smoked salmon linguine

simple, quick, easy, tasty.. what more could you want?

serves 4 or is good the next day for lunch

200g smoked salmon, roughly chopped into bite size pieces.
300g spaghetti or linguine.
250g cherry tomatoes halved.
2 generous handfuls of rocket.
Juice of half a lemon.
1 bunch of asparagus, trimmed and in bite size pieces.
2 tbsp (i used tesco its 2 syns per tbsp) reduced fat red pesto (also works with green pesto)

Start by cooking the pasta for 2 minutes less than the packet says. About halfway through cooking add the asparagus (reserve about 1/4 tea cup of the water)

mix the lemon juice, pesto and water together with a generous pinch of black pepper.

drain the pasta, add back to the pot you boiled it in, pour over the pesto and add the salmon coating the pasta, add in the cherry tomatoes too.

Serve and top with the rocket.

crab linguine

Sorry for not posting in a few days i have been off track as i've not been well.. so heres to the first proper meal back on plan. I am a pasta/carbaholic.. and i love crab so here is a simple crab linguine that is simple but easy to impress with!

serves 4

500g linguine, spaghetti.. whatever the heck you want!
i used asda frozen crab claws as you get a lot of meat but 2 tins of lump crab meat in brine will do (just drain off the water)
2 large tomatoes, deseeded and chopped into small pieces.
zest and juice of a lemon
4 tsp of olive oil
1/2 grated clove of garlic
(chilli is nice but personally i prefer this dish without chilli.. you could always add half a desseeded chilli finely chopped)
generous pinch of salt and pepper
about 200g fresh rocket to serve.

cook the pasta -2 minutes of the cooking time to make it perfectly al dente.
meanwhile save some of the pasta water and mix in the olive oil, lemon, garlic, salt and pepper.
drain the pasta and add back to the pot with the pasta water mixture and tomatoes
.
coat the pasta in the flavour then add in the crab meat, stir lightly trying to not break it up too much.
to serve just dish the pasta up then add the rocket to the top of the pasta, this is the way they do it in italian restaurants and it works really well, almost like another seasoning to the crab and pasta dish and brings out the flavour of the crab, along with the lemon!








(image courtesy of bbcgoodfood until i make this again... as i was too hungry to think about a photo sorry!)