chicken fajita pasta bake

I don’t know about you but recently I’ve been super busy with essays, exams and preparation for my year abroad. I love cooking and find it a great way to destress but sometimes there just aren’t enough hours in a day to cook an elaborate meal and write a 2000 word essay (and doing them at the same time could get a little messy!). So I’ve had some fun coming up with some really tasty and quick meals, and this cheesy pasta with (slightly) spicy chicken really hits the spot after a long day of working/revising/doing absolutely anything at all 🙂 

pasta peperonata

This is inspired by a delicious looking recipe on Jamie Oliver’s website, with a few little tweaks of my own. I feel like there’s something so appealing about rigatoni pasta – maybe because it’s that little bit bigger than penne, and (at least for me) is reminiscent of eating out, and treating yourself a bit. I love having go-to pasta dishes, and I think this may have become one. The simple but also tangy sauce sets it apart from your average tomatoey fare, and is just delicious. 

snazzy tuna pasta bake

Tuna pasta bake is a great dish at it uses ingredients that you’ll most likely already have in your cupboard, and it requires little energy to put together. However I think it’s got a bit of a bad rep for being rather uninspiring (and who doesn’t want to be inspired at dinner-time?!) so I thought I’d spruce it up a little whilst still keeping it budget-friendly. 

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! 

bacon and red pepper cheesy pasta bake

This is a firm favourite in our family, however I can’t take any responsibility for the recipe as my mum found it years and years ago on the side of a packet of pasta. We call it simply ‘bacon pasta’ and have it almost every week. I don’t think that the name does it justice; I’ve tweaked it a little for the purpose of this blog.

Despite being fairly simple, it’s honestly one of my favourite meals – I think the combination of cheese, bacon and red pepper in a tomato sauce is an absolute winner.