I finished a quick session at 10pm and made my way back to the house, promising dinner using one of my simple recipes. As my girlfriend was thumbing her way through the local Chinese menu, I knew that a quick recipe was needed.

Jamie Oliver’s 30 minute meals are on the TV at the moment but have had mixed reviews. Some people complain that it’s impossible to do them in 30 minutes, but my only issue has been the price and quantity of the ingredients.

One of his recipes did catch my eye; “Pregnant Jools Pasta”.

I began by chopping the veg; I couldn’t quite remember what was in his recipe but knew all good Italian sauces had a base of onion, carrot and celery (minus the celery as we didn’t have any). Jamie always used a food processer to speed things along, but this was something missing in my student girlfriends flat so I thought I would test my knife skills. After several pints this may have seemed like a bad idea and I was soon rescued by a soup making flat mate and her hand blender which did a perfect job of chopping up the onions and carrots.

At the same time, I added a tablespoon each of oregano, fennel seeds and chilli powder. When I checked back over Jamie’s recipe I realised that it was supposed to be only a teaspoon. This made my version is a bit more aromatic which can mask cheaper sausages (see below). I hand blended this together to bash up the fennel seeds in place of a pestle and mortar and threw it all in the pan.

Jamie’s recipe calls for the best sausages available, however, with increased seasoning, even cheap student sausages suffice. To save yourself from putting these through a non-existent food processer, simply squeeze the sausages out of their skins. Add them to the mixture, along with tinned tomatoes (basics, again) and after a bit of cooking (about 15 minutes) it’s ready to eat.

There was much scepticism, my diners were not too keen on the idea of sausages in a “spag bol”, but were quickly converted after the first bite, knocking back most of it before the spaghetti was even cooked!

Was it tasty, or had the aforementioned alcohol dampened our taste buds? Yes is the simple answer, especially when leftovers made a reappearance on a jacket potato the next day for lunch.

In this recipe, the quality of the sausage and spaghetti can change with budgets. Every other ingredient was tesco’s own brand or basics, especially the tinned tomatoes; I cannot taste or see the difference between cheap tinned tomatoes and the most expensive ones. And, therefore, recommend that you buy the cheapest, regardless of budget.

Costs for 3 people

Next time...

This blog was started to help share and swap simple, easy recipes that don’t cost the earth, and so the next blog will include my weekly shop and the meals I cook, trying to maximise taste whilst minimising costs and difficulty.