Jamie Oliver’s 15 Minute Meals have come under lots of criticism. He uses ingredients that people have said are “hard to source”, and some complain that he uses “too many pans”, the recipes “take half an hour” and has often left people “flustered, hungry, and stressed out”. However, I think the concept of 15 minutes meals is excellent; day-to-day suppers should not take long at all.
As students, the problem often isn’t time, it’s a ‘can’t be arsed’ attitude and lack of knowledge about how to whip up a quick dinner that often leads us to order a takeaway or buy a ready meal. I hate ready meals, as their price, quality, and portion sizes are usually sub-par. In my opinion, they’re a massive rip off. I am on a mission to show that cooking doesn’t need to be laborious. Tasty, nutritious meals can be cooked in less than 15 minutes.
This garlicky prawn tagliatelle is super easy and costs less that two ready meals!
Serves 2
Ingredients:
One pack of frozen prawns
A small bag of spinach
Two cloves of garlic
Bunch of coriander (optional but adds good flavour)
A teaspoon of chilli flakes or one fresh red chilli finely chopped (depends on your heat tolerance)
Tablespoon of oil
Two tablespoons of butter
Tablespoon of single cream of full fat milk (Optional)
Eight balls of tagliatelle
(Salt and pepper to season)
Method:
1. Put tagliatelle into pan and cover with just boiled water, cook for around eight minutes
2. At the same time, in a separate frying pan, add oil, butter and garlic and cook for around three minutes on a low heat
3. Add the prawns and chilli flakes and cook until prawns are pink
4. Add the spinach to the prawns
5. Once the spinach has wilted add the cream and a ladle-full of the starchy pasta water
6. Drain pasta
7. Take frying pan off the heat and stir in the pasta
8. Once the pasta is coated in the sauce add coriander and serve
Voila — a delicious supper in ten minutes!
