Please Pass the Pasta

"Life is a combination of magic and pasta."-Federico Fellini

My dispensity for pasta dishes makes me seriously think I should have been born Italian, but I have zip, zero. nada Italian ethnicity in me.  My ancestors were Irish, Polish, German, and Welsh.  I read somewhere once that you should eat the foods common in the diet of your ancestors, but if I had to exist off of these types of foods I would most likely suffer a slow and horrible death due to starvation. I don't care for sauerkraut, polish sausage, or cabbage. I wouldn't even be tempted or willing to try black pudding (also called blood pudding, eeck) or coddle (which sounds worse then I think it really is, which is a kind of stew, but there is a lot to be said for the name of something and coddle sounds absolutley disgusting).  I love potatoes though, so maybe I wouldn't exactly starve (have tendency to be very overdramatic).  

I have always tended to gravitate to pasta dishes. Show me a lasagna and I am all over it. It was a no brainer when I found this spring inspired pasta dish the other day that I would just have to give it a whirl.  (It is spring inspired due to the ingredient asparagus which is a spring harvested vegetable, isn't it amazing what wikipedia will teach you!) 

Pasta with Goat Cheese, Lemon, Asparagus  modified from Bon Appetite
Ingredients:
1 pound fusilli or rotini (spiral-shaped pasta)
1 pound slender asparagus spears, trimmed, cut into 1- to 1 1/2-inch pieces
Chicken breasts (1lb, cooked and cut into bite size pieces)
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon peel
2 teaspoons chopped fresh tarragaon plus sprigs for garnish
5 1/2-ounce log soft fresh goat cheese

Directions:
1.Cook chicken breasts, cut into bite size pieces and set aside.
2.Cook pasta in large pot of boiling salted water until almost tender, stirring occasionally, about 7 minutes.
3.Add asparagus and cook until pasta is tender but still firm to bite, about 3 minutes longer.
4.Meanwhile, combine oil, lemon peel, and chopped tarragon in large bowl. Coarsely crumble in goat cheese.
5.Drain pasta and asparagus, reserving 1 cup cooking liquid. Add hot pasta, asparagus, and 1/4 cup reserved cooking liquid to bowl with cheese mixture. Toss to coat, adding more reserved liquid if dry.
6.Add chicken.
7.Season pasta to taste with salt and pepper. Transfer to shallow platter. Garnish with tarragon sprigs.

I had never tried goat cheese before.  I liked it but wasn't expecting it to be so tart when I took that first bite, so that was a bit of a shock to my taste buds.  The second bite was much better and I cleaned my plate (I drew the line at licking my plate clean.  I only do that when I have a bowl of frosting to clean up.  A girl has to have her standards!).  I also had the leftovers for my lunch the next two days.  My good friends will know how monumental this fact really is.  I extrememly rarely, if ever, will eat leftovers of anything, except cake of course.