What I cooked with evaporated milk

A neighbour of Mum's friend is eligible for food parcels from AC Care. She gets tins of evaporated milk in them and with no idea what to use them for she hands the tins to mum's friend, who gives them to Mum, who in turn hands them to me.

I am sure my mum lives for giving away food. If it's not homegrown veggies from her abundant garden, it's packets and cans of stuff she wont use.

I am not one to knock back free food. So I happily brought them home with me and they sat in the pantry until I hit google up for some ideas.

One of my pet hates is when hubby stands at the pantry, fridge or freezer proclaiming to all who will listen that he thinks we are running out of food. It gives me the shits! 

To prove that no, I don't need to go to the shops, it gave me the perfect opportunity to use up the three cans of evaporated milk keeping the pantry shelves warm, for weeknight dinners. I did not hear any complaints, from hubby anyway. The kids are a whole other kettle of fish, that continue to make me want to throw my hands in the air and order takeaway every night.

Bacon and egg pasta.
I used this recipe for ham and egg pasta on the Taste website. Instead of ham I used bacon. It's cheaper and I had in the freezer. It's a quick and easy recipe, tasty too.

Bacon, broccoli and sweet potato quiche 
This was another Taste recipe which I changed to use up ingredients I already had. 

The broccoli was from the garden, I substituted ham for bacon again, and instead of using tinned corn, which I didn't have, I cut up sweet potato in small cubes, about a cup, and microwaved them until soft.

Pumpkin and pea risotto
When you have a particular brand of food stuff that you have no ideas for, a great tip and one that I didn't do myself at first, is to head to the brands website for recipes. I found this recipe on the Nestle website, for Pumpkin and broccoli risotto. 

Of course I'd used the broccoli in the garden in the quiche, so used a cup of peas instead. 

This makes a fair bit of risotto, so if you have lots of left overs, you can try making arancini balls! I didn't, I just ate risotto for lunch three days in a row!

Here's how I made my risotto. You will need -

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
1 onion, chopped
2 cups short grain rice 
4 cups water
1 teaspoon thyme leaves
600 grams cubed pumpkin (about 1-2 cm cubes)
375ml can evaporated milk
1 cup frozen peas
Parmesan cheese, for serving

Heat oil in a large saucepan on medium heat. Add onion and garlic for a minute, add rice and stir to coat the rice with oil.

Pour in water, add thyme and pumpkin. Bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the can of evaporated milk and frozen peas, continue cooking for a further 5 minutes.

Serve with parmesan cheese.

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Creamy pumpkin pasta

If you follow me on Instagram, you'd see me posting of my lunch quite often. If you haven't, search #onemotherkitchen and see all the yummy stuff for yourself. 

Nothing like making my own pasta in the morning, and eating it for lunch. Just have to knock up an easy sauce. This one is made in one dish(if you don't count the pot for cooking the pasta). 

Pumpkin creamy pasta 
400 grams pumpkin, cubed into 2cm pieces
4 or five garlic cloves
dried mixed herbs*
salt and pepper

1/2 cup of thickened cream
cooked pasta of choice( I used 400 grams of cooked spaghetti) A pasta like penne, would be great too to hold all of that wonderful sauce.

Place pumpkin and garlic in a baking tray. Drizzle with a tablespoon of olive oil and mix all together.

Sprinkle with dried mixed herbs and bake in a 190 degree oven for 15-20 minutes.

Remove the tray from the oven. Grab a fork and press down on each cube of pumpkin. Some will collapse and some will still be a little firm. That's ok. You want the different textures.

Mash the bits of garlic with the fork, so it will incorporate with the sauce.

Pour the cream into the tray and stir to combine it through the pumpkin and garlic. Season with salt and pepper. Put back in the oven for five minutes to warm through the cream.

Throw cooked pasta in the pan and stir through the creamy pumpkin sauce. Serve with parmesan and crusty bread if you like.

*Now is a great time to pick some herbs from the garden, hang them up somewhere like you're kitchen, it looks great. When they dry out, chop them finely and keep in a jar in the pantry. Try rosemary, thyme, parsley, sage, whatever you have. Even though I have rosemary in my garden already, I have just discovered rosemary growing in the carpark in our local Woolies. Sucked in to anyone silly enough to buy it in store!

Do you grow your own herbs? 

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Roasted capsicum pasta sauce

Something different and veggie healthy to put on your pasta, is this simple sauce. Easy to make, when you get over peeling the skins, with all the flavour and goodness intact. 

Roasted capsicum pasta sauce
6 red capsicums
1/2 cup cream
salt and pepper

Roast the whole capsicums in a 200C oven for 20 minutes, until the skins start to brown and blister.

Let them cool a bit, remove skins, stalk and seeds.

Puree the capsicums, then place in a pan with the cream and cook for about  four minutes. Season with salt and pepper and toss through cooked pasta.

Feel free to add some parmesan to the sauce.

Try browning some cubed chicken in the pan before adding the puree and cream.

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Crostoli

What do you do with leftover pasta dough? We make crustoli. Well, we do now. 

I remember these from my childhood, Mum used to make them quite a bit. I had no idea how until recently, I mentioned to her I had some spare dough after making ravioli. You could make crostoli, she said, it's just made with flour and egg anyway.

Mum never made homemade pasta, but she had a lot of Italian friends who probably let her in on how to make crostoli. Us kids loved them and they never lasted long, there was five of us! 

It's very simple, there are lots of involved recipes on the net, and you could go looking. I just used my leftover pasta dough, which is 100 grams of flour to 1 whole egg and mixed to a dough. 

For the amount of pasta in the picture, enough for a lasagne, and two strips on the bench,  I used 300 grams and 3 eggs, a pinch of salt and a bit of olive oil if it is a bit dry coming together. Knead until smooth and let it sit for about 20 minutes.

Roll the dough in the pasta machine, then cut into about 15 cm lengths and cut small slits along the middle of the strip.

Deep fry* until lightly golden, drain on paper, then dust with icing sugar. 

Bobs your uncle (fanny's your aunt). 

If I made it again, I would maybe not machine the dough so thin(mine were the thinnest setting), I was making lasagne sheets. 

*When I say deep fry, I used a deep fry pan with about a centimetre of two of oil in it.

Lasagne

This is the recipe I use for lasagne. I made this one for my neighbours on the arrival of their third baby. My good deed done. Brett was very disappointed when I told him not to touch it! 

Beef mince filling

500 gr beef mince

2 cans crushed tomatoes

1 onion, chopped

1 Tspn mixed herbs

3/4 cup stock or just water

Brown mince and onion. Add rest of ingredients and simmer for 20 minutes.

Cheese Sauce

3-4 Tbsp plain flour

2 Tbsp margarine

120 gr grated cheese

2 cups milk

salt and pepper

Melt butter, and add flour, stir to combine.

Remove from heat and add a little of the milk at a time and whisk until it is smooth.

Put it back on the heat and stir until it thickens.

Stir in cheese, salt and pepper.

* If you can't be bothered with the cheese sauce, use a bag of grated mozzarella instead. 

You will need some lasagne sheets. I usually start with two boxes. Or if you're that way inclined, make you're own pasta, it is so much better, and worth trying just once.

You will need some extra cheese for the top and some bacon pieces. 

Don't forget when layering to leave a bit of the cheese sauce for the top.

Start by putting a ladle full of the mince sauce on the bottom of the dish. Cover this with a layer of pasta.

Add a layer of mince, and then a layer of cheese sauce. Cover again with pasta sheets.

Repeat the layering of mince and cheese sauce, ending with a covering of pasta sheets.

Spread the rest of the cheese sauce over the top.

Sprinkle on grated cheese and bacon pieces.

Bake for 30 - 40 minutes.

Pasta Machine

One of the gifts for my birthday was a Wish Gift card. I headed for Big W and bought myself a pasta machine, it has been on my list of 'things to buy' for a while.

Brett's not home for tea tonight, he's one his way home from Melbourne, doing a run in the truck with a load of scrap metal to Smorgons, for my brothers. Luckily they have given him a job to tie us over. With Gunns  going into administration, there is no work. It really has affected milling and the transportation of wood chip in our region. From the actual wood chippers, to truck companies, mill employees and the poor small businesses on the route, like delis and fuel stations. I seriously hope things get back to normal, very soon.

I took some left over pasta sauce from the freezer for tea, it's just me and the girls. If there is anything I don't have trouble getting Izzy to eat, it is pasta. When Summer had her sleep today, I got to making some, of course, whether I liked it or not, Izzy helped.

 Izzy warmed up the pasta machine while the dough rested. She was having a ball.

 I was killin' it, Curtis Stone style. OK now I'm just showing off ;P

 It cuts too!! Much easier and less time consuming than the way I was doing it before.

Home made pasta

  

Spaghetti Carbonara

This was my pic for the Fat Mum Slim Photo a Day Challenge for the 13th of August - simple. It was also part of our dinner for that night. I needed something quick to go with our chops, and leftover salad (from the night before), and it is quick, it only takes as long as the pasta cooks. It's meant to be made with fettucine, but hey, I had spaghetti. 

You can add whatever ingredients you want. I have used up left over chicken and broccoli(I added this to the pasta pot towards the end), or added mushrooms when cooking the bacon.

Fettuccine Carbonara

280gr bacon, chopped

375gr fettucine

3 eggs yolks

1 cup cream

1/2 cup parmesan cheese, grated

salt and pepper

Put pasta on to cook.

 Fry bacon until crisp, drain.

Beat together egg, cream and cheese.

Drain cooked pasta and combine with cream mixture and bacon.

Serve.