Softshell Crab & Italian Sausage Pasta

This pasta is more than just softshell crabs and Italian sausage. It has mushrooms, olives, spinach, bacon, all tossed in garlic oil.

 

2 servings of pasta (pictured is whole wheat spaghetti)

4-5 cloves of garlic

1/4 cup of olive oil

2 softshell crabs

1 Italian sausage

4 button mushrooms (sliced)

1 bacon (chopped)

1 cup of fresh spinach

1/8 cup olives (sliced)

 

1)  Cook pasta in a pot of water until cooked thru (or slightly under)

2)  While pasta is cooking, place olive oil and garlic in a large pan, set on medium heat to lightly cook the garlic (do not let garlic brown)

3)  Reduce heat to low, place cleaned softshell crabs in the large pan with garlic and olive oil, cover, and let simmer for about 10 minutes or until crab turns orange (turning once)

4)  While softshell crab is cooking, in a small pan, cook Italian sausage and bacon, slice up the Italian sausage and set sausage and bacon (with it's dripping) aside

5)  Remove softshell crabs and cut them into pieces, place them back into the large pan

6)  Add in pasta, Italian sausage, bacon (and its dripping), spinach, olives, and mushrooms

7)  Turn heat to medium high and toss often

8)  Add in salt & pepper to taste

9)  Plate and serve

 

The "poaching' of softshell crab allows the crab juice to go into the garlic oil. The softshell crab and bacon gave a bit of crunchiness which worked exceptionally well in this dish!

 

Mr. P really likes the dish....minus the softshell crabs (he end up finishing the entire plate anyway), but I LOVE this dish because of the softshell crabs!

 

This dish is pretty versatile, you can add more meat/veggies, or remove any of them if you wish. It's like making fried rice!! LOL!!



 

Italian Sausage Pasta & Mother's Day Bouquet

I haven't updated this site in awhile....but didn't think I was gone for THAT long, but the setting on this site changed! Still trying to get used to it!

Anyway, I'm still cooking, just not much time to blog. Today I want to share my pasta dish: Italian Sausage Pasta:

1.5 cup of dried pasta (I used Garofalo organic pasta)
4 Italian Pork Sausages (or any other sausages)
5 cloves of garlic (sliced) half an onion (sliced)
1 cup fresh spinach
1/2 cup cooked quinoa olive oil
Dash of dried basil
Dash of black pepper
Dash of salt
Dash of chili pepper (optional)

1) Cook pasta according to package, drain and pour into a bowl, toss in olive oil, dried basil, black pepper, and salt. Mix well then cover to keep warm.
2) In a big pan, cook sausages with olive oil until cook through, remove from pan. (OR, you can remove the outer skin of the sausage and cook it like minced italian pork, works just as well!)
3) Add in onions and garlic in pan, drizzle alittle more olive oil and let them cook until tender, while onion and garlic are cooking, cut sausages into bit size.
4) Return sausage to the pan and let the onions and garlic work it's magic with the sausage.
5) Add in pasta and spinach to the pan, cook until spinach soften, mix occassionally to avoid pasta sticking to the bottom of the pan, add chili pepper if desired and more salt to taste if needed.
6) Add in cooked quinoa and toss until fully blended. This will give the pasta a "nutty" flavor.
7) Serve!

Mr. P loves pasta and he actually like this! So once a week I would whip up something similar, sometimes using chicken, or lil smokies, shrimp, sometimes I add parmasean cheese, make it a jumbalaya! Making this is just as easy as making fried rice!

In the picture I added shrimp, I cooked the shrimp separately because Mr. P is allergic to shrimp, and I LOVE SEAFOOD. But if you want to add shrimp to the dish I would recommend you add the shrimp in at the last second of garlic and onions, before adding the cut sausage and pasta.

For Mother's Day, I wanted to give my mom and sister something extra special because they deserve it. I went online to look at Edible Arrangements because at least they could eat the bouquet rather than just plain flowers. Then the idea hit. I can make them a strawberry bouquet.

I skewered the washed strawberries to the end of a wooden skewer stick, then dip some of them into melted chocolate then kept it refrigerated until chocolate hardens. Next, I place a ribbon around a tall glass (I used The Old Spaghetti glass). To make the ribbon from falling down, I wrapped a rubberband around the glass first then tie the ribbon by wrapping around the rubberband.Pour in some m&ms, then place the strawberries sticks in there. It looks pretty cool huh? Just the many ideas I have in my head. I dropped it off to my mom's house but she wasn't home. But she said when she opened the door, she smelled the chocolate and the strawberries and knew that I must have stopped by and was really happy to see the bouquet. YAY!