Lemon Caper Pasta

It is a cold rainy evening here in Maine. Weather like this makes me want to curl up at home with a good book, a glass of wine, and comfort food. Tonight I was craving this amazing macaroni and cheese I have made before with capers. It is macaroni and cheese all grown up, with earthy mushrooms and salty capers and a mixture of cheddar and a hard sheep's milk cheese I discovered at my local Italian market. I will make it again sometime so that I can share the recipe with you. And by recipe, I mean that I will write down what I put in it that day. I rarely actually cook from a recipe. And when I post my recipes, I typically have only made them once or twice. I would like to think that eventually readers will get a feel for what they like and do not like in the way of ingredients, spices, and flavors so that they can adjust any recipe I post to their own personal tastes.

So, back to my craving (which is usually what drives my dinners). I was craving macaroni and cheese, but I decided to try something a little healthier. I hope what I created is, but I honestly have not estimated the nutritional value of it. In the end, I ruled out the cheese. Wandering into the grocery store, I was deciding what would complement the capers. I thought I would try my hand at making a lemony sauce, Lemons are like sunshine for your palate and I definitely needed some sun today. So, I grabbed some lemons. The garlic was right next to them, so I picked up a head. I made my way to the pastas and decided on what looked like a more rustic pasta (rustichella d'abruzzo's orecchiette del prete). When I got home, I started to pull the capers out of the refrigerator and noticed a package of baby portabella mushrooms I purchased a week ago and grabbed those too. In the end, I ended up with a tart, flavorful, and slightly spicy pasta that definitely satisfied me. I hope you enjoy it just as much.

Lemon Caper Pasta

water
250 g pasta of your choice (I used orecchiette del prete)
4 tbsp olive oil
6 cloves garlic, peeled, smashed, and roughly chopped
10 oz baby portabella mushrooms, sliced about 1/4 inch thick
pinch of salt
1 tsp chicken Better than Bouillon
juice of 2 lemons
1 tsp cornstarch
1/2 - 1 tsp sugar (to your taste, to cut the tartness of the lemon)
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 tsp Tabasco pepper sauce
4 tbsp capers
baby spinach

Fill a large pot with water and bring to a boil.
Once boiling, add the pasta and cook as directed on the package.
While that is cooking, in a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium-low heat.
Add the garlic and saute until fragrant and just starting to brown.
Add the mushrooms and pinch of salt, stir and let cook for about a minute.
Carefully ladle out about a 1/2 cup of water from the boiling pasta and pour over the mushrooms.
Add the bouillon and lemon juice and stir.
Put the cornstarch in a measuring cup and add a few teaspoons of the liquid in the skillet. Stir until smooth and then slowly pour into the skillet and stir.
Add the sugar, salt, pepper, Tabasco sauce, and capers and simmer for a couple minutes. If this is done before the pasta, just turn it off and let it sit while the pasta finishes.
When the pasta is done cooking, drain it well and then pour it into the skillet. Stir well.
To serve, put about 1 cup of baby spinach in a bowl and then ladle your desired amount of pasta over it. It will wilt the spinach a bit while allowing it to keep some texture.