Blogging Marathon# 33: Week 2/ Day 2
Theme: Favorite Celebrity Chef Recipes
Dish: Giada’s Pasta with Asparagus & Mascarpone cheese
My Celebrity chef of choice for Day 2 of BM# 33 is Giada De Laurentils. She is an Italian chef and is a regular on Food Network. Her Italian recipes look doable and easy to make with every-day available ingredients.
I learnt a lot of Italian recipes watching Giada’s shows. One of the fancy ingredient I started to buy after watching her is Mascarpone cheese. She uses it in both sweet & savory preparations like cheesecakes, pastas etc. I buy a tub on mascarpone cheese when on sale and use it in various dishes.
Today’s dish is Giada’s Farfalle with Asparagus & Mascarpone. I was making this for my sister who doesn’t eat mushrooms, so I used peppers instead. Also I jazzed up the recipe with sauteed onion and garlic for added flavor. Addition of walnuts was the highlight for this recipe and I really enjoyed the crunch. Final dish was colorful, creamy and filling.
- 1 lb Pasta . (Farfalle was used in the original recipe, but any short cut pasta would taste good)
- 1 Peppers - medium, chopped
- 1 bunch Asparagus - cut into 1" pieces
- 1 Onion - medium, thinly sliced
- 2 ~ 3 cloves Garlic - minced
- 1 cup cheese Mascarpone
- ¾ cup Walnuts - toasted
- ¼ cup Parmesan Cheese
- a pinch Nutmeg - freshly grated
- 1 tsp Red Pepper Falkes (or to taste)
- to taste Salt Pepper &
- Cook pasta according to package instructions. Reserve 1cup of pasta cooking water for later.
- Heat 1tbsp olive oil in a saute pan, add the onions and cook until translucent. Next add garlic and cook for 1 more minute.
- Add peppers and cook for 3~4 minutes. Next add chopped asparagus and cook until both peppers and asparagus are almost tender but should still have a bite.
- Add the drained pasta and mix well.
- Add mascarpone cheese, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Mix well and serve topped with toasted, chopped walnuts and parmesan cheese.
Very flavorful and delicious pasta , loved the addition of walnuts…
wow what a wonderful recipe. bookmarked for the coming winter months.
I agree that the addition of walnuts adds to the crunch and extra of everything enjoyable!!
wow loving this combo 🙂 looks super yummy and sounds very interesting 🙂 wud love to finish the whole bowl !!
I am really hoping some magic takes place and I get to taste it.Thanks for sharing.
i just came from the supermarket with some fresh asparagus – but I;m out of marsscapone:(
This look so delicious with tempting colors..
Super dish and even more super clicks..loved the colorful dish..very pretty.
Very flavorful pasta recipe!
Lovely combination of colors n flavors!!! 🙂 Very colorful, indeed!! 🙂
Sounds very interesting,looks so colorful..
Love Mascarpone and this pasta has everything going for it. Lovely flavours.
A new author and a newer dish..very lovely pics!