As a family with multiple allergies, most meals involve several pots: some of them safe for one boy only, some for both. And me, checking and double checking before I dish up, and making sure I don’t mess up a meal by adding the wrong gravy, for example.

That’s why I love meals that all of us can eat together. Bonus points if they are tasty, healthy, quick and cost-effective. Tonight I got a full house in the form of sausage pasta.

We had some leftover sausages from our first barbecue for 2017 yesterday, so I decided to build the boys’ dinner around that. The result was delicious and I ended up having the same when they didn’t finish the lot.

Sausage pasta sauce

Free from: nuts, dairy, egg, wheat, soya, peas, gluten

Ingredients

2 cooked sausages, chopped in small chunks (we had the regular pork sausages by Debbie & Andrew on offer today, but I prefer these chipolatas usually as they have less salt)
2 echalion shallots, chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 grated carrot
sunflower oil
box of chopped tomatoes
basil, dried or freshly chopped, to taste
2 tablespoons of grated Violife cheese

Method

1. Fry the onion and garlic in a bit of sunflower oil until they start to colour, then add the carrot and fry a little longer. (In future I’ll probably add some grated courgette as well.)
2. Add your chopped sausage and start to heat that through. You need to cook all of this until the sausage is piping hot throughout.
3. Chuck in your tomatoes and basil, then turn the heat to its lowest setting to allow the sauce to simmer.
4. When it is all hot through and you’re happy with the consistency, mix it with your cheese and serve.

Serving suggestion

This could work on rice as well, but I served this on free-from penne (Sainsbury’s is my preferred brand), with some cucumber sticks and Tesco free-from garlic bread (another favourite).

To say it was a hit is an understatement, and I loved that they could sit next to each other without me having to warn C not to touch L’s stuff with allergy fingers!