Simple, light dinner recipes to make things easy – The Independent
There are some people who collapse on the couch after Thanksgiving or a roast dinner and don’t get up for hours or even days. And then there are the people who treat the whole weekend as a cooking and baking marathon, using up leftovers and pivoting right into cookie baking.
We’ve got recipes for both camps below: utterly simple and light dinners to make things easy, as well as a leftovers recipe that’s a little more complex than putting it all in the microwave, for the enthusiastic cooks. We’ve got a festive Hanukkah moment, too.
One-pan feta pasta with cherry tomatoes
In 2018, Finnish blogger Jenni Hayrinen posted a recipe for baked feta pasta. The dish became a full-on TikTok sensation, popular to the point that supermarkets were selling out of feta. This version streamlines her recipe. Instead of cooking the pasta separately, it’s added to the casserole dish with the baked feta and tomatoes, turning it into a cosy one-pan meal (also note that you’ll need an electric kettle to boil the water. So maybe it’s more like a one-and-a-half-pan meal.) Don’t think of this as a pasta dish in an Italian, al dente sense. It’s more like a creamy casserole along the lines of mac and cheese. In any case, it’s comforting and supremely easy.
Recipe from: Jenni Hayrinen
Adapted by: Melissa Clark
Serves: 4 servings
Total time: 1 hour
Ingredients:
550g cherry tomatoes
5 garlic cloves, peeled and left whole
5 thyme sprigs
2 rosemary sprigs
1½ tsp salt
120ml (½ cup) extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for serving
225g (8oz) feta
½ tsp black pepper, plus more for serving
Pinch of red-pepper flakes
340g (12oz) short pasta, such as farfalle, campanelle, rotini or cavatappi
700ml (3 cups) boiling water
Handful torn basil leaves
Flaky sea salt, for serving
Method:
1. Heat oven to 200C. In a shallow 1.9L casserole or gratin dish, or an 27cm-by-17cm baking dish, combine tomatoes, garlic, thyme, rosemary and ¾ teaspoon salt. Toss with ½ the olive oil to coat. Place the feta in the middle of the dish, and top with the remaining ½ of olive oil. Sprinkle the black pepper and red-pepper flakes over everything. Bake for about 40 minutes, until the garlic has softened and the tomatoes have burst their skins.
2. Add the pasta to the pan in an even layer …….