This one is for those busy evenings where you want to cook healthy but don’t have much time at hand to slave in the kitchen!😵 My quick pasta dish uses few cupboard items that I always have in store for those occasions and it did prove quite useful during the Lockdown weeks! 😷 You don’t always have the time to pop out to buy fresh ingredients anyway so using few shortcuts with frozen or canned bits and bobs is perfectly acceptable to still achieve a super tasty, cheap and cheerful nutritious meal (plus, it’s all cooked in the same pan so less washing up)!

If you read my introduction, you’ll know that I have started my Nutrition and Weight Management course and currently, I am on the chapter revolving around fat. It’s one of the essential parts of a balanced healthy diet as it has multiple roles for our body to function correctly like providing you energy, transporting vitamins around your body and being a major constituent for your cells.

The main thing is to eat it moderately and in the right proportion and according to the UK Health Guidelines, it shouldn’t exceeds 35% of your daily calorie intake which I thought was a lot but actually, you need to take into account that fat is more than twice as caloric than proteins or carbs! ⚖

Anyway, getting sidetracked there 😏 This now brings me to one of the essential fatty acid called Omega 3: our body cannot synthesize it and it requires us to get it through our diet by consuming for example, oily fish such as mackerel, sardines or salmon🐟 (now you see how this links to my recipe !🙄). It is recommended to eat at least once or twice a week food rich in Omega 3 which I have to say, I never really did! So now is a good time as any to improve my/your eating habits too!

So here we go with the recipe:

My mackerel, peas and tomato pasta

Servings: 2

Time required: 20 minutes

Level of difficulty: Super easy

Equipment required: Measuring cup (250mL)

Ingredients

• 1 can of mackerel in water (avoid the mackerel soaked in olive oil as your calorie intake would go off the roof! and try to pick a sustainably sourced fish if you can 🙂)
• 140 g of linguine (make it gluten free if you need to)
• 18 baby plum tomatoes or cherry tomatoes
• 1 cup of frozen peas
• 1 big tbsp of nut free pesto ( I make my own by swapping the pine nuts by sunflower seeds rich in Omega 6!But you can use a normal pesto if you don’t have any allergy)
• A bunch of parsley
• Drizzle of olive oil
• Salt/Black Pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Boil some water in a kettle then pour it over the pasta in a saucepan with a pinch of salt (place a lid on top to cook it faster)
2. Whilst the pasta is cooking, half the tomatoes and chop the parsley
3. 2 minutes before the pasta is done, use the lid to empty out most of the water from the saucepan or throw the pasta in a sieve and put it back straight away in the saucepan to keep some of the cooking liquid
4. Add the peas, halved tomatoes, pesto and parsley then cook it on a medium heat until everything is warmed through then season to taste (add a bit of water if it starts catching at the bottom of the pan)
5. Finally, discard the mackerel brine liquid and add chunks of fish in the pasta and fold delicately with pasta tongs
6. Serve in a pasta dish by twisting the linguine in a big mount on the middle of the plate then drizzle a bit of olive oil to finish off the dish.

Et voila! 🍝

Quick midweek healthy supper (~500calories) ready in no time! Bon appetit!