Okay. So, admittedly "feast" might be taking this dish one step (or a leap) too far... but it is an invaluable cupboard scraping meal. As it's based on a Nigella "recipe" (the Exhausted Mother's tea-time special from her "Bites" series) you know it's gotta be good! (I would post a link, but apparently it's not deemed a real recipe and the internet doesn't have a copy yet?)
It's a sort of rice/lentil pasta sauce soup... Nigella tells you to simply bring a jar of pasta sauce and a jar of water to the boil before stirring in a handful of rice, cooking for 10 (ish) minutes and serving to small children with a lump of Parmesan nearly the size of their heads to grate over.
My "ingredient" list is a little more extensive, but the basic premise is the same. I added lentils for protein, and frozen spinach for greens thus making it an *almost* balanced meal...
As with my last post - you need to make sure that you use a pasta sauce you like, as it is the dominant flavour - but other than that go nuts with whatever you have in your cupboard/fridge/freezer...
eg: chick peas, broccoli, pasta, un-veggie-ise it with some chopped ham... or veganise it and leave off the cheese...
The beauty of this dish was that I could not go to the supermarket for almost three weeks (not something I recommend!) and still manage to put a tasty meal on the table... Score 1 for Kat!
Ingredients:
1 can/jar tomato based pasta sauce
water to rinse out the jar
1/2 cup rice
1/2 cup puy lentils, soaked (reduces cooking time required)
(or 1 cup rice...? Or, whatevs...)
Optional:
A handful of frozen spinach
Parmesan to grate over.
Method:
Pour the tomato sauce into a saucepan. Fill the empty jar with water and rinse it into the sauce.
Bring to the boil and add lentils/rice - cook for 10 minutes, or until your liking.
Five minutes before done add in the spinach, or other veggies.
Serve with parmesan. Or not. Suit yourself/budget!
:)
My "ingredient" list is a little more extensive, but the basic premise is the same. I added lentils for protein, and frozen spinach for greens thus making it an *almost* balanced meal...
As with my last post - you need to make sure that you use a pasta sauce you like, as it is the dominant flavour - but other than that go nuts with whatever you have in your cupboard/fridge/freezer...
eg: chick peas, broccoli, pasta, un-veggie-ise it with some chopped ham... or veganise it and leave off the cheese...
The beauty of this dish was that I could not go to the supermarket for almost three weeks (not something I recommend!) and still manage to put a tasty meal on the table... Score 1 for Kat!
Ingredients:
1 can/jar tomato based pasta sauce
water to rinse out the jar
1/2 cup rice
1/2 cup puy lentils, soaked (reduces cooking time required)
(or 1 cup rice...? Or, whatevs...)
Optional:
A handful of frozen spinach
Parmesan to grate over.
Method:
Pour the tomato sauce into a saucepan. Fill the empty jar with water and rinse it into the sauce.
Bring to the boil and add lentils/rice - cook for 10 minutes, or until your liking.
Five minutes before done add in the spinach, or other veggies.
Serve with parmesan. Or not. Suit yourself/budget!
:)
sweeet I had totally been wondering if I could put rice in soup (I have a lot of the stuff and am also a bit skint at the moment). thank you for the assurance that this is good Kat!
ReplyDeleteOh! Oh! I have, like, a million blog posts scheduled (on a day for the next week or so...) you should check back on the 1st of March - there'll be a recipe for a surprisingly tasty lentil and rice dish! :)
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