Creamy crab & pea pasta

Today has been a momentous day in the life of our son, as he finally got his sweaty paws on a copy of "Halo Reach" for the XBox360 - and not just any edition, but the Limited Edition.  (Thanks to a little help from hubby & I).  So, the whole evening has been turned over to him in that he has unlimited access to the t.v. for game playing.  This, of course, demanded some thought as regards what to cook for tea.

What to give son was easy - you'll recall he only ever asks for pizza or high tea, so pizza it was.  He downed tools for long enough to eat his pizza and a yoghurt, then was back at it - "it" being intently blowing things up.  I suppose it has it's attractions if you're 11yrs old.

So that left hubby and I to feed.  What a chance, and how to capitalise on it?  It's not often we get to eat what we want to, without having to worry about son not liking component a, b, or c.

Hubby had expressed a desire for crab during last week's shopping trip and I'd "put it behind my ear for later", so to speak.  I mooted the idea of having "something involving crab" and we were sorted.  Just had to find a recipe.

Good old BBC Good Food came up trumps yet again, with their "Creamy crab & pea pasta".  It was simple, relatively inexpensive and looked yummy.  Now we just had to get our hands on a crab.  Regrettably, here the plan fell down as no crabs were to be had when we were looking.  So, we resorted to a tin of crab meat which wasn't quite the plan but one I hoped would "do".

It takes just a twinkling to prepare, so it is perfect for those days when cooking seems like too much of a chore.  In fact, it probably takes longer to wash up from it than it did to cook!  I really enjoyed it - as did hubby - and we both agreed that fresh crab would have livened the flavours up a little, as it began to get a tiny bit "samey" towards the end.  However, we can forgive that teensy element of sameness, as if every dinner we had was as delicious as this, we'd consider ourselves very lucky!

CREAMY CRAB & PEA PASTA (serves 4)

Ingredients :

400g spaghetti
200g frozen peas
300g fresh crab meat
5 tbsp double cream
1 red chilli, de-seeded and chopped
handful of parsley leaves, chopped
zest of 1 lemon
juice of half a lemon
freshly ground black pepper.

Method :

1.  Boil a large pan of salted water.  Once boiling, tip in the spaghetti and cook for around 7 minutes.

2.  Add the peas, then cook for another 2 minutes until both are cooked through.

3.  Drain the pasta, reserving a little of the cooking water in a separate container.

4.  Tip the pasta and peas back into the pan, together with the crab and cream.  Add the remainder of the ingredients together with some freshly ground black pepper and stir them through, adding a little of the reserved cooking water if the mix seems a tad dry.

Serve in warmed bowls, with buttered brown rolls.