My friend, Linda, who knits with us Friday mornings, had just returned from an Italian vacation with her daughters. One of the fun things she did was attend a cooking class at the home of a lovely Italian woman. I guess they spent the day cooking and drinking wine and eating. Pretty rough, huh.
Linda said she was surprised to see a block of good old American Philadelphia Brand Cream Cheese on the counter. We all laughed, and Linda said that her instructor said she loved the stuff and used it in a pasta dish with blue cheese. Linda said that because her girls are not blue cheese fans,the group opted to cook a different dish for the class. We all went back to our knitting, and Linda told us all about the rest of her trip. I'm sure I listened, and I'm sure I knit, but I could not get blue cheese pasta out of my mind.
I decided that in fact I couldn't live without some blue cheese pasta, so I started scheming. I didn't have a recipe, but I did know two key ingredients. So, half a block (4 oz) of cream cheese and an equal amount of Gorgonzola went into a 3 quart saucepan.
Since we're already pretty far down the high fat path, a little heavy cream seemed like the right choice to thin the sauce out. Also, sherry is really great with blue cheese, so I added about a quarter cup of that too.
When you heat that cream and sherry, it really helps the cheeses start to melt.
I cooked a pound of farfalle in salted water and started dumping it into the melty cheese and cream mixture, stirring to coat the pasta.
It was totally delicious at this point. I tasted it several times to be sure. But I thought it needed another dimension - a little crunch. Walnuts are really nice with blue cheese, so I tossed a handful into a small iron skillet and gave them a quick toast and chopped a bit.
It's really as simple as that - turn the pasta into a nice warm bowl and top with the walnuts and serve. A little freshly ground black pepper is a nice garnish.
I'll tell you, this is a delicious dish, but it is super rich. This recipe easily serves 6 as a main dish and 8 or 10 as a first course. Follow it up with a nice tossed salad and more wine. Yum.
