Full House/Table!!!

A few weeks back we had the whole family for a late lunch/early dinner party. The thing is, when we all get together, there’s 15 of us around the table, and we’re all foodies, so we needed to make something that was satisfying for all of us – yup, we’re all picky when it comes to our food! What better way to please everyone than pasta? And not just any pasta, but a melange of taco and pasta to surprise everyone with our creativity!

Obviously, buying food for more than a dozen people is no problem for us, and, for the first time since we started throwing these parties, the food was almost completely devoured and everyone was happy and full. At the end, when you are going to read the nutritional info (it’s scary) keep in mind that all the data is for the whole quantity, and you should divide it by 16 to get a real portion’s worth of information.

Here’s what we bought for our very own Taco-Pasta (I’m sticking to this name!):

• 1 kg minced veal meat
• 500 gr brown mushrooms
• 30 gr fresh basil
• 250 gr cherry tomatoes
• 750 gr whole wheat pasta (we used two different shapes and they were both equally appreciated)
• 2 jars of Jamie Oliver’s Tomato and Chilly pasta sauce
• 500 gr of law-fat cheddar
• 2 medium onions
• 2 garlic cloves
• about 10 olives (we just had them lying around in our fridge so we decided to use them, but they gave the dish a fabulous aroma)
• 1 can of sweet boiled corn (just to get you into that taco mood)

That’s about all you need for this dinner dish, but you can always add beans to fill your Mexican appetite. To be honest, like any pasta, the preparation is the easy part, buying everything was the hard part. It took us about 2 hours to have everything ready, but keep in mind that we had to track our recipe with photos every step of the way and that is time-consuming.

Here are the steps you need to follow:

1. As usual, take as many photos of the lovely ingredients you just bought, as one of the pics is going to be used for the Instagram account.
2. Cut, dice and mince everything as there’s not one single ingredient that will be needed whole. Again, take some pics of the lovely diced ingredients and then it’s actually time to start cooking.
3. In a pot (you’ll need two in the end, but just use one for the sauce and then divide it so that the aroma is evenly distributed) melt a pat of butter just to be sure that none of the ingredients stick to it.
4. Pour all the onion into it and let it cook until it’s turned golden. After that, add all the meat and stir well until it has reached an earthy brown colour.
5. Add the mushrooms and the tomatoes and stir well. Let them all cook until the mushrooms start leaving a bit of water.
6. Add the tomato sauce, the olives, the corn, the minced garlic and the basil and stir well. By this point you’ve used most of your ingredients. Let the sauce boil for a few minutes just to get all the aromas out.
7. Add two glasses of water just to get the whole sauce in a more liquid state and to get it out of boiling mode so you can safely divide it into two parts (this is when the second pot comes into play).
8. Add the pasta and let it boil for 15 minutes stirring regularly.
9. The last step is the cheese-step. Add all the cheese, stir well and let it boil for another 2 minutes than switch off the stove. You’re done!

That’s about all it takes to feed 15 people and have some leftovers for the next day. All you have to do now is decorate a few plates and take some photos before everyone arrives! Remember what I told you about the nutritional info. Using the same quantities as we did you’ll end up with 16 servings, so keep that in mind when you read all about those health data provided by my Jawbone UP app. This dish is rated at 9.1/10 so it’s on the very healthy side, but you do need to consume it in moderation as each serving gives you about 320 kcals and quite a lot of saturated fats!

L.