Sticky Pasta

This pasta, I think, is amazing. It's so simple to make and really really tasty. It's pretty salty though and one of the very, very few times I use a sauce from a packet.

If I had time, I would make hoi sin sauce myself, but i love this as a quick and tasty dinner for a treat.


Ingredients:

• Hoi sin sauce - 2 packets of ready made sauce is perfect for 4 people.
• 300g Penne pasta
• 1 Red pepper, sliced
• 75g Chestnut mushrooms, sliced
• 2-4 spring onions, sliced
• Optional chicken or prawns, as much or as little as you like. I love left over roast chicken for this.

Method:

• Put the pasta on to boil and prepare the veg
• Stir fry the veg ( and meat or prawns if using) on a high heat then add the hoi sin sauce and simmer on a very low heat while you drain the pasta.
• Add the drained pasta to the veg & sauce and toss to coat well.
• Serve in bowls immediatley

Garlic and Chilli Prawn Pasta

This is one of those dinners I kind of stumbled upon one night while chucking together stuff that was in the fridge. It was devoured so quickly last night that I forgot to take a photo, but I will add one asap! The quantities here are for 4.

Ingredients

• Long pasta - spaghetti, linguine or similar (aprox 75g per person)
• King prawns
• 2 Red chillies - I leave the seeds in, but you can de-seed one or both to suit your taste.
• 4 cloves of garlic crushed or chopped very finely
• Juice of half a lemon
• Hand full of basil
• Olive oil

Method

• Chop  the garlic and chillies (and de-seed if required). Put in a wok with a good glug of olive oil.
• Put the pasta on to boil.
• Heat the wok over a medium heat and then add the prawns.
• Lower the heat if required and cook the prawns through.
• Juice half a lemon and tear or chop a good hand full of basil.Add the lemon juice to the wok and stir in well.
• Drain the pasta and add the basil to the wok
• Put the pasta into the wok and toss well to make sure the pasta is well coated in the oil and the prawns and basil are distributed evenly (ish).
• Serve in bowls while piping hot and add a big chunk of warm, crusty white bread on the side.

This dish would also work well with bow or shell shaped pasta, minus the prawns and served cold on a summer buffet.