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Nonna’s Baked Pasta with Pork & Pea Ragu & Cheesy Béchamel
Easy
Prep 15 min Cook 20 min
I wanted to contribute to this cook book to bring our attention back to one of the most shocking humanitarian disaster that seems to be growing higher and higher in numbers every year. Amongst our global pandemic of Covid 19 and our current the climate crisis which has captured the headlines for so long, we do not want people to forget the 42 million people around the world either on the edge of starvation and or faced with crisis levels of food insecurity.
It is so shocking that with the enormous food wastage problem across the world, that this unbelievable number of people are still facing starvation or food scarcity.
Creating a recipe for $14 dollars was not as easy as it use to be with the current rising food prices, I was absolutely shocked to see how little $14 actually buys you in today’s supermarkets , and that was choosing the cheaper brand ingredients and making a very simple Italian dish.
I chose Nonna’s Baked Pasta with Pork & Pea Ragu & Cheesy Béchamel , it’s a classic recipe I use to have with my Italian family, its cheap, delicious and feeds a crowd. The reason why I chose this dish and these ingredients as they are flexible in the way you can use the ingredients in different recipes if you were to purchase the ingredients in a weekly shop the recipe makes a large baking dish thus giving at least two nights of food for a family of 4-6 which when you break it down makes a very economical, filling and tasty dinner and left overs for lunch.
Download your free copy of the cook book “Hunger Bites” here and help support the end of child hunger.
Ingredients
Ingredient Cost
500g pork mince $5.00
500g frozen peas $1.60
150g grated cheese $3.25
600ml full cream milk $1.10
2 x 400g diced tin
tomatoes with basil onion and garlic $1.60
500g penne pasta $.80c
4 tbsp flour (pantry)
Salt and pepper ( pantry )
Recipe Steps
- Preheat oven 180c
- 1. Heat a non stick pan over a moderate temperature and cook the pork mince until done, drain off the juices into a separate saucepan and set aside.
2. Add the two tins of diced peeled tomatoes to the pork mince and half fill one tin with water and add this to the pork and tomatoes, season with salt and pepper. Bring the pork Raghu to a simmer and cook for 20 minutes.
3. Meanwhile whisk 4 tblsp of plain flour into the milk and add this into the saucepan with the pork juices. Stir over a moderate heat until the mixture thickens to the consistency of custard, season with salt and pepper and stir through half the grated cheese. Set the béchamel aside.
4. Cook the pasta as per the instructions on the side of a pack. Drain and mix the pasta with ¾ of the pork ragu sauce and ½ the béchamel sauce.
5. Pour the pasta mix into a baking dish and top with the remaining sauce, béchamel and grated cheese.
6. Bake the pasta for 20 minutes or until the cheese is golden and melted.