Monday Night's Dinner: Pasta with Salmon and Pesto

I've decided that in order to successfully lead a truly healthy lifestyle I need to learn to cook properly for myself- I think this would make a huge difference in terms of maintaining a healthy lifestyle in the long run. Today was my first attempt (in a while) at cooking something, so I decided to go with something that was pretty easy and I most likely wouldn't mess up. For me, the most 'challenging' aspect of the meal was cooking the salmon as this was completely new to me (I've made pasta multiple times over the past few years so that was virtually effortless), but it was very easy- all the instructions were on the back of the packet and it was really just a question of whacking it in the oven and leaving it there for around twenty minutes. Unfortunately, I'm not at the stage where I can make my own pesto, so that was shop bought, which did make the dish a whole lot more easy for me to make. I will definitely attempt to make my own pesto when I'm a bit more of an experienced cook.

As I said, the dish is super easy to make and it's also incredibly versatile. For example, you can use as much or as little pasta as you want or need, as well as whatever type of pasta you like (I mixed spaghetti, penne and fusilli, some of which was white and some of which was wholegrain). I suppose you can really add anything else you want (as well as the salmon and pesto); I'm a little sad that I couldn't find any appropriate vegetables to use- broccoli would have complemented this dish perfectly!
The ingredients I used were:
Pasta
Salmon
Shop bought pesto (which I'm sure could be very easily made at home if you're a better cook than I am. I'd actually recommend making it at home if you can)
and Olive Oil, Salt and Pepper to taste.

I baked the salmon first, following the instructions on the back of the packet (wrapped in foil for around 20 minutes at 190 degrees Celsius).

As soon as I put the salmon in the oven I set the water to boil in a pan, with a salt sprinkled liberally in the water. As soon as the water was boiling I added the pasta and left to cook for ten minutes.

I took the salmon out of the oven, unwrapped it from the foil and cut it into shreds. Almost immediately after cutting the salmon, I drained the pasta (after checking to see if it was done by tasting it to make sure it wasn't too hard).

I added the pesto to the pasta and mixed roughly, then added the salmon and mixed it slightly more thoroughly. I also added olive oil, salt and pepper to taste.

As I have said multiple times, it was very easy, as you can evidently see from what I've written above. Not only that, but it tasted pretty good, and I got a lot of positive feedback from my family (though they were possibly just being polite). I'd recommend it as a starter recipe for people who want to learn to cook, it gets you off to a pretty good start as it's not challenging, yet it makes you feel like you've accomplished something pretty big.