Crab, Chilli & Rocket Linguine

I've been experimenting with some new recipes this week, in particular pasta recipes as I tend to stick to my old favs. Pasta is cheap and filling so it makes a good basis for a family meal.  However if you are trying to lose weight, pasta needs pairing with something light if you are to keep to a 12 or 13 ProPoint dinner and this makes its use is slightly more challenging. Seafood is ideal and this dish uses crab meat as it's protein element.

It is that time of year where everyone tightens their belts a bit after the spending spree of Christmas so I've also been looking at budget friendly recipes this week. This dish for 2 people totalled £3.85 or £1.92 per serving. You can't buy a decent ready meal for that (and I use these words together in the loose sense).

As we all know there are  health benefits to home cooking a meal from scratch, far less 'processing' going on, yada yada. Plus you can adjust ingredients to suit personal taste e.g. salt, garlic, chilli.  I know I am preaching to the converted, but if you are new to eating healthily and trying to lose weight on WeightWatchers or any other plan, it doesn't have to be all ready meals.  And, and this is a big AND, this meal takes less than 15 minutes to prepare! Perfect mid-week supper!

You'll need for 2:

• 4 vine medium to large vine tomatoes, seeds and insides removed, diced
• 1 170g tin crab meat in brine
• 1 lime
• Half a back of wild rocket
• 200g linguine
• 1tbsp oil (I used chilli & garlic oil)
• or pinch chilli flakes & 1 garlic clove

Get a large pan of salted boiling water on the go and stick the pasta
in to cook according to the packet instructions.

In a large frying pan, gently heat the oil. I was given a lovely set of flavoured oils from Italy for Christmas so this was a perfect opportunity to start using them! If you don't have a flavoured oil, then just bash the garlic clove and add this with a pinch of chilli flakes to the oil.

Add the diced tomatoes (seeds and inner bits removed) and saute for a few minutes.

Add the crab and a squeeze of half a lime. Season to taste.

Once the pasta is ready, drain reserving some of the cooking liquor. Add the pasta along with a couple of ladles of the liquor to the crab mix and toss through on a very low heat. Add the rocket and stir through so the rocket just wilts with the heat from the pan.

Serve up (with extra chilli and garlic oil if you are not weightwatching!)

WeightWatchers ProPoints Per Serving: 13