Many of us enjoy, or at least would love to enjoy the luxuries of life. That young candle light dinner with gourmet cuisine and a fine glass of red wine. Can we all afford it? Nope, but we can always improvise right. Just the other day my girlfriends and I wanted to go out for dinner but this thing of a student budget crippled our plans. No worries though because we all came up with a plan to host the dinner in the comfort of our own homes. We were going to go all out, wine and dine style. We all contributed ingredients we already had in our kitchens. We literally spent nothing for the night. With all our combined ingredients we managed to create the ultimate CHEESY PORK SURPRISE with a bowl of Queen’s sexy seasoned chips. In reality it was just lasagne with pork chops and chips on the side. I know it doesn’t sound as sexy but trust the presentation was so freaking amazing if I do say so myself.

Our main ingredients were basically lasagne sheets which were just lying in one of the girl’s cupboard, ground beef, pork chops and a bag of potatoes. The rest were just your regular everyday items such as tomatoes onions and of course seasoning and spices.

We began by seasoning the ground beef with barbeque spice and Italian herbs and letting it stay for a while for the flavour to sink in. My mother always says you need to be intimate with your meat or it won’t taste as good.

People need to taste the love in your food, so you really need to dig in there and massage the seasoning into the beef, don’t be afraid to really get in too deep (wink). After 30 minutes you gooi the meat in the pan with your onions and peppers of course and let it cook for a while. Add a cup of chopped tomatoes and pasta sauce and let it simmer until the tomatoes are ripe.

On the side prepare a white sauce for the lasagne and prepare the sheets. Once the meat is done pour it onto the sheets in a casserole pan, finely spread it and add another layer of lasagne sheets, then another layer of meat and then the white sauce and lastly lasagne sheets. Top it off with grated cheese and let it bake on a medium heat for 45 minutes.

With the pork chops all you do is marinade them with barbeque sauce and a pinch of salt and grill it in the oven for a young 30 minutes, no fuss right I mean I could do this blindfolded.

For Queens Sexy seasoned chips all you do is chop your potatoes into thick cubes soak them into hot salted water while the oil heats up in the pot. (But like dry them first before you throw them in the oil unless you want a new face) Deep fry the potatoes till they turn golden yellow, place them in the middle of a dish cloth, sprinkle a teaspoon of masala, a bit of barbeque spice and sprinkle sugar. Wrap the cloth securely around them and shake until the seasoning is evenly spread and voila le chips is ready.

Now the trick is how you present the meal. Cut a piece of lasagne (attractively) and place it in the middle of your plate. Put your pork chop on the side, or wherever you feel looks real nice and dress the place with a nice white sauce, garnish the meal with mint or parsley. Just make it look nice YO, do your THANG! You don’t have to always spend a fortune to have a wine and dine night. Sometimes you need to just pull together what you have, let the creative juices flow play some classical music and be inspired to cook the worlds sexiest meal ever.

Peace, Love & Good Food | Queenie