Sprout & Pea

It hap­pened again. Another sup­per club left me with a plethora of goat cheese in my refrig­er­a­tor. One would think that I would learn to stop over­es­ti­mat­ing by now, but I can’t help but always air on the side of safe rather than cheese­less. So I once again found myself star­ing at the ingre­di­ents in my kitchen, try­ing to come up with a meal to toss the rest of this tangy deli­cious fro­mage into. Pasta was my first instinct and then I real­ized that I’ve prob­a­bly made every pasta and goat cheese dish I could come up with. That’s when I saw it — a red beet sit­ting lonely-​​and also left over from sup­per club– on my refrig­er­a­tor shelf. Since it is the sea­son for warm, hearty pasta, I put some quinoa lin­guine on to boil and started exper­i­ment­ing with a sauce. The end result was exactly what my cool weather crav­ings were call­ing for. Sweet and savory, this meal warmed my cold week­day evening right up. Here’s how to make it…

1/​2 box quinoa lin­guine
1 medium red beet, roasted and cut into small pieces
5-​​6oz goat cheese
1 medium shal­lot chopped into long thin pieces
1/​2 a lemon (will only need a few squeezes)
1/​4 cup pine nuts
1 tbs extra vir­gin olive oil
1/​2 cup reserved cook­ing liq­uid
Salt and pep­per to taste

While pasta is cook­ing, cook shal­lots over low-​​medium heat until soft. Add the goat cheese and beets and saute over medium heat while pasta fin­ishes cook­ing. Add a few squeezes of lemon juice and slowly pour in cook­ing liq­uid from pasta. Stir in salt and pep­per to taste. Drain pasta and add sauce and top with pine nuts.