Tuna, Courgette and Lemon Pasta

I'm sure I've mentioned this tuna pasta before... it is becoming a weekly favourite in our house.
For me and the husband, but not so much for the kids.
The best thing about it is the fact that it a quick dinner with very basic ingredients.
I tend to make enough pasta for all of us and then divide it with a tuna sauce for us and something else (like cheese!) for the kids.

You need one or two courgettes, a lemon, two cans of tuna (in oil or water), a clove of garlic, a dash or two of olive oil, 125ml creme fraiche (low fat) and the pasta of your choice.

Start with cooking your pasta - you will make the sauce while the pasta cooks which with dried pasta should take 12 - 15 minutes. Halve and then slice the courgette into thin slices, sprinkle some salt over and let it sit aside while you heat the olive oil and crush the garlic. Drain any water from the courgette and add it with the garlic to the pan. Reduce the heat and let it simmer for about 10 minutes. Zest the lemon and add it to the courgette with the juice of half the lemon (I'm assuming a small to medium lemon). Once the courgette is almost cooked add the tuna to the pan and heat it through for a couple of minutes, also add the rest of the lemon juice. Now add the creme fraiche, mix it well and heat it up for about a minute. Add to the pasta and mix well - serve immediately with a bit of parmesan cheese.

Yummy!

Tuna Pasta Salad

Hot weather calls for cold food.

Hence a pasta salad for dinner.

I must admit that I'm pretty happy with this tuna pasta salad.

The sweet corn and salty green olives really worked well together.

Can I make this pasta salad twice in one week... I just might!

Here's my recipe. 

Ingredients:

250 gram penne pasta (uncooked)

1 can of tuna (in water or oil, depending on your preference)

2 ripe tomatoes, chopped

1 onion, finely chopped

1/2 cup green olives (pitted), finely chopped

1/2 of a large cucumber, chopped

1 can sweet corn kernels (medium sized can)

3 tablespoons mayonnaise (I used a light version)

The juice of one lemon

A sprig of fresh parsley, finely chopped (about 2 tablespoons)

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil 

Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Cook the pasta and let it cool down

Prepare the rest of the ingredients and simply add to the cold pasta.

Add the lemon juice, olive oil and mayo last.

Mix it well and enjoy! 

P.S. you might want to add more mayo. I'm trying to be good so I used as little mayo as possible.

Tuna Lemon Ricotta Pasta

I found this recipe in the Albert Heijn Allerhande magazine a couple of months ago. Although it is essentially marketing the supermarket, they have quite a few good recipes in there which I think are well worth trying.

This recipe for a pasta with tuna, lemon and ricotta cheese was very easy and quite tasty.
But.
Don't you just hate it when there is a but?
Well, for me there was definitely a 'but'.
My finished dish did not quite look like their photo of the finished dish.
I don't know... might be that I am not a food stylist and probably did not try very hard to make it look pretty. Might be that they tried too hard to make it look pretty.

Either way, I liked it and will most definitely make it again.

Here is a link to the original recipe.

Here is a copy, translated into English:


Ingredients
300 g farfalle (pasta)
1 lemon, wiped clean
2 cans tuna pieces in sunflower oil (a 185 g)
2 courgettes, peeled into thin ribbons
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tub ricotta (250 g)
some flat leaf parsley, finely chopped

Method:
1. Cook the pasta according to the package directions until al dente. Grate the lemon peel and squeeze out the juice. Drain the tuna into a bowl and save about 3 tablespoons of the oil.
2. Heat the tuna oil in a pan and add the garlic. Cook for about 1 minute. Now add the courgette and cook for 3 minutes more. Add the lemon rind, juice, tuna, ricotta and season with salt and pepper. Turn down the heat. Let it simmer away for about 5 minutes.
3. Add the pasta to the sauce, add the parsley and serve immediately.

Credit and thanks to Maybemej Photography for the frame template and all the other cool freebies she makes.

Tuna Pasta Salad (again)

Yes, I've posted about tuna pasta salads before...

It seems like the moment the weather improves, and there is any chance of eating outside, that I want a pasta salad.

Here are a few photos of this week's pasta salad.

It is dead simple and only the pasta requires any cooking...

I usually use whatever ingredients I happen to have in the house so be creative!

A Quick Tuna Pasta Salad

Quickly.
That is how I try to make all my dinners.
Unfortunately I don't like eating the same thing twice in a row or else I would just make everything double. Luckily some ingredients can be cleverly disguised.

I made a standard vegetarian pasta and decided to cook a little extra pasta to keep ready in the fridge for a pasta salad.

A can of lovely white tuna, one cup of cooked cold pasta, half a small cucumber finely chopped, a big juicy tomato, one red onion, half a bag of rocket leaves, lemon juice, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and ground black pepper.

(Notice how I resisted temptation and did NOT use any mayo with the tuna...)

Mix it all together and enjoy a very healthy dinner or lunch!

Tuna pasta salad

A pasta salad is perfect for those really hot summer days and you know me, I wouldn't be writing about it if it wasn't really easy to make.

You can pretty much make a pasta salad with anything you have in the fridge or pantry. I opted for a pasta salad which I found on Nigella's website since I had all the ingredients in the house (Pasta, tomatoes, corn, cucumbers, oil, tuna and mayonnaise). Besides, cucumbers are so cheap these days I seem to be eating them with every meal!

Here is the link to the recipe.

I doubled the ingredients so that I had more than enough for dinner and lunch the next day.
However, I used less of the oil and mayonnaise than in the recipe. It was a pleasure to drizzle my olive oil from Crete over the pasta.

The salad turned out really well and I will definitely be making this, or a vegetarian version thereof, again this summer.

P.S. I have been playing with Adobe Ideas on my iPad - that's where I added the text to my photo's. Then I made the photo collage in Adobe Elements... I'm becoming a real graphics software junkie!!