Hello again and welcome to my blog!
This last week was a little bit mental in terms of stuff to do for me, hence not updating the blog for a couple of days. I started a new job as a shoe sales assistant and on top of that it was the Swedish National Day. I’m not sure if I mentioned in my last post that I am Swedish, but that is in fact the case. The National day was spent in the woods with my boyfriend, lots of very noisy birds and about a zillion mosquitoes. Even so it was a very nice evening with beautiful views and a hot fire on which we cooked our dinner. I will share the recipe for what we ate in another post later this week. Although it was a lovely evening it’s safe to say that I did not sleep very well, mainly because of the reasons stated above. So when we got home on Friday I just wanted something easy and quick for dinner as I was so tired and hungry.
If you’ve met anyone from Sweden and just so happened to come across them when they are hungry, you would know that nine times out of ten we opt for Italian food. Swedes love almost everything about Italy but it is our love of their food that we hold the highest. This time I opted for a dish that’s loosely inspired by a carbonara, but without any meat or cream in the apartment and being to lazy to go to the shop I switched them out for large white beans and mascarpone cheese.
This is a really simple recipe with few ingredients but it is delicious!
Recipe for 4 people:
- 250 g mascarpone cheese
- 200 g fresh spinach
- 1 lemon, zest and juice
- 230 g/1 can of large white beans
- 1 yellow onion
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 4 portions pasta (I used spaghetti)
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Save some of the water when draining the pasta to add to the sauce if it is to thick
Start by chopping onion and garlic quite fine, then add to a saucepan with a good amount of olive oil and sauté until translucent (approximately 5 minutes). Add the spinach and lemon zest and cook for a couple more minutes until the spinach has reduced down as shown in the picture below. Meanwhile you can boil your choice of pasta but make sure you cook it al dente!
Add the white beans, lemon juice and mascarpone cheese and cook until the cheese has dissolved. At this stage you can add some of your saved pasta water if the sauce is to thick. I always do this before adding salt to my pasta sauce because the water is quite salty and there is nothing worse than overly salted food (except war and inequality maybe).
At this final stage I add the cooked pasta to the sauce and let it cook in the sauce for a couple of minutes. This makes sure that the pasta soaks up the sauce properly and makes it even more delicious. I always cook my pasta al dente just to make sure that it won’t be overcooked when you add it to the sauce.
I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I did. If you want it even cheesier you can add some Parmesan on top. Bon appétit!
Malinsfood 