Sauce oignons-champignons sur pâtes

Cut mushrooms of different types.
Cut an onion and start to fry it slowly. Put the mushrooms in another pan.
Start boiling the water for the pasta.

Prepare the sauce in a bowl: mix milk, crême fraîche, cornflower, white wine, a bit of curry, salt, pepper.
Pour in a pot and start cooking.

Add a tomato in the onions and some white wine in the mushrooms and in the onions.

Add the pasta in the boiling water.

When there is not much water left with the mushrooms, pour them in the onions' pan. Add a little more white wine. Once disappeared, pour everything in the sauce which in the meanwhile must have thickened a little bit. Add some herbs.
Add bacon bits (lardons) in the pan where the onions used to be.
Once they are cooked, add them to the sauce.

Ready.

Galettes de pommes de terres accompagnées d'une compote pommes-oignons nappée d'une sauce au vin et au miel

It has been quite a while. I have been a bit busy and althought eating was not stopped, creativity was put a little on hold and when it managed to emerge, I did not have the time to record it. The meal here was an improvisation, once again, and I suppose was quite costly since it required a fair amount of wine.

Cut onions and make them fry slowly in a pot. Cut 5 apples in bits and add them with the onions once they look cooked.
In the meanwhile, grate 6 potatoes and mix with some grated cheese. Pour 2 eggs in a bowl, add salt, pepper, paprika and herbs. Mix well.
Now take some of the potato-cheese mixture and make little cakes out of them (5 cm in diameter). Pour into the ball with the egg solution. Take the liquid out and make sure the galette is kind of solid. Store them in a plate. Once they are all done, cook them in a little oil in a covered pan. Do not forget to cook both sides.

The sauce. In a bowl, mix honey, wine, crême fraîche, ginger, paprika, salt and pepper. In a pot, melt some butter, Add some cornflower and mix well. Then add the mixture just prepared. And mix well. When it looks thick, add milk. Mix thoroughly. If it is too liquid, wait longer. You must boil the sauce one, to help the spice reveal themselves and to help the cornflower to thicken the sauce.

When evertyhing is ready, serve the galettes, add the compote and the sauce on top of it.
A good addition is to add ham bits in the pan with the galettes as they finish cooking.

Gratin de pâtes avec une sauce paprika-miel

Something terrible had befallen the house. No more money on Saturday in the common pot. Forced then to live on the fridge's reserves. So, there is no need to say that this meal was indeed cheap and I would put it around £2.

Cut 8 shallots in bits. Fry them gently in a pan.
Boil some water for pasta.
Cut 2 tomatoes in bits and wait for the shallots to have nice colours before adding them in the pan.
Put the pasta in the pot and switch on an oven. It must be put on grill.

Aside, take two spoons of crême fraîche and mix it in a bowl with some milk, two teaspoons of honey, some piments d'espelette, and paprika. Salt pepper. Had some cornflour. Mix and pour in a small pot. Warm gently and keep mixing it and when it has boiled once, add the shallots and tomatoes in it. It should be a bit thick. Add a little bit of grated cheese in it.

Wait for the pasta to finish cooking and the sauce to finish. Pour the pasta in a oven-resistant dish, pour on top the sauce and add as much grated cheese as you like on top.


Put in the oven and wait for the cheese to get coloured.

Pâtes à la Norvégienne

That is it, for the first time since the start of term I have eaten potatoes. Such a difference from everyday's potatoes in Halls. This meal was a bit costly, it involved Salmon pushing up the price towards £4

Peal potatoes, cut them in cubes, cook them.
Cook the pasta as well.

Cut an onion and make it fry quietly. Cut a tomato, when the onion starts getting colours, add it in the pan.

In a bowl, mix some crême fraîche, milk and a teaspoon full of cornflower. Mix well, add salt and pepper and the juice of a lemon. Cook. Stop when it has started boiling for the first time. It should be thick. Add parsley, chives and dill.

In the meanwhile, you had the salmon cut in bit and fry quickly in another pan.

Add everything in the sauce and serve over the pasta.

Riz nappé d'une sauce au miel - curry, servi avec pommes et oignons sautés.

I was finishing a novel on my bed instead of working when the thought of the two and a half apples left from Sunday's tarte aux pommes came to my mind. What could I do with them. Well onions and apples go well together, with lardons it could not be bad so that was the start.

Then I got a crazy idea about a honey and curry sauce and extending my thoughts I could see myself very well putting leeks and the 2 tomatoes left in the fridge with it. Rice seemed a normal choice to accompany it.

So there we were with again a weird association that did not cost that much. Leek and lardons were the two most expensive items. In overall, the dish cost round about £2.50.

Put water to boil

Cut one onion in fine bits and let it fry very slowly with some butter in a pan. Cut leeks (I had about 200g of them) in two in their length and cut in small half-circles. Add in another pan, with some sunflower oil (no olive oil).
Cut two apples in cubes and add with the onions once they start getting some colour. Put a little bit of salt
By now the water is boiling, add white rice in (brown would not do).
Cut two tomatoes, remove the liquidy bits with the seeds in and add with the leek once it looks cooked. Add salt and pepper.

In a bowl, while everything cooks gently, mix 100g of crême fraîche (for those who think I am using too much of it, I use a low fat one). Add milk , a teaspoon of cornflower and 2 table spoons of honey. Mix well. Add curry and some espelle chillis, salt, pepper. Mix and verse in a pot to warm it up.

Once the sauce as boiled once, cut the fire under it and add the leek and tomatoes in it.

Cook lardons in the leek pan. Once cooked to your taste, add to the sauce.

Serve the rice. Put the apples and onions on one side and verse the sauce half on the rice, half on an empty space of the plate.

Ready !

Sauce au bleu sur pâtes, poivrons verts et tomates farcies

A third way of doing a nice cheap sauce and use what was left of the previous day's ingredients. It migh look long, but the sauce was actually prepared long before the pasta finished to cook. So instead of waiting useless in the kitchen, do a sauce ! Estimated price around £2.50 (wine cost a lot but I used only 1/4 of a bottle) for three people (Mat, Sebastian and me).

Put the water to boil in the kettle
Take 2 spoons of crême fraîche, a glass or two of milk and about 50g of blue cheese (if you use the Danish blue from Tesco's, be careful, it is quite a strong taste) in little pieces. Add some cornflower and mix. Pour in a pot and let warm lightly on the gas.

Aside, cut one onion in small bits, put in in the pan, quick at start and then quite slow once the onions start getting some colours, cut a green pepper, put in in the same pan.

Add some spices in the sauce (I added Espelette chili, pepper and salt). Make sure it does not boil.

By then the pasta must be cooking. You have nothing to do, just cut some parsley to be added in the sauce right at the end and open a bottle of white wine. Drink some and pour a bit of it in the sauce and in the pan. Wait.

Once the pasta is ready, boil the sauce if you have not done it (be careful milk rises quickly and it should not).

Serve with the tomatoes left from 2 days ago that you warmed in the microwave.

While the sauce is cooking, taste it and add cheese, and spices or wine according to your taste.
The cornflower is there to make it thicker. But it only works after you boiled it.

Pâtes et tomates farcies accompagnées d'une sauce curry

Ok, I still used the tomatoes prepared the day earlier. Estimates for that meal (not taking in account the tomatoes) is roughly £1.70 and was prepared for 3 people: Mat, Sebastian and me).

Prepare pasta. Easy
In a pan, fry gently onions in very little bits and peppers (yellow and red, the sweetests). Put the onions a bit earlier as they take longer to cook.
In bowl, put one or two spoons of crême fraîche. Add a glass of milk and some cornflower. Mix everything. Add in the pan once the vegetables look cooked. Pour in some curry, salt, black pepper. And wait a bit. Right at the end, add some parsley.

Warm the tomatoes that were in the fridge since the day before in the microwave and serve.

Tomates farcies accompagnées de riz nappé de sauce à la Amaury

Well, I think this place is far better to put recipes on than my profile, so here we go. I will try to add what I eat for dinner either prepared by me or by my 2 flatmates .

If some people do not think it is possible to do great cuisine when they are students, they are mistaken. The meal here presented cost us rougly £3.50 and we have enough to eat for 3 days with 2 people (one of the flatmates is vegetarian.

Take 10 good size tomatoes, cut the top (about 2 or 3 mm) and empty what is inside - the flesh. Put the flesh in a little pot. Keep the tops.
Now take 150g of mince meat, cut it in little pieces and mix in it some parsley, chives, garlic (all cut in little pieces as well) and a little bit of grated cheese. Had spices as your taste dictates you. Salt and pepper are good. Paprika is really nice. Mix everything homogeneously. You have stuffing.

Fill the tomatoes with the stuffing. Put the top, on top. Align the tomatoes in a heat resistant dish and put some olive oil in (little bit). Insert in a pre-heated hoven at roughly 200°C. Leave it there about 30 minutes (not sure about that I did not have any recipes and forgot to look at my watch).

While this cooks, prepare rice (easy, read instructions on the pack, we will see later for more complicated way of cooking rice).
Light the gas under the pot with the tomatoes' flesh, very lightly.
In a pan add mushrooms in slices with a little oil. In another, add onions in slices. Fry both slowly. Once one of the two is ready, put it with the other. Wait that all the water from the mushrooms has disappeared. Add some white wine (half a glass) in the pan and a little bit in the pot with the tomatoes' flesh.
Add some cornflower in the tomatoes and mix well, then two spoons of crême fraîche and finally spices, salt pepper and paprika.
Once the wine has almost disappear from the pan, put the mushrooms and the onions with the tomatoes to finish the sauce.
Add parsley, wait about three minutes and add a little bit more parsley.

It is ready.