We’ve still got lots of heat left this summer. A couple of weeks ago it got hot and muggy here, just a few miles inland, in north San Diego County. Hot enough that we really didn’t want to cook in our non air conditioned apartment.
But you’ve still got to eat. What do a lot of people do? They go out to eat someplace that’s air conditioned. Well, we can’t afford that anymore. So we’ve got to do something else. When I was a kid growing up in Florida a really hot spell (seems like the really hot spell lasted about 6 months) would be time for Mom to make tuna and macaroni salad. I used to love that salad with saltine crackers on the side!
And I still make it (maybe sometime I’ve got to write a blog post about that but I always just assume that many people know how to make something that basic and the foo-foo foodies would look down their noses at it—of course that’s true of most of my recipes).
So anyway I decided to do a variation on that cold salad and make it with a package of “mock crab” (what Carolyn calls Krab) that I had in the freezer. And it was a tasty hot and humid weather dinner—and lunch the next day. You cook up the pasta in the morning before it gets too hot and the build the salad to put in the refrigerator to cool down for dinner.
So here’s my version of Pasta and Seafood Salad. You can make it with mock crab, canned crab, fresh crab, canned tuna or even shrimp—whatever you have on hand.
Recipe: Pasta and Seafood Salad
Summary: Here’s a cool summer dish for when it’s hot and you don’t want to heat up the kitchen. It’s quick, easy and tasty.
Ingredients
- 1 lb Rotini pasta (I used the vegetable flavored)
- 1 lb Mock or Imitation Crab or canned “real” crab
- 1 Roma Tomato chopped
- ½ cup Onion chopped
- 1 Jalapeno chopped
- 2-3 tbsp Mayonaisse or “salad dressing”
- 1 tbsp Ketchup
- 1-2 tbsp Horseradish to taste (or a few squirts of hot sauce)—to taste
- Salt to taste
Instructions
- Get out your pasta pot and heat up a half gallon of water in it to boiling. Drop in
the pasta, stir and cook it al dente then drain it. - Get out good size mixing bowl, your cutting board and chef’s knife to chop the tomato, onion and jalapeno. Put the vegetables in the bowl.
- Shred the mock crab and put into the bowl.
- In a small bowl, mix the 2 tbsp mayo, 1 tbsp ketchup and 1 tbsp horseradish. Go
a bit light on the ketchup and horseradish. Taste it! Adjust for flavor. Add more ketchup if you want more color and a bit more tomato flavor. Add more horseradish or hot sauce if you want more “kick”. Taste it again. Add salt if needed. - Add the pasta to the mixing bowl. Then add about 2/3 of the sauce mix and stir well. Check consistency. Add and stir
more of the sauce if needed. Taste again and add more salt if needed. - Put plastic wrap over bowl and put the finished salad in the fridge for at least 2 hours. Before serving, check the consistency and taste of the salad again. Add more sauce or salt if needed.
Preparation time: 15 minute(s)
Cooking time: 15 minute(s)
Number of servings (yield): 6
My rating 5 stars: ★★★★★ 1 review(s)
For dinner, spoon your pasta and seafood salad onto plates and put saltines on the side. Scoop some of the salad onto the saltines and eat that way or just shovel it in with a fork.
I really liked the slightly different flavor and texture that the colored pasta added—some of the pasta has a bit of tomato in it and some has a bit of spinach to flavor it slightly and add color. And we really liked the tang of the mayo/ketchup/horseradish sauce. It’s a bit different than just using mayo. And you can even do the same thing just by mixing a mayo and seafood cocktail sauce too.
The Cheap Bastid Test: You know, I’m not 100% sure what this cost because we didn’t buy the mock crab (don’t ask it’s a long story). But the pasta was $1 and I used about $.50 worth of tomato, onion and jalapeno plus about $.25 worth of mayo, ketchup and horseradish. So, call the “mock crab” $4 (if you used 2 cans of tuna it would be about $2). That makes the total about $5.75. and we got about 6 meals out of it (dinner and lunches) so it’s less than $1 a serving which is pretty reasonable and also pretty healthy.
Give it a try then leave a comment to let me know what you think!
That’s the Cheap Bastid Way: Eat Good. Eat Cheap. Be Grateful!
