Crab with Spaghetti

Flipping through a Cooking Pleasures magazine, I came across this one that I'd passed over about 1,483 times. This time, I put it in the weekly food plan rotation for kicks. After all, there's no meat, plus is calls for crabmeat, olives, walnuts and fresh basil, all wonderful things.

Crab with Spaghetti

8 oz. spaghetti

1/4 c olive oil
1/2 c chopped onion
2 garlic cloves, minced
8 oz. canned lump crabmeat (1 1/2 cups), 1/2 c crab liquid reserved
1/2 c chopped Kalamata olives
1/2 c coarsely chopped walnuts
1/4 c chopped fresh parsley
2 tbsp chopped fresh basil
2 tbsp chopped pimiento
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp dried oregano, preferably Greek
1/2 c shredded Parmesan cheese

Cook spaghetti according to package directions; drain.

Heat oil in large nonstick skillet over medium heat until hot. Cook onion 2 minutes or until soft, stirring occasionally. Add garlic; cook and stir 30 seconds or until fragrant.

I added the garlic and onion at the same time out of habit.

Add all remaining ingredients except spaghetti, crab liquid and cheese; cook until heated through.

Add spaghetti and crab liquid; toss to combine.

Sprinkle with cheese.

This wasn't the flavor explosion I'd anticipated. Maybe I expected that each time I flipped past this recipe in the past. It wasn't gross in any way, just not great. If I were to do this again, I would select a different pasta, one with ingredient-holding capacity, like shells. Eating this as it was resulted in mouthfuls of plain noodles and a bunch of crab-nut-olive litter in the bottom of the bowl. Rodney wasn't hot for this pasta dish either. What a bummer.

Cost:

• spaghetti: $0.50
• crabmeat: $3.49
• everything else, SWAG: $2

Total: $5.99 or about $1.50 for each of four servings.