Over my many years of house sharing, both by myself and with Mr GP before we got a place with just the two of us, I shared with people with very different ideas about food. As I’ve mentioned several times, I grew up eating food that was always cooked from scratch at home, and often from produce grown at home, so the world of share houses was a very different one!

Some people I was influenced quite heavily by – witness the many recipes from the vegetarian Moosewood cookbooks. Others, like the boys I lived with who ate nothing but Maccas and KFC, not so much!

The first household I lived in where we all went shopping together each week was quite a large one with three housemates plus assorted partners there at various times. We went to the fruit and vegetable markets each week to buy whatever was cheap, and ate a lot of ‘kitchen sink’ stir fries with everything from eggplant to carrot to snow-peas, often spiced up with curry pastes. It was a lot more fun than the  house of takeaway, and it was great to be living with people were interested in food, but still did things differently to the way I had grown up.

One housemate was a keen baker (try her fabulous cheesecake too), but also made some great quick tasty dinners, most of which I never recorded, but this is one that she jotted down for me. It’s very much a pantry meal, with almost everything coming from the cupboard, and the combination of tuna, spices and mozzarella is not an obvious one, but it’s delicious, and the sort of dish that heats up wonderfully for work lunches.

Tuna curry lasagne

• 1 Tbs butter
• 2 small onions
• 1 tsp ginger
• 1 1/2 Tbs curry powder
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 400g tomato puree
• 400g tin tuna
• 500g spiral pasta
• 250g mozzarella
• salt and pepper

Melt butter in a medium saucepan.  Finely chop onion, and fry gently, covered, until soft. Remove lid and cook a few more minutes until golden brown. Add ginger, curry powder and sugar, and cook another couple of minutes. Add tomato puree and drained tuna, and season with salt and pepper. While the sauce is simmering, cook the pasta until al dente and drain.

In an approximately 20x30cm dish, layer half the pasta, followed by half the sauce and then cheese. Repeat layers. Bake at 200C for approximately 20 minutes until bubbling and cheese is golden brown.

Cool slightly before serving.