Crab pasta and a herby salad

This is a really healthy meal.
I got the basic crab pasta recipe from the book "under the Tuscan sun" and added some extra twists to it.
The herby salad which is far too healthy to eat on its own goes well with this dish. I felt so detoxed after it.

Ingredients: (I don't really have portions here.. I'll leave it to your preference)
Crab pasta
- Crab Meat. Being lazy, I got this in ready packs in Tiong Bahru market. It's ok but doesn't taste as good as if you extracted the crab meat yourself. But if you are busy and want the meal quickly, just buy this.
- Linguine
- Baby Tomatoes
- Garlic
- Shallots
- Lemon
Herb Salad
- Coriander
- Spring Onion
- Parsley
- Mint
- Basil
- Cucumber
- Avocado. I won't normally put this into the salad but I had to use the avocado as it was starting to blacken…
- Lemon
- Olive oil
- Garlic

Crab Pasta

1) Chop Garlic. Reserve some for the herb salad
2) Zest Lemon. Squeeze juice out. Part of it is for the herb salad.
3) Half baby tomatoes
4) Dice Shallots
5) Heat olive oil in pan under low fire. Put garlic and shallots in. Low fire is to slowly extract the flavor of the garlic and shallot out.
6) Once garlic and shallot start to soften increase to medium flame. Put baby tomatoes in non skin side down on pan. this is so that the baby tomatoes can cook faster and juices will flow out. Be careful not to have the flame too high as we want the tomato juice to be extracted. Season with salt and black pepper.
7) Boil Linguine in boiling salted water.
8) When tomatoes have soften, add crab meat in.
9) Add the pasta that has been cooked al dente into pan of tomatoes and crab meat. Transfer that pasta straight from the pot where the pasta is boiled into the pan. This is so that some of the water from the cooked pasta will go into the tomato sauce. This helps to thicken the sauce slightly.
10) Switch fire off. Add lemon zest and plenty of lemon juice to taste. This will make the dish fresh.

Herb Salad

1) Chop herbs.
2) Slice cucumber.
3) Scoop flesh of avocado out and dice it.
4) Mix the garlic, lemon juice and olive oil together to make a lemon vinaigrette. 3 portions oil to 1 portion lemon juice.
5) Mix vinaigrette with herbs, cucumber, avocado.

I would pile the greens on the pasta and eat the pasta with it.
This isn't complicated to make and very very healthy.

Roasted Prawns with tomatoes

I love this one pan meal. Little preparation work or washing.

Ingredients: This serves 4.
- Prawns (1kg)
- Baby Tomatoes (400g)
- Yellow capsicum (2)- I used red capsicum in the photo. Yellow looks nicer
- Garlic (8 pieces small pieces)
- Brown Onion (1)
- Lemon
- Thyme
- Coriander
- Bread (I used the baguette)

1) Take out seeds of each yellow capsicum and cut into 8 segments for each capsicum.
2) Pound each garlic piece once with the flat part of your knife. This will allow the garlic to cook faster.
3) Cut Onion into 8 segments.
4) Zest Lemon
5) Chop coriander
6) Put the prawns, baby tomatoes, capsicum, onion, garlic, thyme and lemon zest into a pan. If there is too much in one pan, you have to use 2 pans. As if there is too much in one pan, the items will steam rather than bake.
7) Pour olive oil generously on the items in the pan and season with salt and black pepper.
8) Put in oven at 180C. Roast it for 30 mins to 40 mins depending on prawn size.
9) When ready, put coriander leaves and squeeze lemon on top of the items. The lemon will lift the dish.
10) Toast the sliced bread

The juices of the prawns with the all the vegetables will create a wonderful sauce at the bottom of the pan.  Mop up those juices with warm crusty bread.

This is a great for a very busy mum. Plus less washing for hubby.

Some variations I use
- Use crayfish instead of prawns
- Add green beans in the last 10 mins of baking
- If you like olives, you can put that into the dish. It will give another dimension of flavor- some tartness.

Mushroom brushetta

What will a quick 10 min mushroom dish be?

Mushroom brushetta may I suggest. This simple dish can be a quick meal or a starter at a dinner party. It can be prepared easily in advance.

Ingredients:
- Mixed mushrooms
- Shallots
- Garlic
- White wine
- Thyme
- Parsley or other herbs
- Baguette sliced
- Lemon

1) Dice mushrooms
2) Chop shallots and garlic finely
3) Pick out thyme leaves
4) Chop parsley
5) Toast the baguette in oven for a few mins
6) Fry shallots and garlic gently in olive oil till translucent.
7) Add mushrooms in with thyme. Season with salt and pepper.
8) Add a splash of white wine. The mushrooms will soak this like a sponge.
9) Once mushrooms soft. Add a tiny bit of lemon in to lift the taste and parsley.
10) Put mushrooms on the baguette

I think this would taste good with goats cheese as well.

My brother suggested aged Pinot Noir (6-7 years) with some acidity to go well with this dish. Pinot Noir has the earthy flavors to match the mushrooms. The acidity will be good to cut through the goats cheese. This means the wine selected cannot be a new world wine as the wines from the new world are generally fruity.

For more wine tips go http://www.wineandonly.info/

Pomegranate, orange and walnut salad

I had 2 friends over for dinner last night.

It was a simple, steak, potatoes and salad dinner. Something quick for a weekday night with a bitte of Shiraz kindly brought over by a friend.

We happen to be an extremely greedy bunch and chomped up all the food before we took any pictures… Again…

I can only promise pictures next time.

But here is a recipe for a delicious and refreshing salad. The troublesome bit is the pomegranate. But it gives a fabulous lift to the dish

This serves 4 for a salad side ( I suspect it would serve 5-6 but we are all extremely greedy)

Ingredients: 
Salad-
Pomegranate (1/2 if big)
Oranges (2). I happened to be able to get pink flesh oranges for these which are so sweet and delicious! I don't think these ones were blood oranges but blood oranges will taste fab for this dish
Green Apple (1)
Walnuts (100g)
Baby Butterhead Lettuce (2)
Marjoram ( Optional, I think thyme, mint will also go well with this dish)
Dressing-
Honey
Red wine vinegar
Olive Oil

1) Roast walnuts for 5 mins in oven. I feel that this gets rid of some of the bitterness of the skin.
2) Cut pomegranate into thick wedges. To get seeds out of pomegranate, I fill a bowl of water and tear the seeds out of the wedges in the water. The seeds generally sink and the cork like part of the pomegranate skin usually floats. This separates the seeds from the rest of the fruit.
3) Cut skin of orange. Segment the orange flesh.
4) Peel green apple skin, then slice green apple in thin long pieces. Put the sliced strips in a bowl of water to prevent it from turning  brown. I like green apples over red ones in this dish as it has a bit more acidity that complements the sweetness of the pink oranges and pomegranate.
4) Roast walnuts for 5 mins in oven. I feel that this gets rid of some of the bitterness of the skin.
5) Chop off bottom stem of butterhead. Wash individual leaves in a bowl of water and then dry it in a salad spinner.
6) Pick off the herbs.
7) Prepare dressing in a screwtop bottle. I mix 1 part red wine vinegar to 3 parts oil and honey to taste. I probably won't do more than 40 ml of dressing otherwise salad will be too soggy.
8) Get a large bowl, put the lettuce leafs in there. Pour half dressing at bottom of bowl and mix leaves with dressing
9) Put rest of ingredients in the bowl. Pour the amount of dressing you want and coat the rest of the ingredients with dressing by mixing. In tossing ingredients, one must be gentle so that the herbs and leaves won't be broken by the tossing motion.

An important rule- only dress the salad before serving!! Otherwise, salad will go soggy.

If you want to make the salad a meal and want to add some meat/seafood and carbs, I suggest adding prawns and couscous.

Try it and tell me what you think.

My brother suggested what will go well with it would be a Tasmania Sauvignon Blanc. It has to be from Tasmania as flavours are not too grassy and not too mineral compared to the ones from New Zealand and France. To see more on his thoughts on wine, go to www.wineandonly.info

Quick tomato pasta (15 mins)

I had to whip up a quick meal tonight with what I had in the fridge and had no time to defrost anything. I was also too lazy to go to the supermarket.

Fortunately I had the following ingredients: (portions I used)
- Baby Tomatoes (1 packet about 200g??)
- Lemons (1)
- Smoked Salmon (150g)
- Spring onions (1 bunch, this all depends on what you like, other herbs like dill, parsley or basil will do well)
- Thyme

I also usually have these staples
- Shallots (one small so that taste is not too strong)
- Garlic (one large or 2 small cloves)
- Balsamic vinegar (to taste)
- Pasta

Some extras:
- Anchovies ( just to add an extra dimension, it may not be necessary. Other things that may taste good with this dish are capers or olives)
- Parmesan ( I personally prefer parmigiano reggiano shaved fresh but I didn't have any in my fridge…, I wonder if pecorino will taste good with this.)

This gave me enough to do a quick tasty pasta. What I love about this dish is that the only thing that needs cooking is the pasta. I have seen many variations of pasta of this sort before, so this recipe has been adapted from what I have seen…

1) Chop up shallots and garlic finely.
2) Put a bit of salt in the garlic and mash it into a paste. I find that this reduces the strong taste of raw garlic slightly
3) Half all the baby tomatoes. Good tomatoes for this dish is essential. I get mine from Tiong Bahru market. Most tomatoes in Singapore are crap.
4) Zest one lemon. Cut a quarter of lemon
5) Chop herbs. Thyme does not need to be chopped, just pick it.
6) Cook Pasta to Al Dente.
7) Mix the tomatoes, shallots, garlic, thyme, lemon zest, anchovies in a bowl.
8) Add olive oil generously.
9) Add Salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar, lemon to taste. Mash all the items in the bowl. The lovely juices of the tomato will mix with the other ingredients.
10) Add herbs in. We add herbs in after mashing so not to crush the herbs.
11) Add the still warm drained pasta to the bowl of ingredients.
12) Add the Parmesan in.
13) EAT!

This healthy dish can be done in 15 mins, trust me! Best of all not much washing up.
Sorry I have no pictures. I was starving and ate it all before thinking of the blog. I'll try to add the pictures next time.

Can someone take the pictures of my cooking for me as I always forget.
Any suggestions on what you would make with what I had?

Rhone wine dinner 14/4/2012

My guests and I were too busy chomping, drinking and laughing to take pics.

But at least memories remain…

Here is my brother's wine review of the night- http://www.wineandonly.info/2012/04/southern-rhone-wine-dinner-140412.html

Cost us much cheaper than in a restaurant.