Sausage & Sweetcorn Pasta Bake

As a uni student, one of the quickest and easiest things to cook with is pasta. But it gets a bit boring sometimes, so making it into a pasta bake is the perfect way to make pasta interesting! There are so many things to add into the recipe, but I made mine with sausage and sweetcorn. Two of the biggest requests from my survey are more blog-style chatty posts, and more meal recipes. So this will hopefully cover both of them!

Pasta bake just isn't the same without the amazing cheesy topping!

What I used... 
These are very rough ingredients as I tend to measure by how much I fancy eating...

• Penne pasta - I measure it by pouring the right amount into the bowl I'll serve it in. Remember to pour a bit less into the bowl than you'd like, because it roughly doubles in size when it's boiled!
• Approx 4 tbsp sweetcorn
• 3 sausages (And I'm not afraid to say that yes, I used Asda Smart Price sausages... they worked fine!)
• Enough passata to mix into the pasta well (usually comes in a carton, with the consistency of smooth tinned tomatoes, like soup! See the photo below)
• A handful of grated cheese

When I got all of the ingredients together, I preheated the oven to 180°C. I placed my three frozen sausages on a baking tray which I covered in foil first, to stop it getting too greasy from the sausages. The sausages took about 30 minutes to cook, so I began preparing the pasta after about 15 minutes.

I poured the pasta into a saucepan and covered it with hot water from the kettle. I then set the pan on the hob at a high heat and sprinkled some salt into the water - salt water boils at a lower temperature so the pasta cooks slightly quicker. Don't add too much though - I did once, and my pasta tasted salty. Not nice, unless you aim for salty pasta.

To test when the pasta is cooked, stick a fork into it to see if it feels soft. If you still can't tell, eat a bit. It might be briefly horrible if it's still a bit hard, but it's the best way to tell!

I cut slits through the middle of each sausage to let
the fat escape

When the sausages were cooked and the pasta was near-enough done, I took the sausages out of the oven. I used a fork and a sharp knife to cut them into rough chunks.

I used a colander to drain the pasta and tipped it back into the saucepan when drained. I then turned the hob down to a low heat, placed the pan back on and poured in about a quarter of the carton of passata onto the pasta. I used a spoon to mix it all together, added the sausage chunks and sweetcorn and mixed them in.

When it was all nicely mixed, I poured the mixture into a glass roasting dish ready to go in the oven (still left on from the sausages).









I made sure the pasta was spread evenly in the dish and sprinkled the grated cheese on top.

The time to leave it in the oven for depends on how melty you want the cheese, and how crispy you want the surface of the pasta to be. I like mine very melty and very crispy and brown, so I put the dish in the oven for about 20 minutes. There is no need to cover the dish with foil because it will melt and crisp up better without it.

After 20 minutes, the pasta was ready to serve! I made enough for 2 portions so I left half to cool and ate it for lunch the next day. Forward planning as a uni student is always good.






Pasta bake is so easy to make and is a great alternative to simple pasta. You could add more vegetables, different meat such as chicken or mince (bolognese pasta bake is amazing!), fish such as tuna or salmon, cheese sauce instead of tomato... the list is endless! Experiment and have fun!

Shortbread for Vegans!

Right at the start of the blog, I posted a recipe for shortbread. This is the same recipe, but this time the butter has been substituted for a vegan-friendly version. This was made by Twitter user @Dont_ask_why, who followed my recipe and changed bits. Thank you for sending the photo and visiting my blog! 

As this recipe has already been posted, I won't post it again. For the original recipe, click here. 

For the vegan-friendly recipe, the butter was substituted for coconut oil with a 1:1 ratio (use the same amount of coconut oil as you would butter). It's as simple as that... one substituted ingredient! Also, to add something different to the shortbread, some cinnamon sugar was sprinkled on the top. 

So, this just goes to show that there are always different options to experiment with recipes and make them your own. If you have made or experimented with a  recipe that worked well, please email a photo and a description to minimcwitch@gmail.com or tweet it to @minimcwitch, and I will feature them on the blog. Thank you!

THANK YOU!

Emily's Cooking Club has reached 500 views... and sailed right past it!!

I know compared to a lot of blogs it's not a massive achievement, but for me it is. Especially that I've only had the blog for less than a month, and really just started it to keep all my recipes and ideas together. Thank you for visiting and reading, and a lot of thank yous to people who keep coming back! I must be doing something well :D 

Emily xxx

Early Easter Cakes!

Hello everyone! It's been a few days since the last post, and I'm in the mood to take a break from assignments and post another recipe! I know it's a couple of weeks until Easter, but I finish uni for a 2-week break tomorrow and I'm in the mood to post a recipe for cute Easter cakes! This recipe is extremely easy and makes about 12 good-sized cakes.

Little Easter cakes... perfect for gifts (or keep them all for yourself)

What you need:
An easy way to remember this recipe is by the numbers '4442', and you'll see why...

Mix those ingredients!!

• 100g/4oz butter (softened)
• 100g/4oz caster sugar
• 100g/4oz self raising flour
• 2 eggs

...such an easy recipe to remember for the future!

For the buttercream:

• 140g/5oz butter (softened)
• 280g/10oz icing sugar
• 1-2 tbsp milk
• few drops of food colouring (optional - I didn't use any)

What to do...

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C / Gas 4.
2. Mix together the butter and caster sugar until smooth and creamy.
3. Add the flour and egg, and mix. I usually add a bit of each at a time; I add a little flour, then an egg, and mix together. Then I add the other egg and the rest of the flour and mix that. By mixing in less flour at once, it's slightly less messy!
4. Distribute the creamy mixture into 12 cake cases (or a few more if needed).
5. Bake the cakes for 10-15 minutes, or until golden brown.
6. When cakes are baked, take them out of the oven and leave them to cool on a wire cooling rack. Make sure they are completely cool before adding buttercream.

To decorate...

Mix together the ingredients for the butter cream until smooth and creamy. This is the chance to add anything into it, like food colouring... I like to add sprinkles into the buttercream sometimes too! 

"Look at me, I'm cuter than all the rest..."

I used a teaspoon to blob the buttercream onto the top of each cake. You could use a piping bag to make cute swirls and patterns on the cakes, but I decided to go for the 'blob' approach instead. I then added 2 little mini eggs onto each cake and sprinkled it with some pink and white decorative balls to finish it off. 

This recipe is so easy to make and doesn't take long at all. Plus, you can have fun with the decorating! You could change the decoration and add chocolate chunks, edible decorations such as butterflies, or non-edible decorations such as fluffy yellow Easter chicks! I'll be making some more Easter cakes when I'm at home next week, so make sure I post a photo of how to use the cute little chick decorations.

Have fun, and thank you for reading! Also, if you've got a free two minutes, please fill out this very short survey to help me improve the blog in the future! :)

Just a Quick Survey

I have created a short survey that I would be really grateful if you could fill out... it's about the layout and content of the blog, and your comments will help me a lot when improving the blog in the future! Thank you :)

You can find the survey HERE.

White Fish and Potato Bake

Welcome back to the Cooking Club! Today I'll be trying out a different style of post, with a lot more photos but less of a solid recipe to follow. For tonight's meal, I decided to make baked white fish, topped with thinly sliced potatoes and melted cheese. It tastes amazing, and it's healthy too! I made this just to serve 1, but you could increase the ingredients depending on how many you're cooking for.

Thinly sliced potatoes with melted cheese and herbs... and there's fish under there somewhere too

What I used:

• 3 baby potatoes (unpeeled)
• 2 medium-sized fish fillets (frozen)
• Salt and mixed herbs to taste (you could use pepper instead of herbs)
• A little grated cheese (the amount you use just comes down to personal preference)

What I did:

First of all, I prepared everything I needed. I preheated the oven to 200 degrees, grated the cheese and put it back in the fridge until I needed it. 

I then sliced my potatoes with a sharp knife to make sure they were cut nice and thin (see the picture to the left). I left the skins on the potatoes, because once cooked, they go all crispy around the edge. (Plus, they contain a lot of nutrients, like iron and potassium, that you wouldn't get if you peeled them!)

Next, I drizzled about a tablespoon of oil into a glass roasting dish. I then placed my two frozen fish fillets into the dish. I decided not to cook them first because they might have gone a bit mushy after the full cooking time. Also, I didn't defrost them first. I left them frozen, so the excess water meant that they remained more moist after being cooked, instead of drying out. The fish fillets looked quite big when they were still frozen, but they did shrink quite a bit whilst being cooked, which made them a perfect size. 

I then spread the potato pieces all over the surface of the fish fillets, making sure every space was filled. I had more potatoes left over after covering the fish, so I slotted them into gaps and let them slip down the sides so that the fish was covered. 

After the potatoes were evenly spread, I sprinkled them with salt and herbs, and a little bit of the cheese. I then covered the dish loosely with tin foil.

When everything was how I wanted it, I put the dish in the oven for 20 minutes to bake.





After 20 minutes, I took the dish out of the oven to check it. To check if the fish was cooking, I stuck a fork into the top of it between the potatoes. By this time, it should feel soft, but still not quite cooked. I sprinkled on the rest of the cheese, covered it back up with the foil and put it in the oven for another 10 minutes.

After the 10 minutes was up, took the foil off the dish and put it back in the oven for a few extra minutes - 10 minutes max - for the cheese and potatoes to crisp up. Then it was ready to serve!!

The finished dish:

I used a large slotted spoon to transfer the fish and potato bake to my plate. I completed the dish by serving it (to myself!) with sweetcorn, which went really well with the fish, and added a little bit of sweetness. 

Overall, this turned out really well! I based this recipe on a YouTube video I saw when I was trying to get some cooking inspiration. The video was for an Italian dish using a similar base, but added ingredients like onions, tomatoes and rocket leaves. If you'd like a dish like this but with more vegetables, then you could go and watch that video for more inspiration!

Thank you for reading this post and visiting my blog. I hope I can come back with more inspiration for you very soon!

Cathy Cassidy: Dreamcatcher Blog-zine

One of my favourite authors Cathy Cassidy shared my scone recipe on her blog-zine, Dreamcatcher! It's a pleasure to be featured on the blog and I'm really grateful. Thank you Cathy!

See Cathy's post here!