We were discussing cheeses at work and everyone had their cheese of choice. My preference is goats cheese normally. Someone mentioned that they loved the classic blue cheese and walnut salad and I asked anyone if they tried pasta and blue cheese as it was something I had been thinking about. One of my colleagues sent me on a recipe for pumpkin pasta with blue cheese sauce and I realised I had all the ingredients so I gave it a shot. The original recipe came from Taste.com.au but I have modified a fair bit so it’s not in its original state but I would say better really 🙂 I roasted the pumpkin the night before for a salad I was making so the leftovers just needed a reheat. You can do that or make it on the night if you don’t mind waiting. This recipe comes with a health warning, it’s on the calorific side but boy does it taste good.
Serves 4
Ingredients
1kg pumpkin, diced
1 onion, cut into large chunks
Olive oil spray
3 garlic cloves
1 tbsp harissa paste
20g feta
20g roasted pine nuts
150g blue cheese
250g pasta shapes of your choice
100ml light thickened cream
20g chopped walnuts
Salt & Pepper to season
Handful of rocket leaves to serve
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius/360 degrees Fahrenheit. Add the pumpkin, onion, garlic cloves in their skins to an oven-proof dish. Stir in the harissa paste and spray with the olive oil.
- Cook in the oven for approximately 40 minutes or until the pumpkin has softened.
- 15 minutes before the pumpkin has finished cooking, start preparing the pasta according to the packet instructions. Drain and set aside.
- Add the blue cheese and the cream to a saucepan and bring to a simmer until the sauce has started to thicken. Sprinkle in the feta.
- Once the vegetables are ready, squeeze the garlic out of their skins, discard the skins and mix the cloves through the other vegetables. Try and break the garlic up so that you don’t get large clumps of garlic.
- Add the vegetables, pasta, pine nuts to the sauce and stir through. Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Serve sprinkled with the walnuts and some rocket leaves.
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