I love to cook. I hate that I don’t have much time for it. Between looking after the children, matched betting, writing blog posts and fitting in exercise in the evenings, more often than not dinner takes a back seat. I’m therefore a huge fan of tasty healthy dinners that can be done in next to no time. I’ll occasionally share my staple recipes with you here, with my tips on ensuring your meals are as cost effective as possible.

lemon & chillI prawn Linguine

As a child of the 80s I’m not very good with fish. My only encounters were with the frozen kind coated in batter or breadcrumbs. I’m getting better and I have now grown to love shell fish in particular. This meal serves 4 and takes as long as it takes to boil the pasta, about 10-12 minutes in total. That will leave you lots of time to get logged into Profit Accumulator and get your bets placed afterwards!

Ingredients:

• Dried linguine 375g
• Olive oil 1 tablespoon
• Butter 15g
• Garlic clove 1, finely chopped
• Spring onions 2, thinly sliced
• Red chillies 2, deseeded and finely sliced
• Large raw prawns 450g
• Lemon juice 2 tablespoons
• Chopped or dried coriander 2 tablespoons
• Salt and pepper

Method

Cook the pasta in lightly salted water for 10-12 minutes.

In the meantime, heat the oil and butter in a large frying pan and stir fry the spring onions, garlic and chillies for 2-3 minutes.

Add the prawns and cook briskly for 3-4 minutes until cooked through. Stir in the lemon juice and coriander, then remove from the heat.

Drain the pasta and pour into the prawn mixture. Mix together, season and you’re done.

money saving tips

Prawns aren’t the cheapest food product you can buy. But here’s my top tips on how to save money making this dish if you’re on a budget:

• Buy frozen raw prawns. All the major supermarkets sell them in their frozen sections. Every few weeks my local Tesco offers 25% off as well (other supermarkets do the same too), so I will stock up with a few packets at a time just to pop into the freezer.
• Freeze your chillies. If you need to buy a packet of chillies, pop those you don’t use into the freezer. There’s no need to defrost them before using frozen chillies in cooking. Simply take them out, cut them up, deseed them and add them straight to the pan.