There are good pasta recipes, and there are great ones like this Pasta With Roasted Caulifower and Gorgonzola. This is one of the few great pasta recipes I’ve had in my lifetime—it left me praying, Dear God is this good! I smacked the dining table in pleasure of every bite. Oh my goodness this is better than any restaurant I’ve eaten at! Uncouth? Arguably.
My five and a half year old son agreed, but at first said the cheese was funky. Gorgonzola, so, yeh. But he ate it with me (knowing dessert came after), laughing at me and joining in on my enthusiasm for the flavors. With big (sarcastic?) eyes and animated eyebrows he said (definitely sarcastically), Yeh mom, so good! And smacked the table.
It was one of the rare nights Matt came home from work after dinner, so I instructed him to make sure the pasta was warmed before he ate it…and not forget the lemon and chives after it had been warmed. As I bathed Ollie upstairs, I knew the odds of Matt skipping any steps past heating up the pasta were high, so I ran downstairs, into the kitchen, to make sure he could give me a fair review of the dish with fresh lemon and chives on top.
Knowing he’d skip that step, I began chopping the fresh chives, squeezing the lemon, and served it to him properly. I couldn’t wait for his response, so I jumped in before he could actually taste a few bites, “Isn’t it better than our favorite Italian restaurant?!” I smacked the marble countertop, jolting him. When I gave him a second to comment, he agreed (without a gun to his head) that it was, indeed, one of the best pasta dishes he’s had.
The whole amalgamation of the gorgonzola with the roasted cauliflower and leeks, with the brightness of fresh lemon and pinch of fresh chives…I mean it’s moments like this that we live for.
The adaptions I made were:
-I doubled the pasta (so I’d have leftovers for lunch the following day).
-I wish I doubled the cauliflower as I purchased a smaller head. A little more veggie bulk would have been a welcome addition.
-I used 4 oz of gorgonzola instead of 6 oz. (It’s all I had, and it was perfect.)
Notes:
Despite the recipe taking 55 minutes, it was a simple recipe to prepare. Most of the time was spent roasting the veggies in the oven. So, it’s pretty hands off.