deli-style pasta lunch

I have to confess that this is the first post I’ve written from university since I got here almost a month ago. Learning to adapt to a new kitchen and more importantly work a different oven (I think my housemates thought I was a little crazy when I asked them where the ‘fire’ was – I’m used to gas not electric) left little time for writing new posts. I was sneaky and wrote some extra posts before I arrived because I didn’t want to leave a massive gap, especially as I’m still quite new here! 

Unfortunately I had to leave my nice camera at home so you’ll have to bear with my fairly dodgy iPhone 4 camera. It had a little water-related disaster on my first day back at uni but a bag of rice later and we’re on the safe side of that, thankfully!

This isn’t much of a recipe, but I think it looks quite fancy (my post on salmon sandwiches explains how I, annoyingly, dislike straightforward lunches) however this really isn’t much effort at all.

Ingredients to serve one:

• Mixed peppers, (£0.99, Tesco)
• Courgette (£0.40, Tesco)
• Wholewheat fusilli pasta (£0.59, Tesco)
• Rocket leaves (£1, Tesco)
• Reduced fat green pesto (£1, Tesco)
• Tomato purée (£0.50, Tesco)
• Everyday value Mozzarella (£0.47, Tesco)
• Cheddar (Medium White 200g, £1.40, Tesco)

Process:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C (I’ve gone to the dark side, no more gas mark for me) and chop the peppers and courgettes into small chunks. In order for this to be an easy lunch I suggest doing the vegetables the day before, incorporating them into your dinner and then just using the leftovers for this lunch. Lay out the veg on a deep baking tray, drizzle over a tablespoon of olive oil and roast in the oven for roughly 30 minutes.
2. Cook your desired amount of pasta in salted boiling water for 12 minutes.
3. Strain the pasta, add the vegetables, a spoonful of both pesto and tomato purée, and a few pieces of mozzarella. Stir this all together and garnish with rocket leaves and a little cheddar, if you fancy.

Total cooking and preparation time: If you cook the veg the day before it will only take you roughly 15 minutes to prepare this easy lunch.

Price per portion: This is quite difficult to calculate as you will only need a small amount of each of the ingredients and there will be plenty left over. But I would say roughly £2.00

I hope you enjoy this lunch. Lately I’ve been serving many of my meals with rocket leaves as they just make them look so appealing!