Spicy sausage and bean one-pot

This has to be one of the easiest dinners to prepare, it's done in less than 30 minutes.  Make sure you buy the beans in chilli sauce as this means you won't have to make your own.

Spicy sausage and ban one-pot

All you need for 2 people is:
Vegetable oil (for frying)
1/2 onion (thickly sliced)
4 Cumberland sausages
1 small garlic clove (crushed)
1 x 400g can kidney beans in chilli sauce
(a couple of sprigs of parsley, chopped)

Thickly chop half an onion before heating the oil in a large frying pan.  Cook the sausages for about 10 minutes over a fairly high heat, turning them often so that they brown all over.  Add the garlic to the pan with the beans and sauce along with a quarter of a can of water.  Stir everything together and bring to the boil.  Turn the heat down and simmer for 10 minutes (or until the sausages have cooked through and the sauce reduced).  Season, serve and sprinkle with the parsley.

This tasted great, the chilli gave the dish a nice kick and it was cheap to make too!

Udon Noodle Soup

Sometimes you really want something warm and tasty for dinner, but don't have the energy or time to cook something fancy, it is at times like these when you need a soup like this udon noodle soup.  It is really simple, quick to make and tastes delicious.  Although it may not seem like it, this dish is actually quite cheap (and the more people you cook for the cheaper it will be).  I made it for 5 people and it cost about £1 per person (I still have most of a bottle of teriyaki sauce left as well as several stock cubes and a pack of noodles, so I will probably be making this dish again over the weekend).

Udon noodle soup

For 5 people you will need:

1 vegetable stock cube

60ml teriyaki sauce

1tbsp vegetable oil (for frying)

250g chestnut mushrooms (sliced)

3/4 bunch spring onions (sliced)

410g udon noodles (we used fresh egg noodles)

250g bag spinach

Chop the mushrooms then fry them over a high heat for a few minutes until they turn golden brown, add the spring onions and fry for a minute more, then set the pan aside.  While doing this boil 1.25 litres water in a kettle (or a saucepan if you have a second hob) and once boiled add the stock cube and teriyaki sauce.  Bring to the boil again and add the noodles for 2-3 minutes.  Then add the spinach (my pan was a little small so I had to do this gradually) and cook for about a minute until it has just wilted.  Finally stir in the mushrooms, spring onions and some seasoning before serving.

• If you aren't a fan of vegetarian cooking then this would taste great with some chicken, either cook it beforehand (under a grill or in a frying pan) or before you add the noodles, slice the chicken and cook it in the broth.
• For a more unusual vegetarian alternative you could substitute some of the chestnut mushrooms for other varieties of mushrooms.

The great thing about this dish is that it is so versatile, you can make as much or as little as you want and substitute ingredients depending on what you fancy.  I personally loved the dish the way it is, especially the spinach but I would be tempted to try the two variations I suggested above to change it up a bit.  This really is a simple yet great-tasting dish!

Adapted from the BBC GoodFood Magazine