This pasta and sauce has always been a big favourite with my family, it is super easy, and very rich! I’ve recently been experimenting with it and found that this is so versatile, if you don’t like onions swap them out for any vegetable you like, same goes for the spinach and even the mushrooms. You can even switch-up the pasta, I prefer to use tagliatelle or linguine (this is what’s in the photo) but spaghetti or bucatini would probably work too. I usually make this without Quorn and serve it with garlic bread, but recently I’ve been trying to increase the amount of protein I eat so the Quorn fillets were a nice addition. If you try it out please post on here or on Facebook and let me know how it turns out!

Serves 4

The Pasta and Sauce

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp Olive oil
• 2 cloves crushed garlic
• 1 red onion, thinly sliced
• 10 large mushrooms, sliced thick (I like baby portabella but chestnut work well too)
• 1/2 bag of ready-to-eat baby leaf spinach
• 50g butter
• 600 ml double cream
• 150 g grated Parmesan
• Handful of fresh Thyme (dried will work fine, but you might need to add quite a lot to get the flavour to come through)
• 1 tsp garlic salt
• 10 “knots” of tagliatelle (comes dry in a bag in the pasta isle) or 500 g linguine

Method:

1. In a frying pan, heat the olive oil
2. Add the the onions and allow them cook until slightly golden
3. Add the garlic and toss the onions
4. Add the mushrooms and allow them to cook until soft and brown, take off the heat
5. In a saucepan melt the butter on low heat
6. Add the cream and cover, allow to simmer for 10 minutes
7. Add the Parmesan and garlic salt
8. Put the frying pan back on the heat and add the thyme and the spinach. Toss until spinach softens and take off the heat
9. Add the mushroom, spinach, onion mix to the sauce in the saucepan, cover and leave on low heat for 10 minutes
10. At this point you can add salt/pepper to taste
11. Cook the tagliatelle according to the instructions on the packet (salt and oil the water to prevent it getting sticky)
12. Add a spoonful of pasta to a deep plate and spoon the sauce on top

The Quorn

Quorn is so easy to work with, I usually buy the Quorn fillets from the frozen section in the supermarket in a packet of 6 (http://www.quorn.co.uk/food/cook-from-scratch/chicken-style-fillets/). Usually one fillet per person is enough due to the richness of the pasta but as you can see, sometimes I have 2! Cook as follows:

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp garlic infused olive oil (I make this myself by add the scraps of garlic left from crushing to a jar of oil and leaving it about a week, but this is easy to find in supermarkets too)
• Quorn meat-free chicken fillets
• 300 ml vegetable stock

Methods:

1. Heat the oil in a medium frying pan
2. Place the fillets curved-side up and heat for 8 minutes
3. Turn the fillets and cook for a further 8 minutes
4. Add the stock and simmer, open, on low heat for 10 minutes. If the top of the fillets are still exposed just ladle the stock over the top every few minutes.
5. Place on top of the pasta, add some more parmesan, serve and enjoy!