Creamy Orzo & Farfelle with Creamy Mushroom Gorgonzola Sauce

A Couple of Pastas from Giada's New Book

Everyday Pasta by Giada de Laurentiis arrived last week, the third book by Giada, preceeded by Everyday Italian and Giada’s Family Dinners. It is as you would expect full of pasta recipes; but that isn’t all – there are also a chapter for Antipasti & Appetisers and another for Something on the Side.

The pasta recipes are divided into five chapters, Soups & Pasta Salads, Hearty Pastas, On the Lighter Side, Quick & Easy Weeknight Pastas and finally Pasta for Special Occasions. The format of the book is much the same as her previous two. This one also has a short crash course in Italian wines, which I thought was very helpful as I only know a handful of Italian wines, and Marsala is the one we use most often! The first recipe I looked at in this book was Turkey and Cranberry Ravioli. It sounds so delicious, ravioli stuffed with the turkey, cranberry sauce, cheese and parsley. Gravy for the sauce flavoured with chicken stock, cream, cheese and parsley. I am going to try that one out one weekend for sure.

Among the 37 recipes I’ve book marked are cornbread panzanella, Winter salad with sherry vinaigrette, baked penne with roasted vegetables, turkey and artichoke stuffed shells, capellini Piedmontese, chicken in lemon & cream with penne, cheesy baked tortelini, baked gnocchi, rigatoni with sausage, artichoke & asparagus and finally prawn lasagne with creamy marinara.

Creamy Orzo

The first three recipes I cooked from it were creamy orzo, farfelle with creamy mushroom Gorgonzola sauce and sauteed spinach with red onion. The creamy orzo was orzo pasta mixed into a tomato sauce with shallot, garlic, cream, peas and Parmesan cheese. It was good hot, but I liked it even better cold.

Farfelle with Creamy Mushroom Gorgonzola Sauce

This one had a nice creamy edge (although not from cream, only from a full fat milk bechamel sauce) with a pungent bite from the blue cheese, I thought it was lovely, really well balanced and it had added peas and mushrooms, so there was colour and vegetables as well. I don’t know about you, but I like to have vegetables at most lunch and supper meals.

I also made spinach with red onion is a side dish that Giada says she cooks at least three times a week. I forgot to take a picture, but it’s worth a mention as it was a gorgeous spinach dish. One I hope to slot into my weekly cooking.

Next on my list to try this week are an Italian White Bean, Pancetta & Tortellini Soup and Ditalini with Mushrooms and Artichokes.