In a crabby mood

Sometimes cooking for just yourself can be tough.

Really, really tough.

There's so many yummy foods out there that come in two-person shaped packages.

Like crab. A dressed crab is about right for two people. It's far too much for just one person, right?

So I did an adapted version of this Good Food recipe. And ate the lot.

Tough. Really, really tough.

My crab and asparagus salad

1 dressed crab (around 150g total)
1 tbs mayonnaise
1/2 red chilli, finely chopped
juice 1/2 lemon
100-150g asparagus
50g watercress

Snap the woody ends off the asparagus, and boil for 4 minutes or until you can easily slide a knife into the thickest stem. Drain, then slice each stem into three.

Separate out the white and brown crab meat, and place the white to one side. Mix the brown meat with the mayo, chilli, and lemon juice, then toss the stem sections of the asparagus (but not the tips) in this dressing.

Arrange the watercress on the plate, pile the dressed asparagus in the middle, top with the tips, and then the white crab meat.

Enjoy. All on your own.



PS. Yes, dear readers, that is a *photo* you see there. It would seem that posting on a public blog about missing card readers is an excellent prompt for their return.

Heaven is...

Sitting in an english country garden in the last of the late May sunshine, birds tweeting in the breaks between the songs on the Glee soundtrack, getting gently sozzled on gin at your parents' expense, and this for dinner:

Tagliatelle with Purple Sprouting Broccoli and Chorizo

Ingredients
75g tagliatelle
75g chorizo
75g purple sprouting broccoli (the thinner the better)
1 clove garlic, sliced
sherry
parmesan

Method

Stick your pasta on to boil, and, 5 minutes before it's done, put a frying pan on to heat up with a drop of oil in it. Chop the chorizo into very small cubes and fry for 3-4 minutes until it's released its oils and is getting crispy, then turn the heat down low and add the garlic and the PSB. Add a glug or two of sherry and scrape the pan to get any crispy burnt-on bits into the sauce. Drain the pasta, mix with the chorizo and PSB, then serve with a little parmesan grated over the top.


I made this with the very last of the PSB grown in my Mum's garden, but it would equally work well with the very first - you want the thinnest possible stems so that you can coil them round your fork with the tagliatelle.


You should probably also drink some sherry with this, but I'd mixed my second G&T before I thought of that.

A tarragon pesto, and two things to do with it

So... this is what I did with my leftover tarragon and parsley from the last blog. It won't make herbs last quite as long as freezing them, but this pesto should last at least a week in the fridge. I love making my own pesto - it's one of those stupidly easy things to do that makes food so much better - and this is a lovely new variation on the traditional basil flavour.

Ingredients

leaves from half a bunch of tarragon - around 2 tbs in total
leaves from half a bunch of parsley - ditto (don't use the stalks, they're too tough for pesto!)
2 cloves garlic
handful almonds
juice 1 lemon
6 or so tbs olive oil (use a decent one, you can taste the difference)
salt and pepper to taste

Stick everything in a food processor and blitz until very well combined, adding more olive oil to loosen the texture if needed.


Once you've got this quantity of pesto, here's a couple of ideas for it:


Tarragon Chicken Salad

This makes two or three lunch portions (depending on how hungry you are...). I've used green peppers as the veg here, but you could use cucumber or other left-over green veg such as peas, green beans or asparagus.

3 tbs tarragon pesto
cooled cooked rice - around 100g uncooked
cooked chicken breast, torn into little strips
1 green pepper, cut into little cubes
3 spring onions, finely sliced
3 tbs creme fraiche

Combine all your ingredients and munch!


Tarragon and Tuna Pasta

1 tbs tarragon pesto
small tin tuna, drained
75g fusilli

Cook your pasta according to the pack instructions and your own taste, then combine with the pesto and flaked tuna.


I've made both these, and have a tablespoon or so of pesto left... any other ideas for what to do with it?