During lock down I was put in touch with a wonderful organisation called the Far Project and I was funded by Quorn foods to provide 120 meals per week to families who were struggling for a variety of reason to cook healthy meals during lockdown. Here is a little more information about the Far Project:
”FAR Community Centre is an excellent place to go, we are based in Fenham in the West End of Newcastle and have a team of youth workers and volunteers to support you and to organise the kind of activities you want to do.
Our project offers lots of different things to do also, we work with children and young people from the age of 5 to 18 but our activities and projects are broken up into different age groups. We use our funding to give you different types of things to do, including a fun reading group where we have games, cool books and lots of activities..
Our project has been going for about 20 years but our team is really enthusiastic about working with children and young people, we work in partnership with Newcastle University so many of our volunteers are young and many of them come from different parts of England, we have even had many international volunteers from USA, Asia and different parts of Europe.”
For almost 6 months I prepared meals that people could reheat at home and I prepared lots of different recipes including Quorn cottage pie, pasta bake, chilli and cheese wedges, hot pot, bolognese bake and burritos. Everyone at the far project really enjoyed the recipes. Here is the Quorn bolognese bake recipe
Quorn Bolognese Bake
Preparation time 15 minutes
Cooking Time 30 minutes
Serves 4
300g Quorn mince
2 tbsp olive oil
150g onion, finely diced
150g carrot, finely diced
2 clove garlic, finely chopped or crushed
400g can chopped tomatoes
1 vegetable stock cube, dissolved in 200ml boiling water
2 tbsp tomato puree
1 tsp dried mixed herbs
350g penne pasta
Method
- Heat the oil in a frying pan, add the onion, carrot and garlic, and cook over a moderate heat for about 5 minutes until the vegetables have softened.
- Pour the chopped tomatoes into the pan along with the vegetable stock, tomato puree and mixed herbs. Stir well then simmer gently for about 10 minutes until the vegetables are cooked and the sauce has thickened.
- Stir the Quorn Mince into the sauce and continue to cook for about 15 minutes until piping hot. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
- Meanwhile cook the pasta in a large pan of boiling water as per the pack instructions. Serve the pasta in bowls with the Bolognese sauce spooned on top.
Tip Add a pinch of chilli powder to the Bolognese sauce and serve with rigatoni pasta for a spicy ragu recipe.
https://www.quornfoodservice.co.uk/adding-value
https://www.facebook.com/farcommunity
https://www.jillweatherburn.co.uk/services/bespoke-projects/