For our first two months in Oslo, Greg and I are living in a temporary apartment as our items are shipped from the USA.  While our apartment does have some amenities, it does not offer all of the kitchen appliances or tools that I have (and are currently on a ship on the Atlantic).  Here’s what I have to work with:

Limited to a home cook…. three stock/soup pots and a frying pan…. While I do have an oven, I do not have any dishes that are oven-safe.  I also don’t want to go and buy more dishes when they should be arriving in late August.  Needless to say, I need to get a little creative to shake it up for dinner.

The other night, I made an old favorite of mine – very simple pasta dish: Cheese Sachettes with Bacon & Peas with a bit of butter.  Sachette is a type of stuffed pasta that looks like a coin purse but you can use any kind of stuffed pasta for this recipe.  It’s very straight forward, easy and delicious.  There is something about peas, pasta and bacon… trust me on this one 🙂

Cheese Sachettes with Bacon and Peas

Serves 2-4

• 1 250g package of Cheese Sachettes (or other stuffed pasta such as ravioli, tortellini…)
• 6 thick pieces of bacon
• 1 410g can of green peas or 1.5 cups (12 oz) of frozen peas
• 2 chopped green onions
• 2 tbsp (1 oz) of butter
• Salt and pepper to taste

First of all, you need to get the water heating to a boil on the oven.  Fill one soup pot with water about 2/3 and add a good deal of salt in.   I’m sure you’ve heard this before but this is the only time you get to season your pasta – so make sure that water is a bit salty to taste.

Once the water comes to a boil, add the sachettes and cook according to package instructions.  I recommend buying the fresh stuffed pasta rather than the frozen or dried. It cooks a lot faster and tastes much better.

Next step, begin cutting the bacon into 1/2 inch (1-1.5 cm) pieces.  Add to a fry pan and begin cooking.  If the bacon is pretty lean, I recommend adding a little olive oil into the pan so it doesn’t stick or burn.  Continue to cook the bacon on medium heat until it becomes slightly crisp.

Once the pasta is cooked, add to pan with cooked bacon and toss.  Add peas, green onions, and butter.  (Frozen peas hold up a lot better than canned peas in this dish, but you work with what you can get!)

Toss for about 3 minutes and serve.  Feel free to add shredded parmesan on top, if you like.

Enjoy 🙂  This dish offers a lot to the palate – salty bacon, crisp green onions and sweet peas with creamy cheese stuffed pasta.  I served ours with sliced tomatoes!  Lovely comfort food – away from home.