It’s no secret that I like to spiritualize my food. I did it with the Angel Bread, Salvation’s Chocolate Chip Cookies, Tomato Bread Pudding and probably a bunch of other recipes that I can’t even remember now. Food has a way of begging to be etherealized, or it would, if “etherealized” was a word.

Creamy Blue Cheese Pasta with Spinach and Walnuts is one recipe that is sure to make the angels sing. Proof: I sang, and I’m fairly angelic, right?

It’s a basic recipe (well, expect for the cheese, which is a little high-end), and one that can be slapped together in no time flat, almost as fast as you can cook a kettle of pasta. It’s simple, folks, simple. And, in the same way that it’s the simple folk that hold the keys to the heavenly kingdom (now would be the place to quote scripture, but I’m not sure where those scriptures would be found, exactly—hmm, I must not be as angelic as I thought), it’s the simple foods that cause those heavenly angels to really belt it out.

Mr. Handsome is not a blue cheese fan, not at all. In fact, when he saw what I was serving, he groaned, actually groaned. I gave him the Hairy Eyeball and a smidge of What For, and he shushed right up, dished himself a decent serving … and then had seconds. And the next day when we were scrounging through the fridge for a light supper, he choose the pasta over the chicken-cheese enchiladas and the Vietnamese Pork Meatball sandwiches (with spicy mayo and pickled carrots and fresh cilantro). “It’s good,” he said, and then ducked his head sheepishly. Silly old goat. (There’s a scripture about sheep and goats, but I’m not going to get into that now.)

Creamy Blue Cheese Pasta with Spinach and Walnuts
Adapted from the November 2009 issue of Gourmet magazine

When I looked this recipe over again before writing it down here, I discovered that I had made it all wrong. I used a whole pound of pasta, but the recipe only called for one-half pound!

The end result was still delicious (obviously), just a lot lighter (and cheaper). I’m writing down the recipe as it is in the magazine, but if you want, you can double the pasta and still have a tasty meal. You’ll probably just want to add a bit extra of the pasta water to make it saucier (and more stretchable).

Keep in mind that I used only 5 ounces of blue cheese for that one pound of pasta and it was quite tasty. I can’t help thinking that a whole 8 ounces of the cheese for half that amount of pasta might be overkill. But then again, it might be even more heaven-like. Oh, wait! There’s an equation there: I ate it + I died = I went to heaven. Yes, it’s illogical, but let’s not argue the finer points, okay?

½ pound pasta, preferably of the spaghetti variety, but any type will do
5-8 ounces blue cheese, crumbled
1 cup walnuts, roughly chopped
10 ounces spinach, frozen or fresh, drained (mostly) and chopped
1 onion, cut into wedges
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
½ teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

Put the onion and garlic into a food processor and pulse till it’s finely chopped.

Cook the pasta according to package directions. Reserve a cup of the cooking liquid, though you’ll only use about 1/4 cup of it—I like to play it safe. Drain the pasta.

While the pasta is cooking, heat one tablespoon olive oil in a large skillet and add the chopped walnuts. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, for 2-3 minutes, until golden brown. Transfer the nuts to a bowl, set the skillet back on the burner, and add the other 2 tablespoons olive oil, the chopped onion and garlic, and the salt and pepper. Cook for 2-5 minutes until the onions have softened, but not browned.

Add the spinach, blue cheese, and 1/4 cup of pasta water (more if you want a thinner sauce), and simmer until the greens have wilted and softened and the blue cheese has melted. Add the red wine vinegar and stir well. Add the cooked pasta and toss to coat. Sprinkle with the toasted walnuts and serve immediately.

About one year ago: Baked Hash Brown Potatoes

The barn really is going up; it’s just that, except for a jagged hole up high in the metal side of the barn, you would never know.

The other day another big truck came by. It dumped off a lot of big pieces of wood. I think they’re called beams or studs or frames. Wait a sec …. Hone-e-y? What were those large pieces of wood that got dumped off here before we went on our trip? I-joists? They’re 36 feet long? Okay, thanks. No, no one’s asking—I was just wondering.

So it was I-joists that got dumped off. Mr. Handsome oversaw the whole process. It was kind of slow, and involved lots of backing up, beeping, and caveman-like grunts and whoas. I stayed on the deck and watched from behind my camera.

The kids didn’t even come running to look. Once you’ve seen one big load of wood, you’ve seen ‘em all.

Just so you know, the sticks of wood that Mr. Handsome is brandishing? They were for in case the driver made one false move. Mr. Handsome was fully prepared to fly at him, and deck him upside the head.

Just kidding. They were to put under the beams to keep them off the wet ground, but that was boring so I made up that little lie. I hope you’ll forgive me.

And really, Mr. Handsome didn’t have an angry bone in his body at delivery time. He was positively glowing, so excited was he over that bit of over-sized kindling. When he walked in the door afterwards, I took one look at him, slapped my hand over my eyes, and screeched “I need sunglasses!”

“Oh, be quiet,” Mr. Handsome said, all gruff and tough-like. And then he grinned and about split his face in half. He’s so dang cute!

The wood sat in the yard for a couple days until Mr. Handsome decided that he better get it under cover before we went on our trip so he spent one entire morning shoving beams into the barn through a little hole that he hacked in the side up the barn, a-way up high.

They’re big sticks of wood, so Yo-Yo and Miss Beccaboo had to help. It involved lots of lifting, holding, climbing, and shoving. Sometimes Mr. Handsome stayed outside on the ladder and waited while the kids sprinted around to the inside…

where they climbed the shelving units till they got to the top, up high there, close to the roof….

and then he fed the beam in through the hole to them so they could nestle it into its resting spot.

Other times they all worked together from the outside, Mr. Handsome on the ladder closest to the barn and the kids at the bottom end of the beam, pushing it up to him. When they got into that position, the kids didn’t have any other choice but to stay put and push. If they got tired and dropped the beam, it would smash their toes and they knew that. They’re smart kids that way. But they’re smart kids in other ways, too. They discovered that if they bleated pitifully—Papa, hurry, hurry, HURRY!—he would come save them.

We can’t do it! Our hands are slipping!

Hang on, hang on, I’m coming.

I said ‘I’m COMING!‘

Alright, I have it. You can let go now.

And all the while I was thinking, Let my kiddies’ piggies survive this, please.

Aah! Yikes! THAT kid isn’t supposed to be up there!

Yoo-hoo! Anyone in there know what’s going on outside? Anyone??? SOMEBODY GET THAT KID!

Truth be told, I didn’t say anything. I just ran inside quick to grab the camera. By the time I got back, Mr. Handsome was already bellowing at Nickel to get down off that ladder right this very minute. I clicked fast.

They worked all morning long. Mr. Handsome said he would’ve been in a real fix without the kids’ help.

Just think how many MORE things we’ll be able to accomplish in a couple years when the kids are that much bigger, stronger, and smarter. But not smart enough to get out of doing any work, of course.

About One Year Ago: In which I almost burn the house down…twice. (Kind of.)

I really need to tell you about this turkey-noodle soup I made a couple weeks ago. I hope this recipe doesn’t follow too closely on the heels of the butchering post, because it would be really sad if, in my impatience, I turned you off this soup before you even made it.

Actually, that’s a lie. I’m not posting this recipe for you, so much as I am for myself; I am a selfish person and this is my blog and it’s all about me, mememememeME. I really have no altruistic motives by posting recipes. It’s just because I want them in my recipe index.

Well, I do like sharing recipes, too. It makes me feel good when I can spread good recipes as freely as good cheer. Not that I spread much good cheer, and not that sharing to make myself feel good is altruistic. So let’s just forget I said anything, okay?

Aaaand, on with the soup we go. I’ve made it two different ways so far—once with noodles, and again with wild rice. Both times I was following different recipes but they were so similar they could’ve been kissing cousins. (And just so there’s no confusion, these pictures are of the wild-rice soup version, but it looks very similar to the other one, minus the black specks, of course, and plus some squiggly-squishy, oh-so-slurpy, yummy pasta. Oh, and minus the peas and plus the corn. This is getting to be a bit much for even me to keep straight. I’m sorry.)

I got the inspiration for the turkey-noodle soup after finding the recipe in an old, old cookbook that my mother in-law gifted to me. I’m wary of older cookbooks—often the recipes don’t have quite the punch that we are accustomed to nowadays—and this book was filled with meaty, simple-looking (and simple- tasting, I suspicioned) recipes. But the soup recipe I was eyeballing called for sherry. Sherry’s good, especially in a soup, and I’ve had a large bottle of it sitting in my fridge for the last half decade, ever since I bought it to put in a creamy lentil soup (which I should make again, come to think of it).

I made the soup, tasted it, and pronounced it good. Then I added the sherry, tasted again, and said wowsers, hip-diggity dog WOW. Sherry does that, apparently—transforms simple food into something quite exotic. I was a little worried the kids wouldn’t like it—sherry is an odd flavor, after all—but they loved it.

Then I made the turkey-wild rice soup. (I had a lot of turkey left over after our turkey-in-a-wash basket adventure.) It also called for sherry, and other fancy things like fresh parsley (yes, that’s considered fancy when it’s 15 degrees outside and my garden is deader than a doornail) and cream (not fancy exactly, just lush). The kids weren’t so wild about that one; they had issues with the wild rice’s nutty texture, I think.

So anyway, the following recipe is a combination of the two. You could substitute other grains (barley, brown rice, maybe even hominy), and play around with the veggies a bit, but you must not, under any circumstances, mess with the sherry. Well, you could, I suppose, but it wouldn’t have that particular flavor that makes this soup stand a head taller than all the other turkey soups.

Turkey-Noodle Soup
Inspired by The Settlement Cookbook and Epicurious

4 tablespoons butter
5 tablespoons flour
3-4 cups turkey broth
1 onion, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
2 carrots, diced
2-4 tablespoons sherry
2 cups cooked turkey, chopped
1 cup peas, fresh or frozen
½ pound thin egg noodles, cooked and drained
½ – 1 cup cream
1 cup grated cheese, such as cheddar, Colby, or Monterey Jack
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
fresh parsley, chopped, optional

In a medium-sized pan, simmer the celery, onion, and carrots in one cup of the broth till tender. Set aside.

Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir in the flour. Whisk in the remaining broth and stir till thickened. Add the cooked vegetables (with the liquid), chopped turkey, peas, cooked noodles, seasonings, and heat through. Remove from heat and add the sherry, cream, and grated cheese. Thin the soup with some milk, if desired, and taste to correct the seasonings. Serve hot, garnished with fresh parsley.

Variations:
*swap the turkey for chicken
*substitute precooked wild rice (or brown or white rice) for the noodles
*use other (precooked) grains in place of the noodles
*add some browned sausage and ½ teaspoon dried rosemary
*add some browned mushrooms
*add a cup of corn
*reduce or eliminate the cream by substituting milk for some of the broth that is used to make the roux
*add a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

About One Year Ago: On staying home alone and surviving my wicked imagination.