Easy Oven bakes for kiddies!

Here are two easy dishes to make with children. You put them together cold. An adult can put them in the oven. An hour later - voila! Dinner is served!The pudding takes slightly less time cooking, so you can do them one after the other, and pudding should be ready just as you're finishing your first course. Clever - huh?

Phoebe’s Pasta Bake

Ingredients
200g dry pasta (shapes best – eg. Fusilli, penne, shells)
EITHER 500g creamy pasta sauce
OR 250g pasta sauce and 250g cream cheese or mascarpone
OR 2 small tins of condensed soup
100g grated cheese

Optionals:
Chopped peppers
Sliced mushrooms
1 x tin of sweet corn
1 x tin of tuna
1 x tin of beans/pulses
Diced tomatoes
Any cooked vegetables you need to use up!


Method:
1. You can pre-heat oven to 185°C/gas mark 6, or you can put this dish into a cold oven then turn it to the correct temperature.
2. Place dry pasta and all or any optional ingredients into a large oven-proof dish. Stir to mix.
3. Stir in pasta sauce/ pasta sauce and cream cheese or mascarpone/ 2 small tins of condensed soup which ever you are using.
4. Fill jar/tins/cartons from step 3 with water and add to pasta mix (essentially you need approx. 500g water). Stir to mix.
EITHER:
5. Sprinkle with cheese and bake in oven for 50 minutes.
OR (If your oven is a little temperamental!):
6. Bake uncovered for 25 minutes.
7. Remove from oven and stir thoroughly. Sprinkle with cheese and return to oven for 20 minutes.
8. Allow to stand for 5 minutes before serving.

Chocolate Fudge Pudding

Ingredients:
2 tbsp cocoa powder
110g/4 oz. self-raising flour
110g/4 oz. caster sugar
110g/4 oz. butter or margarine
2 eggs
½ tsp. Vanilla extract
1 tbsp chopped walnuts
1-2 tbsp milk
For the sauce:
110g/4 oz. light brown sugar
2 tbsp cocoa powder.

Method:
1. Heat oven to 185°C (or use nice warm oven from pasta bake). Lightly grease a deep ovenproof dish.
2. Mix butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
3. Add eggs and vanilla.
4. Fold in flour, cocoa, walnuts and as much milk as you need to make a soft consistency.
5. Put in baking dish.
6. For the sauce; mix the sugar and cocoa with 275ml/10 fl oz. of hot but not boiling water.
7. Pour sauce over the pudding in the dish and bake for 40 mins.
8. The cake will rise and the sauce will form a pool underneath and around it.
This is particularly good with vanilla ice-cream.