Creamy salmon pasta

Posted on February 4, 2014 by lindaharley

The original recipe for this dish comes in at about 400 calories, so I tweaked it by swapping half the pasta for courgette ribbons. Still, 40g spaghetti is a pitifully small amount for 130 calories, and wasn’t really worth it. Next time I’ll use all courgette, or the slim pasta.

I made a sauce by stirring 2 generous tablespoons of Tesco’s healthy living creme fraiche (80 cals) into a scraping of leftover light Philadelphia with cucumber (20 cals). I added the zest and juice of half a lemon, and plenty of black pepper.

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I made courgette ribbons by running a cheese slicer down the length, and then slicing the resulting strips down the middle. One courgette at 150g is 30 cals. I put them to boil with 40g spaghetti.

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Once the pasta was soft enough, I drained it, and stirred in 60g smoked salmon trimmings (130 cals), and then my cream sauce.  I topped the lot with a blob of caviar/ lumpfish roe (10 cals)

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The end result was rather decadent.  I’d definitely do the sauce again! 400 cals, 25g protein, 40g carbs.

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Take one tray of prawns…

Posted on February 1, 2014 by lindaharley

I don’t usually like fasting when I’m at home – far too many temptations around.  But circumstances this week made it unavoidable, and in retrospect it was much easier than I’d imagined.  Largely down to a reduced 300g pack of cooked prawns I found for 75p in the supermarket, which I proceeded to turn into lunch and dinner.

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Prawns are a faster’s friend – at only 65 calories per 100g it is possible to have a very satisfying meal within the 500 daily allowance.

For lunch, I took a good handful of rocket leaves, some chopped cherry tomatoes, 100g of the prawns, and a tub of grapefruit segments in juice (there are 40 cals per pot, and another of my fast day saviours). I garnished the lot with some slivers of sushi ginger, and the whole plateful comes in about 150 calories.  The taste combinations are superb – prawn and tomato are a tried and tested marriage, but the addition of the peppery rocket and the juicy bittersweet grapefruit, with a zing from the ginger, was a very refreshing and flavourful meal.

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I noticed that my tomatoes were past their best, so for dinner I simmered them with a chopped stick of celery in a splash of red wine, and added a squeeze each of sun dried tomato puree, basil paste and umami. And a blob of minced garlic.

Image I sieved the resulting pulp to make a good flavoured sauce, although it was on the runny side.  I added the rest of my prawns to this, and served with zero-noodles, for a total meal of about 200 cals.  Next time I’d add some veg – sliced mushrooms, or diced courgette maybe.

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