Four quick ‘school-night’ dinners

We’ve all had days when work, school, or simply life means dinner becomes an afterthought. These four recipes are here for those nights — quick to make, PKU-friendly, and flavourful.

Three recipes are Phe-free; the fourth has 2.5 g Phe per adult portion, with optional additions if you need more.

Three recipes are Phe-free; the fourth has 2.5 g Phe per adult portion, with optional additions if you need more.

Roasted courgette & aubergine.

Phe-free

Scaled for two adult portions as a main meal. Fridge to plate in under an hour, most of that is oven time.

1 aubergine
2 large (or 4 medium) courgettes
4 Tbsp olives, stoned & chopped
6 Tbsp grated PKU cheese. (I use Violife Prosociano Wedge.)
2 Tbsp chopped rosemary (or 1/2 tsp dried)
4 Tbsp PKU bread crumbs (I blitz up a slice of PKU bread.)
Salt & black Pepper
Olive oil

1. Set oven to 180C.
2. Mix the olives, rosemary, cheese, and breadcrumbs. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Cut the courgettes and aubergine in half lengthways and score the cut surfaces deeply, but taking care not to go through.
4. Place courgettes snugly, cut side up in small roasting tin then rub with a little olive oil on the cut surface.
5. Cover with prepared olive & cheese mix, pressing down but not compacting the mix. Trickle a little more olive oil.
6. Bake for 45 mins to an hour, until sizzling. Serve with a side salad if you feel the need though it can be a big meal on its own. Goes well with mayonnaise/salad cream, bbq sauce, tomato sauce, chilli sauce…

Easy fennel pasta

Phe-Free

Scaled for two adult portions. Fridge to plate in half an hour.

1 fennel bulb
1/2 onion, diced
1-2 cloves garlic
160g PKU pasta, (or 80g per person. See my post on cooking PKU and non-PKU pasta at the same time.)
1/4 cup wine (or 1 Tbsp white wine vinegar if cooking for kids)
1 Tbsp lemon juice
Parsley
Salt & Pepper to taste

1. Get a pot of water on the stove for your pasta. I went into cooking PKU pasta on a previous blog if you need tips.
2. Cut off the top stalks and rough bottom of the fennel bulb. Wash and dry the bulb. (If any of the outside is bruised or browned, gently cut it off without hacking through the bulb.) Cut the bulb in half, then shave or thinly slice the fennel.
3. Sweat fennel, onion, and garlic in pot with lid on for about 10 mins, stirring often.
4. When your pasta has 6 mins to left go, add wine to fennel mix and turn up the heat to boil off the alcohol.
5. When the pasta is cooked, drain it. Then add lemon, salt and pepper to fennel mix and serve with pasta.

Quick roasted broccoli & pasta

2.5 Phe per person

The broccoli is 1 Phe for 60g. A 300g head of broccoli for two people results in 2.5 phe per portion. The pine kernels are an optional extra if you need to boost Phe to make up more exchanges.

This recipe is for two people and is ready from fridge to plate in about half an hour. Give it a go, it is the second recipe here: https://pigpen.page/pku-friendly-recipes-to-try-in-october/

Two-in-one Lasagne

Phe-free

This one takes more work, however, he reward is four huge adult sized portions which can feed both PKU and non-PKU-ers. I suggest trying it out on a weekend for the first time as it can be fiddly.

Once you are used to it, it can be a handy mid-week dinner. We make it early in the week which gives us a full meal plus leftovers. https://pigpen.page/pku-and-non-pku-lasagne-in-the-same-dish/