Spaghetti with spicy bacon

200g spaghetti

6 slices of bacon

1 onion finely chopped 

1 garlic clove (pestle and mortar)

150-200g mushrooms

1-2 birdseye chillis

Jar of pasta sauce

Handful coriander

Cheese to finish (cheddar or parmesan) 

Garlic bread optional

Grated carrot optional

Serves 3-4

Prep time 10 mins

Cooking time 25 mins

I saw this recipe somewhere years ago but I’ve added some bits of my own.  It’s just a quick, easy one I have always remembered how to cook. 

Prep everything and then get the pasta going.

Fry the onions in a large pan with oil.  Add the bacon, garlic and chilli and cook for 1 or 2 mins.

Add the mushrooms and sauce and cook for around 15-20 mins.

Check how long your garlic bread takes.

Drain the pasta and gradually add to the sauce pan.

Serve with a sprinkle of coriander and grated cheese (and the garlic bread if you’re hungry). 

These aren’t the best pics, I grated some carrot on this occasion and sprinkled around the plate. 

You could try adding a bit of chopped carrot into the mix if you prefer or try celery.   I make this dish a lot, so just a few ideas to make it different.

Another quick and easy one to do similar to this is sausage pasta.  Swap the spaghetti for shells and use either Mattessons horse shoe sausage or frankfurters and I’d probably swap the mushrooms to peppers.

Enjoy

Conchiglie with bolognaise

For 4 people or 2 greedy ones

Pasta shells

1lb minced beef

Olive oil

1 onion chopped fine

1 garlic clove

Salt and pepper

Tomato puree

Splash Worcester sauce

Tin chopped tomatoes

Mushrooms

1-2 spoonfuls of sugar

2 bay leaves

Cheese (optional)

Garlic bread (optional)

I would say this was my own recipe as it feels like it is but it’s obviously a classic Italian dish.  I have never seen a recipe of this; someone taught me how to cook it and now I am sharing it with you.

Get everything out and get your ingredients chopped. 

I added celery on this occasion as I had some left over but it is not part of the recipe.

The mince takes about 30-40 minutes so I normally put the pasta on a slow cook.  I am putting it in with the mince at the end so if it’s cooked too soon it can always have a little extra heat at the end when it’s combined with the meat.  Alternatively put your pasta on when the meat has been cooking for ten minutes. 

I use a rather large cooking pan as I am going to combine the pasta and mince.

Fry your mince off in the large pan with a bit of olive oil.  When it’s brown, empty it out and drain the fat in a colander.  This can be a bit messy for your sink so if you’re not really bothered I often keep the fat in there.       

Fry off the onion then add the mince. 

Add the garlic and the tomato puree and stir it around so the meat appears red. 

Add Worcester sauce and salt and pepper.

Add the chopped tomatoes followed by the chopped mushrooms.

Stick in a couple of bay leaves (this isn’t essential).

You want to leave this on a medium boil for about 20 mins.  Keep a check on it and your pasta although it’s quite self sufficient once it’s all in the pan.  You’re alright to have a glass of wine while it’s cooking.

Get your garlic bread in the oven.

Add the sugar and give it a taste; this should be just right but if it’s too sweet for you add more salt.

Sprinkle with cheese; parmesan is best but it’s just as amazing with a bit of cheddar.

Last time I cooked this it was so delicious I went back for another plate J

If you want it to go further make a big bowl of salad and serve with garlic bread, salad and sour cream.

Enjoy 

Crab with spaghetti and cherry tomatoes

Ingredients

3 whole crabs

200g spaghetti

1 pack cherry tomatoes  

2 or 3 garlic cloves

1 or 2 birdseye chilli’s  

5 spring onions

1 lime

Coriander handful 

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1364638/spaghetti-with-crab-cherry-tomatoes-and-basil

Here is the original recipe which I found on the BBC website.

I swapped the chilli flakes for real chillies, the lemon for lime as I’d no lemons left, canned crab for real crab, capers for spring onions (don’t like capers) and the basil for coriander.  Linguine would go well with this dish if you prefer. 

This recipe was inspired by our housemate who accidently left his crabs behind and kindly offered them to us as they needing eating before he was due to return.

With his assisting telephone calls, and my boyfriends help we managed to cook crabs.

Boil the crabs for around 20 mins in salted water.  I found it was more like 30 mins on our electric stove with 3 big pans of crab.  The water becomes really scummy and brown but we are told this is normal.   

                                       

I prepared all of the ingredients so they were ready to go.  With the garlic I sliced it very finely rather than using a pestle and mortar and chopped the tomatoes in half.

We made a start on the crabs before turning the spaghetti on as it does take some time to get the meat out and it is best if two people go at it.

This doesn’t sound very nice but you have to snap its legs off, after doing one or two though I wasn’t fazed and I got into a good twisting method.   We did attempt to get the meat out of the fingers but the effort really wasn’t worth it for the morsels of meat you get.  So I would suggest discarding its fingers. 

You can crack the body open with a knife there is some white meat in here.  The little brown fingers in here (dead man’s fingers) you can eat but again I would throw them away they are not very nice. 

You really do not get much meat out of 3 huge crabs although were not professional chefs so perhaps you can.  We really enjoyed having a go at cooking real crabs but to be honest it is a lot of effort and even though we were real careful to pick out any bits of shell there were still a few bits left which really put me off.  I have never used tinned crab meat before but next time I will be trying that. 

Set aside your crab meat.

Cook the spaghetti or linguine.

When the pasta has 5 or 10 mins left to go, slowly warm up the ingredients, including the crab, in a large pan with oil, using half the juice of the lime and 1 or 2 chilli’s depending on how you like the heat and add salt and pepper. You don’t want to overcook the ingredients just merely warm them.

Drain off the spaghetti and add gradually.  I added too much spaghetti and it took away most of the flavours so it’s best to add gradually and keep tasting.  Add further lime, chilli’s, coriander, spring onion, S&P if needed.   

I added a touch of peppercorn to finish off and garnished with a slice of lime.