RECIPE: Soft and Bite Sized, Level 6- Prawn, Tomato, Zucchini Pasta

A beautifully well rounded recipe that gives just enough garden and just enough sea to delight your senses 🌱☀️🌀

Now I'm not the biggest fan of seafood but as an attempt to diversify the often starch based soft and bite size diet, this dynamic really hit a sweet spot. The saltiness of the prawns and the balanced mediterranean vegetables with white wine create a really lovely blend that can be enjoyed all year round, for lunch or dinner... and it didn't make for a bad cold snack either.

Within each level of modified diets, it's really important to try and bring as many elements that are available to the forefront because each level is already limiting in what is available. For this reason, the prawn in this dish provides a great change to the generic "soft" texture that saturates so many recipes although is still appropriate for this level of food 🦐

The extra steps taken to make the tomato and zucchini appropriate for this dish which is skinning and seeding, is worth it to bring some garden variety back to the menu. Often, these summer vegetables miss out because of their seeds and skins but the added effort pays off. See below on how to skin the eternal champion that is the tomato 🍅

As always, a generous sprinkling of parmesan cheese never goes astray with an Italian inspired dish so don't skimp out and add a little extra creaminess to polish this one off 🧀

How to blanch and skin your tomatoes:

Cut out the tops of each tomato and score the bottom of the tomato. Bring a small pot of water to boil and add the tomatoes to blanch for 2 minutes. Remove the tomatoes and place in a bowl of cool water for a few minutes until cool. When cooled, remove the tomatoes from the water and peel skins off.

Prawn, Tomato and Zucchini Pasta

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS

200g Conchiglie pasta

2 Zucchini, skinned, seeded, and diced

2 Roma tomatoes, skinned, seeded and diced

250g Prawns, shelled and diced

3 Cloves of garlic, crushed

4 Sprigs of parsley

3 Tbs Olive oil

80ml White wine

Salt and pepper to taste

METHOD

1. Skin, seed and dice the tomatoes and zucchini into 1.5cm x 1.5cm pieces. Skin and dice the prawns into the same size.

2. Bring a pot of salted water to boil and add the conchiglie pasta. Stir every few minutes to avoid the pieces sticking together. Cook per the instructions on the packet or until al dente.

3. Heat the oil in a pan and when hot, add the crushed garlic and zucchini. Let cook for 3-5 minutes until just soft.

4. Add the tomatoes, prawns, parsley, wine, salt and pepper. Stir and let cook for 3-5 minutes until the wine has reduced and the prawns have changed colour. Be cautious not to over cook the prawns as they may become chewy.

5. Remove the parsley sprigs from the pan.

6. Once the pasta is al dente, strain and add to the pan with the sauce. Continue to heat through until the pasta is soft.

**If too dry, add a small amount of pasta water to the pan. However, add carefully to ensure that there is not excess fluid making it a dual consistency.

Serve and enjoy ✨