Farfalle with Gorgonzola, Arugula, and Cherry Tomatoes

In my last post, I made ravioli with arugula and served a salad with crumbled gorgonzola cheese in it. I had a lot of those key ingredients left over and didn’t know what to do with them. I don’t have any recipes that call for arugula, and I had a ton of it left over. And I didn’t know what to do with the cheese, either. I would have been open to putting the cheese on my salads until it was gone, except that was boring. I’d already been doing that for two or three days and was bored of it.

Google is my friend. I found this recipe in the New York Times archives and decided to make it. I didn’t have fresh cherry tomatoes, but I did have canned diced tomatoes and unlike all the uppity commenters on the original recipe, I wasn’t mad at the poster for sharing a recipe that I didn’t have the ingredients for (apparently it’s insensitive to post a recipe that calls for fresh tomatoes in January). So I decided to make it with some substitutions.

But I am a good wife so I made garlic breaded chicken, too, so hubby could have meat with his meal. Here it is ready to go in the oven. Forgot to take a finished picture later.

Step one: boil some bow-tie pasta.

Put your gorgonzola cheese in a pan.

Add half-and-half

And stir it over heat until the cheese melts. I guess it’s okay for the sauce to be chunky, as long as it’s warm and gooey and a lot of the cheese melts.

When you’re satisfied with the creamy, cheesy sauce, pour it over the pasta that you’ve drained but forgotten to take a picture of.

Add two cups of arugula and one cup of cherry tomatoes (or if you’re like me, just open a can of diced and use that instead). Also add some salt and pepper, too.

And serve! It’s that simple. I topped mine with some shredded Parmesan cheese.

My verdict: good… but it disappointed me a bit. I’m not sure what I was expecting but it was a little more. Then again, I thought the leftovers were amazing. It may have been a case of snacking too much while I was eating. In fact, I think it was. The dish has my favorite things – pasta, gooey cheese, greenery, and a lot of flavor. I think I’d like to try this again without sneaking crumbles of gorgonzola in the process.

If you make it, let me know how it went!

Ravioli with Arugula, Tomatoes, and Pancetta

Do you ever cook something that was so good, yet so easy, that you wanted to make it again? Like, the next day? That doesn’t usually happen to me because by the time I’m done with all the leftovers, I’m tired of it. This dish, though, had me wanting more.

I can’t claim credit for finding this one. When hubby and I were home in NY for Christmas one year, my friend Ashly had us over and made it for us. See, here she is.

If you’ve never had a Sicilian make you dinner, you should. Just saying. They know what they’re doing.

I can’t quite remember when this dinner was, but I know it was before she got married, before hubby and I were married, and before she and her boyfriend (now husband) bought the house that they live in now. So it’s been a while, though probably not as long as that description makes it sound. To be honest, my memories of that night are of catching up after being apart for a while, drinking too much wine, giggling, and probably driving our boys crazy. They were good sports, though. I think they talked about cars. Anyway, I remember 1,000,000,000,000 Christmas lights, because that’s how they do Christmas in their house, and the warm purple sweater with ruffles that I was wearing, and the fact that Diana Krall was playing on the stereo. I remember helping Ashly in the kitchen and watching as she did everything, but I honestly don’t remember the meal that much.

Apparently I’m feeling nostalgic today. Can you blame me? Hubby and I are moving back to NY in a few weeks. It’s been six years and I’m ready to go home. Maybe that’s why my mind is wandering in that direction.

Anyway, hubby and I were having company over for dinner and I wanted something that would be relatively easy, yet fancy. Something Italian but less labor-intensive than my lasagna or stuffed shells, and something that was just plain delicious. So I dug out the recipe that Ashly had given me.

First, here was my uber-easy appetizer. Sliced French bread dipped in seasoned oil. Nom nom nom.

And the next course (which I served at the same time as the entrée), was my cranberry and almond spinach salad with poppyseed dressing.

And now for the meal.

First step: boil some frozen ravioli.

My sole experience with pancetta was with this meal. I vaguely remembered that it looked like ham and I almost just bought ham when I had trouble finding pancetta at the grocery store. Luckily I didn’t, instead asking the people at the deli, and this is what I got.

Definitely not ham! More like bacon. I tasted it, and it was salty and flavorful.

First step is just to sauté it in a pan, then let it drain on paper towels. This is apparently the only picture I took of the process. But they got nice and crispy, and there was plenty of oil in the pan.

Next, take a can of diced tomatoes.

Sauté the tomatoes with some olive oil, salt, and pepper. The recipe didn’t say whether you should drain the pan of all the fat from the pancetta, but I did.

Next up, chop some fresh basil.

After the tomatoes have cooked for about 2 minutes, add the basil and a few cups of fresh arugula. Cook it until it’s wilted.

You’re supposed to add in a bit of butter at this point, but I forgot. Whoops.

Okay, your ravioli should be done about now. Drain them.

And then toss with the tomato/ arugula mixture and also the pancetta.

Serve it up with a pinch of fresh Parmesan cheese and some garlic toast, and you’re good to go.

So wonderful. I loved this. I want to make it again. It doesn’t take longer to make than just boiling the ravioli, and it is so worth the effort. The pancetta spiced things up, making it fancy and flavorful.

Delicious. Really.