Pasta with Asparagus, Mascarpone cheese & Walnuts

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.

Ingredients:

Pasta - 1lb. (Farfalle was used in the original recipe, but any short cut pasta would taste good)
Peppers - 1 medium, chopped
Asparagus - 1 bunch, cut into 1" pieces
Onion - 1 medium, thinly sliced
Garlic - 2~3 cloves, minced
Mascarpone cheese - 1cup
Walnuts - ¾cup, toasted
Parmesan Cheese - ¼cup
Nutmeg - a pinch, freshly grated
Red Pepper Falkes - 1tsp (or to taste)

Salt & Pepper - to taste

Method:

• 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.

Lets check out what my fellow marathoners have cooked up today for BM# 33.