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Wednesday, May 07, 2014

Another gardening day and outrageously delicious Gorgonzola wine cream sauce recipe for pasta.

 Got a lot of gardening time in my back yard yesterday and all the planters are now filled and planted. I'm still having to cover a lot of things at night because of the cool evenings. The plants are doing well with all this extra care.

Planting here and a trip to the store to exchange a pot for a larger one and cooking used up all my time and energy and I never made it to my son and daughter-in-laws garden, so I'll be going over there today for some planting and other garden chores.

After another heavy gardening day,  it's going to be an easy dinner of salad, Italian sausage and spinach fettucine with the leftover Gorgonzola sauce and Italian ices for dessert.

There's a 70% chance of rain in the forecast for tomorrow, so I might actually get into the studio for a while.

One of my readers requested this Gorgonzola sauce that I mentioned in yesterdays blog. If you didn't read the blog, Jim said it was the best pasta dish he's ever had. It really was that good!
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  •  GORGONZOLA CREAM SAUCE - SERVE 6 AS A SAUCE AS AN ENTREE 
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  • (I halved this for the two of us and had enough sauce leftover to use as a pasta side dish tonight with a mild or medium Italian sausage).
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  • 2 cups heavy cream
  • ½ cup dry white wine (I used Chardonnay)
  • ½ cup chicken stock
  • 4 oz Gorgonzola Dolce (must use this. It's much creamier than regular Gorgonzola. I buy mine on line from Murrays cheese in New York, but it you might have a good sour near by)
  • 2 Tbs  freshly grated Parmesan Reggiano cheese,  
  • Optional: extra Parmesan to pass  around.
        finely chopped or snipped flat leaf parsley as a garnish.

        Slice or finely dice the Gorgonzola cheese and set aside.
  • In a large sauté pan, heat the cream, wine and stock over medium-high heat until it starts to bubble. Lower heat and simmer gently for 15 to 20 minutes or until the liquid has reduced by about one third or lightly coats a metal spoon.
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  • ** If you baby this by keeping the heat a bit higher than a simmer it will be ready in about half the time. I used a high heat rubber spatula to stir it very often, till it lightly coated a metal spoon.

  • Add the Gorgonzola and Parmesan and stir until the Gorgonzola has melted and the cheeses are fully blended. Adjust consistency with additional cream if necessary.

  • Season to taste with Kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper and a pinch of grated nutmeg.  (only use enough nutmeg until you can taste just a hint of it. For me that may have been something like 8-18 grates on a nutmeg grater).Serve right away.
NOTE: You can serve this with mushroom or other ravioli, or rigatoni, penne, ziti, spinach fettucine works if you use it as a side dish with fish or simple grilled chicken, or pork. An added 1/4 of a cup of chopped walnuts would be a nice addition to the mushroom or squash ravioli dish. If serving this sauce with one of the tube pastas, some halved, grilled, cherry tomatoes would make a lovely addition. 

I used fresh mushroom ravioli that I bought at Costco. It was very good. The sauce takes about twenty minutes to cook and the fresh ravioli about 3 minutes.  A salad first made for a complete and lovely dinner.

7 comments:

  1. Oh I do think we shall have to try this one. We have everything to hand except the dolcelatte, and I'm pretty sure our supermarket carries it. I'm about to cut into the last of the squash from last year. Making lasagne last week I panicked when we didn't have any pasta sheets in and had to make my own from scratch and it reminded me that it really isn't that hard. So home made squash ravioli with this sauce sounds like it's hitting our table in the near future.

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  2. And don't forget the walnuts! If you can find the Gorgonzola dolce locally, Murray's cheese in New York sells it and other great cheeses. It's very creamy, like an almost ripened brie. A possible substitute might be caramzola (not sure of spelling), which is readily available.

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  3. I guess New York isn't much further from me than it is from you - the problem is that I'm in the other direction. It would be quicker (and simpler given the import restrictions) to go to Italy to buy it :) Fortunately even our ordinary supermarket has a great cheese section.

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  4. Lucky you. I have to drive, round trip, over an hour and a half to find a grocery store with a decent cheese selection, and even then, it doesn't have some of my favorites. So, once or twice a year I indulge and send in an order to Murray's cheese in New York.

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  5. Thank you! Now I am really hungry it sounds so good. Have to look for that cheese too.

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  6. Thanks for the recipe - I wrote about it over on mikeintonbridge.wordpress.com My attempt at making stuffed pasta wasn't a great success but the sauce was lovely. I'll have to practice with the pasta to find a no-hassle method but for the next few weeks I'd better focus on getting some pottery made.

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  7. Mike, there are some very good videos on pasta making on you tube. Glad the sauce worked for you.

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