Eight creative ways to use Slyly Simple spicy tomato sauce

Our spicy tomato sauce with olives is a smashing hit, and nobody seems to be getting enough of it. We all know that we only need to toss it with some fresh Slyly Simple pasta to make ourselves a fabulous home cooked meal. Having said that, Slyly Simple is all about getting creative, so here are eight other ways you could use your jar of Slyly Simple spicy tomato sauce!

Pizza

Whether you prefer making the dough from scratch or use ready pizza bases - the spicy sauce makes an excellent base sauce for pizza. A layer of sauce and a generous sprinkling of cheese is all you need to make an excellent pizaa - and this could only get better as you add more toppings to it!

Lasagna

A lasagna is certainly an elaborate meal - but once you have a sauce to hold it all together, the rest is pretty easy. Layer the lasagna sheets with Slyly Simple spicy tomato sauce, cheese, vegetables (and meat) and all you need to do is bake it!

Sandwiches

Whether it is for a quick meal on the go, or as part of a picnic lunch - sandwiches are a hot favourite. The sauce keeps the bread from getting dry - and you could always jazz it up further with lettuce leaves, a slice of cheese or some shredded chicken.

Scrambled eggs

Add some zing to your Sunday breakfast. Add a dollop of Slyly Simple sauce into the pan as your scramble the eggs and your breakfast is suddenly an exotic weekend highlight!

Dip

Whether its chips, crackers or salad sticks - Slyly Simple spicy tomato sauce can make them all a lot more interesting!

Tomato rice

A great solution for a quick dinner - warm up some sauce, add the rice and enough water to cook - you may need to season with some extra salt - and you'll have an exotic herbed tomato rice for dinner. Serve alongside yoghurt, and your meal is complete.

Bruschetta

Toasted bread topped off with spicy sauce and all your other favourite toppings - olives, capers, sundried tomatoes, cheese - the list is endless.

Potato skins

Add a spoonful of spicy tomato sauce to your potato skins before you bake them, and get a wonderful flavour to complement the potatoes and cheese.

A Slyly Simple Pizza

Slyly Simple sauces have been a big hit among our Gourmet Club members, and we have been digging around to find out how they have been using our sauces creatively. One big hit is to make a Slyly Simple pizza, and this is how it is done!

Ingredients:

Whole wheat pizza base (you get this at gourmet grocery stores - and if you feel like making the base yourself, try out one of the numerous recipes you can find on the Internet)
Grated mixed cheese - the perfect blend would be mozzarella, cheddar and parmesan. One could also add some feta or blue cheese to make this truly amazing!
Slyly Simple spicy sauce with olives OR Slyly Simple basil walnut pesto for the pesto lovers
Any other toppings you love - olives, capers, sundried tomatoes, shredded chicken, shredded basil... this is the fun part!

And how to do it:

Pre heat the oven to about 160 degrees Celcius
While the oven heats, spread your preferred Slyly Simple sauce over the pizza base. Too much sauce makes a soggy pizza, so a nice thin layer is all you need here.
Add all your favourite toppings
Drizzle generously with cheese

Pop your assembled pizza onto a baking sheet or greased oven tray, and bake for about 15-20 minutes or until the cheese is melted.
Cut the pizza into wegdes using a pizza cutter and serve!

Whole Wheat Macaroni in Creamy Tomato Sauce

Here's a quick fix recipe for an excellent creamy tomato sauce to go with your Slyly Simple whole wheat pasta. This is a hot favourite among kids - and is just as easy to make as any other instant meal.

Ingredients:
Slyly Simple spicy tomato sauce with olives - 150ml
Slyly Simple large macaroni - 1 box
Fresh cream - 50g
Grated cheese to garnish (parmesan tastes best, but use anything in the kitchen)

Procedure:
Cook the Slyly Simple large macaroni as per instructions on the box.
While the pasta cooks, mix together the sauce and cream to get a smooth consistency. Heat the mixture on a pan, or in the microwave (use a microwave friendly bowl and heat for about 1-1.5 minutes).
Once the pasta is cooked, toss it in with the sauce and make sure the pasta is coated well.
Serve into plates and top off with grated cheese.

You can be sure that this instant meal is going to be an instant hit with the kids, and considering that it is made from natural, fresh ingredients, your conscience will not have anything to worry about either!

Spinach spaghetti with zucchini - vegan recipe

Its recipe time! While we have been experimenting and playing with a bunch of new flavours, we haven't been very regular about posting them online and making it available to you all. So here's a Slyly Simple recipe that is bound to please with ease... all it takes is fifteen minutes, and you have a vegan main course for your special dinner!

You could also just as easily put this together into a microwave friendly bowl - and heat 'n' eat when you take your lunch break...

Ingredients (serves 2)

Slyly Simple vegan spinach spaghetti - 1 box (150g)

Slyly Simple vegan basil walnut pesto - 3 tablespoons

Slyly Simple tomato basil sauce - 4 tablespoons

1 medium sized zucchini, diced

 

Method:

Fill a saucepan with water and a pinch of sauce, and bring to a rolling boil. You can dice the zucchini while it boils.

 

Once the water is boiling, reduce the heat and slowly immerse the spaghetti. Let it simmer for about 4-5 minutes - stir gently now and then to make sure it all cooks.

 

While the spaghetti cooks, put the pesto into another sauce pan and heat on a low flame. As soon as the pesto is warm, add the zucchini to the pot, and stir well so that the zucchini is coated with pesto. Stir occasionally while cooking until the zucchini is just tender (about 2 minutes).

At this point, add the tomato basil sauce and mix well. Let the sauce heat up; your spaghetti should be ready around now.

 

Drain the spaghetti using a colander (do not rinse under cold water) and try to make sure most of the water is drained out. Now add the spaghetti to the sauce (which will be uniformly warm by now). Gently toss so that the spaghetti is coated with sauce (do not stir furiously, or the spaghetti will break).

 

Put the flame off, cover the pot for a couple of minutes so all the flavours come together. Et voila! Your Slyly Simple vegan delight is ready to serve!

 

Serving suggestion:

Serve alongside a fresh salad, or a slice of garlic bread for a simple and healthy meal!

A Slyly Simple Party for Children

Our first event this year was a very special one - the first birthday of a dear friend's daughter. This was a very well planned party, and it was most important that the pasta matched up to the rest of the food and to the organisation of the whole party! The picture below is only of the appetizers, so as you can well imagine, this was a tough act to follow!

Picture courtesy: Kumar Kanetkar

Everything was homemade - from the appetizers to the birthday cake, and the spread was divine. The food was carefully planned so that it would appeal to children and the grown-ups too... this meant from taste to presentation, everything had to be thought through in detail.

Picture courtesy: Kumar Kanetkar

We are happy that it turned out really well, and we received a great response from the children and their parents alike! If you are looking for a child-friendly and adult-friendly healthy menu - here are some ideas on how to go about it:

Fettuccine in pesto:

Slyly Simple fettuccine is made with whole wheat flour, free range eggs and lots of care! Cook the pasta and toss it together with a little pesto, just until every ribbon of fettuccine is lightly coated with the sauce. Top this off with parmesan cheese and sundried tomatoes, and there you have it. Easy to fix, ready to serve, and delightful to eat!

For the meat lovers, top this off with thin slices of prosciutto - et voila! They'll be pleased!

Farfalle in creamy tomato sauce:

This is likely to be a big hit among the children. Keep some chilli flakes/tobasco handy, and the adults will love it too!

Mix some Slyly Simple Tomato Parmesan sauce with cream (ratio 1:1) in a bowl. Add some chopped black olives to the mix. Saute some finely chopped onions in olive oil, and add this to the sauce mixture too, for a tinge of sweetness. Boil some Slyly Simple whole wheat farfalle.

Fill a bowl with the pasta, pour onto it a generous helping of the sauce. Top it off with grated parmesan cheese and watch the children devour it!

Boneless grilled chicken chunks can be added to the sauce if desired.

Baked ravioli:

Baked ravioli is an old favourite - and it always works! A detailed recipe has been posted before, check out This Post!

Gift your children good health and good food their next birthday - serve them health, slyly and simply!

Garlic Pepper Fettuccine with Creamy Pesto

Here is a recipe to combine Slyly Simple garlic pepper fettuccine with some basil walnut pesto and put together a rather exotic meal in minutes.

Follow the simple instructions step by step and let us know if it worked for you!

Cook the pasta:

Fill a saucepan with water and bring to boil. Add salt to the water (about 1 teaspoon per litre). Reduce the heat and bring the water to a gentle simmer.
Take a box of Slyly Simple Garlic Pepper Fettuccine (available on www.slylysimple.com/order/html) and gently add the contents to the simmering water.
Let the pasta cook for about 5-6 minutes until it is just about cooked al-dente (overcooked pasta is no fun, this is probably the most important step).

Prepare the sauce:

While the pasta cooks, take about 4 tablespoons of Slyly Simple Basil Walnut pesto in a bowl. Add about 100g of cream to it (you could use milk instead for a lighter version). Mix well to get a consistent sauce.

Sundried tomatoes go excellently with this sauce. If you have some, add a few sundried tomatoes to the mix. (If you love sundried tomatoes, keep a careful watch on Slyly Simple on Facebook. We hope to add these to our product list soon).

Finishing touches:

When the pasta is cooked, its time to get the dish together.
Put the sauce into a saucepan on low flame, and let it slowly warm up. Drain the pasta well, and add the pasta to the saucepan with the warm sauce.
Gently shake the saucapan (or toss with a wooden spoon) so that the pasta is well coated with the sauce while keeping the mixture on a low flame. Keep the pasta warm for about 1-2 minutes, then serve into plates.
Garnish with grated parmesan or chopped basil, and serve while hot.

Unfortunately we haven'y been able to take any pictures of the meal, it always disappears too quickly! Hopefully one of these days we can update this page with a picture.

Cooking pasta is easy!

Cooking pasta is easy, and there's little that can go wrong with it... here are some tips so that you enjoy every bite of your meal:

1. Fill a saucepan with water, and add a little salt to it (maybe 1tsp for every litre)

2. Bring the water to boil

3. Reduce the heat, so that the water is gently simmering

4. Gently introduce your Slyly Simple fresh pasta

5. Since all Slyly Simple pasta is made of whole wheat flour, let the pot simmer for around 5 minutes until the pasta is cooked, but is still firm to bite (cooked al dente).

6. Drain the pasta using a strainer, and toss it into a bowl with your favourite Slyly Simple sauce.

7. Toss well - garnish with cheese or basil or olives or sundried tomatoes or anything else that you prefer.

8. Eat hot!

Alternative:
Drain the pasta a little before it is full cooked, and introduce to a pan containing hot pasta sauce. Let the pasta cook fully in the sauce - this way it absorbs the flavours better.

Keep watching this space for oven and microwave suggestions!

Baked Ravioli

Making a batch of ravioli for a larger group of people can be time consuming - since the ravioli will need to be cooked in batches depending on the size of the saucepan. Besides, it is a challenge to keep the ravioli warm while you are cooking the rest of the batches, and you need to pester your guests to eat as soon as the ravioli is ready, lest it become cold and not quite as enjoyable. Ravioli also needs to be handled delicately, and you need to be really careful while tossing large quantities of it with a pasta sauce, so that none of them break apart. All together, serving ravioli to a larger group of people is a challenge, even when it is done the slyly simple way.

I've discovered the next best solution - bake it! You can cook all the ravioli in one go, leave it to cook in the oven as you can enjoy a conversation with your guests, and its much easier to keep it warm until its time to serve. You're far less likely to break the ravioli since they do not need to be handled as much - and even if a couple of pieces break, it still stays together without compromising on flavour or presentation. The texture of baked ravioli is not as soft as when they are boiled, so critics and connoiseurs may not approve - but I find this method to be very effective and tasty, particularly when you have a hungry lot hovering around the kitchen.

Here's how to go about it...

Step 1: Line a baking dish with a little bit of olive oil to make sure the pasta doesn't stick. Now spread out the ravioli in a single layer along the bottom of the dish.

Step 2: Cover the ravioli with your preferred pasta sauce - my favourite combination is with the cheesy tomato Slyly Simple sauce.

Step 3: Get creative - I used some asparagus in my dish. Perhaps you would like to try out some pieces of broccoli or mushrooms instead. You could even skip this step, it is going to taste great regardless.

Step 4: Add some cheese - I used grated cheddar here, but I imagine this would also be great with stronger flavours like goat cheese. You could skip this step too - although I'd say a bake looks incomplete without cheese :-)

If you like, you could repeat the steps above and make a second layer - my baking dish was wide enough so I stopped at one layer.

Step 5: Cover the dish with aluminium foil so that it bakes uniformly without burning the cheese. Pop into a pre-heated oven at about 100-120 degrees celcius, and bake for about 30-40 minutes. Baking time and temperature are rough estimates, its always safer to use a lower temperature and check on your dish after the first 20 minutes.

You could garnish the dish at the end with some fresh herbs or a dollop of butter if you like. Or if you can't wait anymore - just dig in!

Disclaimer: This dish is going to be a big hit, and you probably wont have enough. You may have some hungry faces at the dinner table even after this has been polished off.