The Floured Apron

Anytime you share your meals with another person, compromises have to be made. One of mine is that I serve pasta only once (or maybe twice) a week. While I love pasta and could happily eat it almost every night, John gets sick of it pretty quickly. But we can both live with one pasta dish a week (particularly since the leftovers usually become my lunch). I played the pasta card this week with a Gorgonzola sauce.

Now is probably the time to confess that I am a little bit of a cheese snob. Not a huge one at all, but I normally wouldn’t even consider buying store brand cheese. But I was reading the current issue of fresh* and they had a story about the cheese company that makes Hannaford brand Gorgonzola and Feta. So I thought I would give it a try, and it turned out to be pretty good. It was a little mellower than I’m used to, but it worked fine in the sauce.

My one complaint about the sauce was that I had to change the proportions all around. I’m hesitant to blame it on the recipe, which was from How to Cook Everything, but I don’t think I can blame it on the store brand cheese. So I guess this is my first Mark Bittman recipe that just didn’t work well as written. But it all ended well, I just fiddled with the recipe until I ended up with a proper sauce, and it turned out quite tasty.

Since this recipe could easily go head-to-head with carbonara in a calorie war, I served the healthiest vegetable I could think of as a side dish: sauteed spinach. This particular recipe came from my favorite new cookbook, “Sara’s Secrets for Weeknight Meals” (keep an eye out for my review of it in the next few weeks once I’ve cooked a few more recipes from it) but it honestly was no different from any other sauteed spinach recipe out there (spinach, a little garlic, sauteed in a touch of olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper). However, it was very tasty and made me feel a little better about eating pasta slathered in cheese.

There is one very important caveat to this otherwise delicious dinner: don’t serve these two dishes together. I”m serious. As John and I ate, we both developed a terrible gritty coating on our teeth. As soon as we finished eating, it was a race to the toothpaste. Neither dish caused this on its own, so I can only assume it had something to do with the combination. I apologize for the overshare, but I would hate for anyone else to experience the same thing. If I make this again, I might try out broccoli, with is probably the second most healthy vegetable I can think of.

*fresh is Hannaford Supermarket’s store magazine, and is free when you buy $25 worth of groceries. Which means it’s always free, because let’s be honest, I go to the grocery store to pick up some milk and I walk out with $25 worth of groceries. Anyways, if you live in an area that has Hannaford grocery stores, I enjoy the magazine and recommend picking it up.

Ziti with Creamy Gorgonzola Sauce

Adapted from Mark Bittman’s “How to Cook Everything”

Time: About 25 minutes

Yield: About 4 servings

I’ve changed the recipe around to fix the problems I had with it. If you’d like to see the original recipe, it’s on p. 142 of How to Cook Everything.

Ingredients

Preparation

Bring a large pot of water to a boil

Melt the butter in a 1- or 2-quart saucepan over low heat. While it is melting, put the Gorgonzola in a small bowl and mash it with a fork or potato masher, gradually adding the milk. Don’t worry about making it smooth, just make sure it is well combined. Once the butter is melted, add the cheese-milk mixture and continue to cook, stirring and mashing occasionally.

Meanwhile, salt the boiling water and cook the pasta until it is tender but firm. When it is done, drain it and mix with the sauce in a large, warm bowl: stir in the Pecorino Romano, then taste for salt and add some if necessary. Serve, passing additional cheese at the table if you like.