Our little “Around the World for £4 or less” experiment took us to Italy this evening. What else would you cook on a budget from Italy? It had to be pasta really....

 

The Pasta should really have been Ziti which is a tubular pasta and would have held the sauce better. But we're tight, it's bitterly cold out and the local supermarket don't be a Gluten Free version anyway. Enough excuses, Fusilli did the job fine!

 

This is a recipe Sue created from two traditional recipes combined to keep it within of £4 budget. It's as traditional as possible.

 

Ingredients:-

 

Pasta of your choice ( We're not shapist here.....)

Oil (Olive if you have it. We didn't and used Vegetable Oil)

2 Onion chopped – 1 large, 1 small

3 cloves of Garlic minced

500g Minced Beef (Or Pork and Beef if you prefer)

2 tbsp Tomato Purée

1 tbsp dried Origano

1 tsp Dried Rosemary

½ tsp Chilli Flakes

1 tin chopped Tomatoes

5 tbsp Butter or Margarine

200g Cream Cheese (Philadelphia or shop own brand)

2 tbsp Basil, part to garnish

50 g Grated Italian style Cheese

100g Grated Mozzarella

1 Egg

Salt to season

 

Method:-

 

Making the Mariana Sauce

 

(1) Heat the tin of chopped Tomatoes and add the Butter, ½ tsp of Salt and an Onion sliced in half.

(2) Stir then let simmer for 15 minutes. 

(3) Remove the Onion and set the sauce aside.

 

Meat Sauce:-

 

(1) In a large frying pan add chopped Onion and Garlic to the Oil and fry until translucent.

(2) Add the Chilli flakes and Herbs and simmer.

(3) Add the mince and cook through until browned.

 

Pasta:-

 

(1) In a separate pan boil salted water, ad the Pasta and cook until Al Dente.

(2) Drain the Pasta.

(3) Add the mince mixture to the Mariana Sauce, add the Tomato Puree and a few spoonfulls of the Pasta water.

(4) Simmer for a further 10 minutes.

 

Cheese Sauce:-

 

(1) Mix the Cream Cheese and half of the grated Italian style Cheese, 1 Egg and a pinch of Salt.

 

Bringing it all together:-

 

(1) Drain the Pasta and add to the mince and sauce mixture. Stir and make sure the Pasta is well coated.

(2) In an ovenproof dish layer the Pasta mix then the Cream Cheese mix and repeat.

(3) Top off with Mozzarella and the remaining half of the Italian style grated Cheese.

(4) Bake at 180c until the topping is slightly browned and the whole disk is piping hot.

 

We served ours with a little dress salad and home-made Garlic bread.