Easy Peasy Cheesy Pasta

There are of course many recipes where you can make the 'cheese' sauce from scratch but if you're looking for a quick, gluten free, cheap vegan mac'n'cheese then look no further!

Easy Peasy Cheesy Pasta recipe
(4 servings)

1 tub of Free & Easy Dairy Free Cheese Flavour Sauce Mix (£1.65 from Ocado)
900ml of water
Handful of chopped basil
Tbsp dried oregano
Salt & black pepper
400g Gluten Free Fusilli pasta (500g for £1.89 from Ocado)
(Optional-Linda McCartney vegan sausage chopped into small pieces) (£1.95 from Ocado)

Boil a large saucepan of water with a handful of Himalayan Rock Salt. Once boiling add the fusilli and cook for 10 minutes. Meanwhile mix a tsp of the cheese mix with a little of the water and stir into a paste. Continue to add the cheese mix, alternated with water till the whole tub and 900ml of water has been used. Add this to a saucepan and bring to the boil. Continue to simmer on a medium-low heat until the pasta is ready. If you are including the vegan sausage then they should take around 10 minutes to fry in the Air Fryer previously mentioned in another post. Once the pasta is drained, mix it into the sauce and top with the basil, oregano, seasoning and chopped sausage. I also like to drizzle a little bit of chilli oil over the top :)

Est Calories per serving: 330Kcal

First Post, First Recipe

So this is the first post, it was always going to be a bit tricky-where do I start? What do I talk about?
Well, maybe I'll just start with a yummy, healthy and cheap dinner that I made the other night. I didn't make every single thing on the plate from scratch, but that's my aim with this blog-realistically a lot of families don't have time to make everything from scratch, whilst being healthy, whilst staying within a budget. I like to find a nice balance between the two!

Pudla pancake with falafels and mixed veg
(serves 2)

For the pancake:
165g chickpea (gram) flour (£1.39 for 1kg from Ocado)
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1 spring onion finely chopped
1 tbsp dried coriander
pinch of cayenne pepper
pinch of dried chili flakes
plenty of salt and black pepper
juice of 1 lemon

Veg:
Chopped chestnut mushrooms (250g) seasoned with 1tsp of ground cumin and 1/2 tsp of garlic powder.
250g of frozen mixed grilled vegetables (£2.49 750g from Ocado)

4 (or more) Goodlife Gluten Free Falafel-(£1.99 280g from Ocado)

Combine all of the above ingredients into a stand mixer if you have one or mix well the good ol' fashioned way by hand and spoon! For frying, I used an Electric Pancake Maker as it's easy to use, quick to clean and doesn't require a lot of oil for frying but obviously a frying pan is just as good. Place a teaspoon of sunflower/coconut oil on the fryer or the frying pan and empty the mixture onto the pan. Don't be surprised if it doesn't form a perfect circle, it's not meant to and after all, it's the taste that's more important! Leave the pancake to fry on one side for about 5 mins on medium to high heat.
Meanwhile fry the mixed veg and mushrooms in 2 separate pans, again with a little sunflower/coconut oil. Cook the sweet potato falafels in an Air Fryer or oven for around 15 minutes. Total cooking time for everything should be around 10-15 minutes. After 5 minutes, flip the pancake over, this should be easy to do with a spatula as the pancake would have already solidified and should be forming a dense texture. The end result should be slightly golden on the outside but fluffy on the inside.
Serve the pancake with the falafels and a portion of each vegetable mix and voila! I like to have the pancake with a bit of sweet chili sauce next to it also :)

Est. calorie intake for 1 person minus any oil used for cooking with 2 falafels-400 calories.