Sardine Pasta Bake

This was one of those recipe that don't look great on paper but were actually awesome! This was a vibrantly tasty pasta bake. I did do the messy job of removing the spine from the fish as I don't like the bones which helped I think.

Sardine Pasta Bake (from WeightWatchers Weekdays)

(Serves 4)

275g dried pasta shapes

75g frozen sweetcorn

2 tins sardines in tomato sauce, mashed roughly

2 tbsp tomato purée

150g frozen spinach

50g grated cheddar, grated

salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Bring a large pan of water to the boil, add the pasta and cook according to the packet instructions, adding the sweetcorn for the last couple of minutes. Drain reserving 2 tbsp of cooking liquid.

Return the pasta and sweetcorn to the pan with the cooking liquid and mix in the sardines, tomato purée and spinach. Season, heat for 1-2 mins and then spoon into an ovenproof dish. Sprinkle with the cheese and then bake in to oven for 20-25 mins.

Sardine Salad

I first made this salad ages ago when I was doing weightwatchers and bought a can of sardines in tomato sauce rather than in spring water, which the recipe called for and it worked so well that I kept making it this way. It means that you don't need to bother with the salad dressing either, as the tomato sauce provides a lovely dressing.



Sardine Salad (adapted from the WeightWatchers website)
(5 WW ProPoints per serving)
(Serves 2)

1 romaine lettuce, shredded
1/2 cucumber, cut into chunks
4 tomatoes, quartered
1 roasted red pepper, sliced
1 red onion, sliced
2 cans sardines in tomato sauce
pepper

Layer the salad up starting with the lettuce, then the cucumber, tomato, peppers and onion. Place the sardines on top, and grind over a little pepper. Serve.

Sardines Stuffed with Orange and Bay Leaves

I have a love hate affair with sardines. I love the taste of them but I hate picking out all the little bones, or the feeling of swallowing them, So I have tended to avoid them for most of my life or bought canned skinless and boneless sardines. However as I've been told to eat more oily fish, I am trying to find more interesting things than just mountains of salmon, so I thought I'd give them a go.

I still didn't like all the bones and it was such a pain to pull them out! But the flavour was fantastic, they were lovely and slightly charred by the grill and the orange worked really well too. I served them with a garlicky potato salad and a green salad.

Sardines Stuffed with Orange and Bay Leaves
(adapted from Olive Magazine June 2005)
(Serves 4)

4 large sardines or 8 small, scaled and gutted
2 oranges, 1 thinly sliced and slices halved, and 1 juiced
4 bay leaves or 8, depending on the number of fish
olive oil
4 tsp smoked paprika

Preheat the grill.

Stuff the sardines with 2 or 3 slices of orange, a bay leaf and season well. Rub with a little oil and dust with paprika.

Cook the sardines under the grill for a few minutes on each side (about 2 minutes for small ones and 4 for large ones). Squeeze over some orange juice and serve.

Pasta with Sardines, Breadcrumbs and Capers

This is such a simple pasta dish. I printed it off years ago and it lay in a folder as many of the recipes I find do and I finally got around to making it. It's also cheap as the fish is canned and all the ingredients can be found in most peoples store cupboards. One of those meals to go to when I've forgotten to take anything out of the freezer. It also counted as one of my oily fish dishes with the sardines.

I had a bargain in Waitrose the week before last, I finished my zumba class at about 8.30pm and popped in to pick up a few bits, just as they were reducing the bakery items, I got a Gail's Artisan Bakery potato and rosemary sourdough loaf for 19p, it should have been £3.20, and a raspberry meringue that should have been £1.90 for 9p, I was well chuffed. So I had very posh breadcrumbs in this pasta dish, but any kind of stale day old bread would be just as good. My loaf of bread this week is WeightWatchers wholemeal as that was only 20p in Asda! I was finding bargains all over the place last week!

Pasta with Sardines, Breadcrumbs and Capers (from The New York Times)
(Serves 4)

4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
60g bread crumbs
1 onion, chopped
salt and pepper
450g dried long pasta
1 tsp grated lemon zest
2 tbsp drained capers
2 cans sardines packed in extra virgin olive oil
4 tbsp chopped fresh parsley, plus more for garnish.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook until just tender; drain, reserving some of the cooking liquid.

Meanwhile, Put half the oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. When it’s hot, add the bread crumbs and cook, stirring frequently, until golden and fragrant, less than 5 minutes, and then remove. Add the remaining oil and the onion to the pan, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes.

Turn the heat under the onions to medium-high and add the lemon zest, capers and sardines; cook, stirring occasionally, until just heated through, about 2 minutes.

Add the pasta to the sardine mixture and toss well to combine. Add the parsley, most of the bread crumbs and some reserved water, if necessary, to moisten. Taste and adjust seasoning, garnishing with more parsley and bread crumbs.