Turning to ensure that each one is evenly covered. This is where you should put them on a plate, cover and place in the fridge for about 30 minutes to firm up before cooking. You can leave out this bit. The fishcakes are a little more fragile so may not end up perfect rounds (see my photos!), but if you’re careful it’s fine.

  5. Make the Lemon dressing: Put the mayonnaise into a bowl and stir in a tablespoon of yoghurt. When combined add the rest of the yoghurt and lemon juice and mix together. Season with salt and pepper.

  6. Put some oil into a frying pan and fry each fishcake for a few minutes on each side until golden brown.

  7. Serve with the lemony dressing, and vegetables or salad

Costs:

  • ~250g smoked mackerel (Sainsburys basics smoked mackerel fillets 250g for £1.99
  • 600g mashed potato (Sainsburys basics potatoes 2.5kg @ £1.19 = 28p)
  • 4 teasp creamed horseradish (Sainsburys horseradish 160ml @ 75p = 10p)
  • 1 egg (Sainsburys free range eggs @ 22p each = 22p)
  • parley, flour, breadcrumbs, (guestimate ~ 50p)
  • 3 tablespoons mayonnaise (Hellmans mayonnaise = 23p)
  • 3 tablespoons natural yoghurt (Sainsburys Greek style natural yoghurt 500g @ 45p = 15p)
  • 1 lemon (Sainsburys loose lemons @ 30p each = 30p)

Total ~ £3.77
(and add vegetables / salad of your choice).

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More Low Cost Meals and a Weekly Menu plan

Posted on November 11, 2013 by annie

You may have seen last week that I’ve been trying to find some new cheaper meals – trying to cut costs but not flavour.
The menu plan of cheap meals went pretty well – three recipes were lovely and I’ve posted them (Roast Sausages, Roast Tomato, Basil and Feta Tart, and Mushroom Carbonara) – The Roast Tomato Tart was probably the nicest. One meal was not a riotous succes and the last recipe (Baked chicken with Feta) was good but I think it deserves tweaking before posting as I’m sure it can be even better! The family were happy too.

So, encouraged by this I’m going to persevere this week and try out some more meals for less than a fiver – some old and some new recipes. Sainsburys still have an offer of 3 hams for £10.00 so we’ll have roast ham. I’ll post the new (successful) recipes along the way.

Prices are as accurate as I can manage, based on Sainsburys quoted prices at mysupermarket.co.uk.

Have a good week!

Monday
Roast ham, Mashed potatoes and veg £5.07



Tuesday
Lentil and Ham Stew with Focaccia £4.94



Wednesday
Smoked Mackerel Fishcakes with lemon mayonnaise and green beans £4.36



Thursday
Chicken Casserole with rice £4.56

Friday
Home-made Pizza £ – depends on what you want on it



As usual I’m linking up to Mrs M’s Meal planning Monday where you can find loads of gorgeous meal plans.

Meal Planning Monday

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Not all goes to plan… and a Budget Recipe: Mushroom Carbonara

Posted on November 11, 2013 by annie

As we all know, the best plans can go awry.

One such thing was the third recipe in this weeks budget menu: Coley Korma. It was not a success. I can’t blame anyone else for this – I made it to my very own recipe.

It wasn’t the price that was the issue. In a week of £5 meals it was well within budget.

All the ingredients individually were perfectly fine, but somehow the combined result lost something. You know how sometimes perfectly ordinary ingredients will come together into something wonderful – as Aristotle said with his famous quote about ‘the whole being greater than the sum of its parts’. Unfortunately, that definitely wasn’t my Coley Korma – quite the reverse. Ahh well.

And the family rating? One (reluctant) star (★). I think that was for effort, or for turning up in the kitchen.
So, no recipe for day 3.

Day 4 was better though.
Call (almost) anything ‘Carbonara’ and my family will love it, but actually this Mushroom Carbonara was good! Another keeper – it’s quick, cheap and got 4 stars.

This was the way I made it:

Mushroom Carbonara

(Serves 4)
Mushroom_Pasta_Sauce
Cost: ~£3.77
Time Taken: Easily less than 30 minutes
Family rating: ★★★★

Ingredients

  • 400g mushrooms, sliced (I used closed cup mushrooms, but you could use a variety)
  • 50g butter
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 onion
  • 1-2 cloves of garlic depending on how much you like the stuff and who you’re planning on seeing tomorrow
  • 3 eggs
  • 80g grated Grana Padano or parmesan
  • 400g spaghetti
  1. Put a large pan of water onto boil

  2. Wash or peel the mushrooms, halve and slice evenly. Peel and dice the onion.

  3. Put the butter and oil into a large frying pan and melt over a medium heat. Cook the onions and mushrooms with the garlic in the fat, stirring occasionally, until they are cooked.

  4. When the water is boiling add a little salt, a splash of oil and the pasta, and simmer until cooked to your liking.

  5. Break the eggs into a bowl and beat with a fork. Add about ¾ of the cheese and beat together.

  6. Drain the pasta when cooked, reserving about a cupful of the cooking liquid. Put the pasta back into the pan and add a couple of tablespoons of cooking liquid back to it and stir.

  7. Add a couple of spoonfuls of the cooking water to the mushroom pan and then add the eggs and cheese and stir together. Add the pasta and stir for a few minutes till all evenly coated.

  8. Serve with extra grated cheese and salad
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