Recipe Shed - Spices

I missed out on Recipe Shed last week because of a busy week and lack of inspiration. On Meal Planning Monday I lamented the fact that one of this week's dishes would have been great to link up to Recipe Shed last week, as it is a veggie dish. I realised tonight that it is also slightly spicy, so I am linking it up to this week's Recipe Shed, where the theme set by Reluctant Housedad is "Spices" :)

I have taken a *tiny* bit of liberty here as the "spices" in this dish are verging on negligable. But it does involve spices I use in practically every dish I make so I'm linking it anyway. Also the lovely Seren who always comments on my MPM posts said how nice it sounded so this recipe is for her as well.

This is a big favourite of mine, loosely adapted from a Rosemary Conley recipe. I add lots of chilli flakes or use sweet chilli Philly because I like mine really spicy. The beauty of this dish is that you can tinker with the ingredients to suit your taste.

Garlic Mushroom Pasta
(serves 1)

Cook some pasta - any type, I used wholewheat fusilli - according to pack instructions. As this is for one person, just cook as much as you would have normally.

In a small frying pan or wok, heat 1 TSP oil and fry off a clove of chopped garlic and 1 chopped spring onion.

Add some sliced mushrooms - I used half a packet of baby button mushrooms, I guess you just add as many or little as you like and fry off til softened.

Dollop 2 teaspoons of Philly cream cheese and stir to coat the mushrooms and spring onions. Add a splash of milk to make a creamy sauce, and a big pinch of chilli flakes. Simmer gently while the pasta is cooking. If it starts to thicken too much, turn off the heat and put a lid on the pan, or add more milk.

When your pasta has cooked, drain and tip into the sauce. Stir thoroughly and serve immediately.

Apologies for the crap picture. We have bought a new fancy-pants Canon camera with wedding present money so in a month or so my pictures will be MUCH more impressive! (We've made an executive decision not to use it til we're both in the country....!)

For more spicy recipes head over to Reluctant Housedad's blog!