Creamy Sun-Dried Tomato Cashew Cream Pasta
Rating:
Ingredients:
- 1 cup raw cashew nuts
- 1 Tbsp oil, olive or or from sun-dried tomato jar
- 1 brown onion
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 Tbsp tomato paste
- ½ tsp dried oregano
- Pinch of chili flakes (approx. ⅛ tsp)
- 150 g sun-dried tomato sliced in oil, from a jar and drained
- 2 cups vegetable stock
- 340 g pene pasta, dry weight
- 4 tightly packed cups baby spinach (approx. 120g)
- ½ cup fresh basil leaves
- Salt and peper, to taste
Method:
Ahead of cooking - Soften the cashews
- Add cashews into a heat-proof bowl. Remove 2 Tbsp worth and keep aside to garnish the pasta with later.
- Cover the remaining nuts with boiling water and leave to soak for 4 hours (or 1 hour if you have a high-speed blender). Replace boiling water once or twice as the water cools.
Preparing the pasta
- Peel and slice onions. Peel and roughly chop garlic.
- Add oil to a large deep fry-pan (one you could comfortable add four serves of cooked pasta too). Heat to a medium.
- Once the fry-pan is hot, add the sliced onions and sauté for 5 minutes.
- Add garlic to the fry-pan at the 5 minute mark, turn the heat to a medium-low and sauté for another 5 minutes. In the last 2 minutes, mix in the tomato paste, dried oregano and chili flakes.
- Add the vegetable stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Remove from heat and let cool down (enough for your blender to safety handle the liquid).
- Cook pasta, as per packet instructions.
- Add the stock, drained cashews and sun-dried tomatoes (reserving 50g to toss through the pasta) to a food processor. Blend on the highest speed into a creamy sauce.
- Drain pasta, reserving ½ cup pasta water.
- Add spinach to the bottom of the frypan. Top with pasta, sliced basil and sliced remaining sun-dried tomatoes.
- Toss until the spinach has softened, using a splash of pasta water to make it extra creamy.