Enchilada Pasta Bake

I found the recipe for this on Pinterest a couple of weeks ago, I've made it a couple of times and tweaked the recipe ever so slightly but it has become a firm favourite here and is now being incorporated into this years Christmas Festivities Menu (Christmas Eve not the big day itself).

The website and original recipe that I found, you can find here on a blog called Table for Two, a very talented Lady writes there!

The main differences that I made with mine was that I made my Enchilada Sauce rather than using it out of a jar and I put in a lot more fat (woops but sometimes it has to be done) and on my third incarnation I have used Penne pasta rather than Noodles.

So here goes:

Recipe

Serves 4

For the Enchilada Sauce

(Make this first so it can cool down a little or make it in advance and keep it in the fridge, this isn't essential but you can do it in advance if you wish)

1 can Chopped Tomatoes or Tomato Passatta

1 Onion, Chopped

1 Clove Garlic, Chopped

2tsp Chilli Powder

1tsp Cumin

1/2tsp dried Oregano

Put all ingredients in a saucepan and heat up for about 5-10 minutes. That's it!

(If you would like a smooth sauce then puree ingredients before heating in a blender, but I like to have the chunks of onion in the final piece)

Pasta Bake

400g Beef Mince

1/2tsp chilli powder

1/2tsp cumin

1/2tsp cayenne pepper

200g cream cheese (I used Philadelphia, full fat or light they work just as well as each other)

200ml sour cream (this is where I differ the most from the original recipe)

Enchilada Sauce (recipe above or you can use a jar)

80g Cheddar Cheese

80g Sweetcorn

300g Penne Pasta

Preheat Oven to 180C (350F)

Put Pasta water on to boil.

Brown your mince (I tend to use Tesco Light Choices Cook from Frozen, if your using fresh you might want to drain some of the fat once it's cooked) and add your chilli powder, cumin and cayenne pepper and mix it all together.

Put Pasta in to cook.

Add in the cream cheese stir in until melted and fully combined into the mince.

In a separate bowl mix your Enchilada Sauce, Sour Cream, half of the cheese and the Sweetcorn, and then add this to your mince mixture and stir until all completely combined and leave to simmer.

Once Pasta has cooked according to the package instructions drain it and then add to the mince mixture stirring to ensure it is fully coated in all the mincey cheesey goodness!!

If the pan you have been using is oven proof then just add the remaining cheese and put it in the oven, if not transfer mixture to a oven proof dish and then cover with remaining cheese and put in the oven for 15 minutes until cheese has melted!

AND ENJOY!! Trust me it's amazing!!

Speak Soon

Nat -x-

Ginger and Cinnamon Pancakes

I made these this morning cause I was looking for a recipe to use up some milk cause we seem to have absolutely tons in the fridge.  Anyway I found this recipe online, and just made up the pancakes cause I didn't fancy any bacon!!

 I made a few too many as it was just me this morning but they were absolutely the best pancakes I have ever tasted!! Yum yum yum!

So if you have some spare milk and you're a fan of ginger I highly recommend making these!!

Speak soon
Nat -x-

Chocolate Birthday Cake

Sorry about the huge delay in the posting of this errm post!

So here is my Aunt's birthday cake, it was originally supposed to be one of those big cupcakes but it refused to come out of the mold in one piece so I went with the classic circular cake instead:

 So I made two chocolate sponge cakes, chocolate butter cream and topped it all with chocolate buttons and malteasers!!

Recipe

Pre heat the oven to 150 degrees

Per Chocolate Sponge

150g Self-Raising Flour
175g Softened Butter
175g Granulated Sugar
75g Drinking Chocolate
3 Large Eggs
3 Tbsp Boiling Water

Buttercream

150g Softened Butter
275g Chocolate Icing Sugar

Mix everything together in a bowl, then put in a tin and cook for an hour.

For the buttercream mix the butter and icing sugar together, then spread between the two cakes and then on top, and decorate with chocolate buttons and malteasers!

Baking Adventures!

I've got so into baking recently that I thought it might be fun to start documenting those adventures and experiments as well as the crafty ones!

So I shall be back later today with my Aunt's Birthday Cake, and I'm thinking of attempting Fondant Fancies in honour of tonight's Great British Bake Off Final - but not the ones in the Radio Times cause I don't like Marzipan and my favourite part was always the little blob of buttercream so I'm going to attempt that one!!

I shall be back later with my findings!!

Speak Soon
Nat -x-