PASTA SHELLS WITH PEAS & CHILLI

So how many calories are there in "Conchiglie pasta with yoghurt, peas and chilli"?
The original recipe for this dish is from Yotam Ottolenghi.
I adjusted the ingredients to make two portions. With a few further adjustments, e.g. using a little less oil, pasta and Feta, we estimate each portion at around 600 calories.
The pasta was satisfying enough using less Feta, yet we could easily have eaten it without cheese. The heat from the chilli lifted the whole dish to a new level and contrasted well with the creamy dressing.
We've lost over seven stone in weight between us, making small changes like this to our diet.
Keeping an eye on what goes into your food can add up to a BIG difference in your weight. If you carry on eating food you feel comfortable with, you'll find it easier to lose weight. Once upon a time I thought I had to go on a specific 'diet' to lose weight, but as you'll see (throughout this blog), we just carried on eating our usual food - while paying attention to the small details.

REMEMBER:  - Do you know how many calories you are allowed each day?

Here's a link to our very first blog post about our weight loss journey, which we began in January 2011. We started this blog as a way of recording what we ate while losing weight. The blog is a food diary, and contains lots of recipes, tips and ideas about losing weight.

Take a look at the recipe:

PASTA SHELLS WITH YOGHURT, PEAS AND CHILLI

Serves TWO

Adapted from an Ottolenghi recipe
*
Yoghurt dressing

60g natural yoghurt
25ml olive oil
50g peas
crushed clove garlic
salt/pepper
***

120g dried pasta

100g peas

15g pine nuts

20 ml olive oil
1/4 teaspoon of chilli flakes (if you like it hot, use half teaspoon)

15g fresh basil leaves
50g feta cheese 

salt/pepper

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Blend all the yoghurt with 25ml of the olive oil, 50g of the peas and crushed garlic. Add salt and pepper.

Mix until you have a pale green sauce. Set aside until later.

Cook the pasta according to the instructions.

Add frozen peas for the last 2 minutes.

Drain well because the shells fill up with water, then SLOWLY add the pasta to the sauce (so it doesn't split). 

Place the 20ml oil into a small frying pan.

Add your chilli flakes and pine nuts.

Cook gently until golden brown - 4-5 minutes.

All that's left to do is to plate up.

Tear basil, crumble the cheese and add to your pasta.

Top with the pine nuts and drizzle with the chilli/oil.

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