Surprise Supper

Do you ever start making one thing for supper and end up with a completely different meal?  When Mr R took the dog out for a walk he thought he would return to a creamy salmon and linguine dish.

I went to Costco this afternoon and bought a huge piece of fresh salmon.  I usually cut this into four and then each piece in half.  I freeze the salmon in packs of two pieces and the last quarter which is the thin end I cut into smaller pieces to use in a pasta sauce.  This makes very economical meals costing approximately £1.75 per person per meal.

So anyway, I wanted to use the cut up pieces tonight to make a salmon, cream cheese, pesto sauce for some linguine.  I started by cooking in a frying pan some pieces of salami and slices of onion along with a clove of giant garlic that I had barbequed in foil and stored covered in olive oil in a jar a few days earlier.  As this was cooking I decided that it would be too strong a flavour for the salmon, it would get lost in the sauce so a change of plan was called for!!

Instead of adding the salmon pieces I added a package of smoked back bacon cut into small pieces and cooked this with the onion mix.

Occassionally I use a jar of Lloyd Grossman Tomato and Basil sauce when I want a mid week short cut which I did tonight, adding it to the bacon-onion in the pan.  A tin of chopped tomatoes, 2 teaspoons of My Secret Kitchen Artichoke Pesto were added along with 250ml of freshly grated parmesean cheese.  I only seasoned with black pepper because the bacon will be quite salty and I could alway adjust this at the end just before serving.

I cooked some pasta shells (Mr R's favourite - I buy it in 3kg bags!), topped with sauce and slices of mozzarella and popped it in the oven to melt the cheese topping.

Imagine Mr R's face when I presented him with a bacon and tomato sauce on shells when he was expecting a creamy salmon and linguine dish!!

I think you can tell he was happy nevertheless with his supper!