Kale and Blue Cheese Pasta

Recently, while grabbing some groceries in a post-work stupor, I picked up the little Autumn foods magazine they have in the Waitrose checkout line. I had a quick flip and thought the recipes seemed simple enough so I took it home and had a proper read through. One of the main benefits that instantly stood out with that their recipes seem to try and use quantities that they have in store. For example, this recipe called for 200g of kale... and conveniently, they sell kale in 200g bags. While I'm all for trying to use up leftover ingredients in other tasty dishes, sometimes it's just nice to have exactly what you need.

This recipe was ridiculously quick and easy - the only time consuming bit was chopping up the celery (which took all of two minutes). I noticed I had a sad-looking half of a red onion wallowing in the bowels of the fridge so I tossed that in with the celery. What I really liked was that this could easily be done as a one pot meal if you wanted (after draining the pasta and kale, use the original pot to sauté the celery). All in all, I'd give this recipe a seven out of ten for tastiness - it was maybe a bit bland so next time I think I'll try a different blue cheese. Cambozola was the recommended option in the recipe but I think I'd prefer a nice Gorgonzola dolci. 

Recipe via www.waitrose.com

Prep Time: 5 min

Cook Time: 10 min

Serves: 2

Ingredients: 

200g pasta (I used Elicoidali as recommended but any pasta would work)

200g kale torn into bite size pieces, hard stems removed 

3 stalks of celery, finely chopped
1/2 a red onion, finely chopped

75g blue cheese, crumbled
salt
pepper

Method: 

Boil salted water in a large pot and add the pasta. Cook to packet instructions and add the kale in the last two minutes. Before draining, reserve a cup of cooking water.

Meanwhile, sauté the celery and onion over medium high heat until softened. Add to the pasta and kale.

Finally, stir in the blue cheese and add a little of the pasta water to help it melt. Stir over a low heat until the blue cheese has melted and become incorporated.

Enjoy!