In her third cookbook, Pip Payne, a.k.a. the Slimming Foodie, writes that one of the biggest obstacles to eating healthy foods that you make at home is time.
It’s so true. In an effort to stop myself from going on autopilot and ordering out when I’m tired and hungry, I deleted food-ordering apps from my phone so that I have to go to the app store and download them again. That extra step makes me stop and think about cooking something like this lovely, lemony pasta dish that is just right for spring but adaptable to any season — and can use up leftovers and perishable odds and ends of produce.
In “The Slimming Foodie in Minutes,” Payne’s recipes — all of which she claims come in at fewer than 600 calories — for the most part are excellent examples of how to streamline your cooking to make it work for you on a weeknight, especially on those days when you’re too harried to fuss over dinner.
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For this pasta dish, Payne advises that the first step is to put a pot of water on to boil for the spaghetti. While the water comes to a boil and while you boil the pasta, you zest and juice your lemon, grate your parmesan cheese, and cut smoked salmon into strips.
A few minutes before the spaghetti is ready, you drop frozen peas into the pasta pot to warm them up. Then you drain both together, reserving a little of that pasta water.
You return the pasta and peas to the same pot; add in the lemon juice, crème fraîche, parmesan, salmon, salt, pepper and a bit of the reserved pasta water; and stir it all up until everything has a bit of a sheen.
Dish the mixture out and sprinkle it with the lemon zest, fresh parsley if you have it handy and maybe a little more black pepper, and you’ll have a scrumptious dish in less than 30 minutes.
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Payne uses smoked salmon rather than fresh, which saves time and delivers great flavor, but if you have leftover grilled or pan-seared salmon, use that. If asparagus is in season, she suggests greening the dish up with fresh spears, which you can cut into pieces and throw into the boiling pot along with the peas.
With short ingredient lists and efficient instructions, Payne’s recipes encourage home cooking by offering easy paths to getting dinner on the table, but they may inspire you, too.
With the format this recipe provided, I created a similar dish with a different flavor profile. While the pasta boiled, I cut up leftover roasted chicken. I tossed half a bag of frozen mixed vegetables in with the pasta. To the drained pasta and vegetables, I added the chicken chunks, crumbled feta and a dollop of Greek yogurt, and right at the end I mixed in a handful of wilting spinach. To finish, I sprinkled the dish with fresh dill.
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I felt thrifty and virtuous making good use of leftovers, and the dish was delicious, too.
Cutting waste is something Payne promotes as well. In the back of her cookbook, she lists which recipes use what ingredients. So if you buy a big bunch of kale and don’t use it all in one recipe, you can look for another one that calls for it. She also offers tips for freezing and heating.
It’s just another example of her smart approach to cooking at home.
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