Foody Friday Gorgonzola Pasta salad and Limoncella strawberry's

I promised you a very good salad last week and here it is.
It is a pasta salad with a very special cheese sauce. The sauce is made with gorgonzola a famous soft Italian blue cheese. Combined with grapes and orange juice it give's a very special taste to the salad.
Here is the recepie
This salad is enough for 8 people to lunch on or for 12 to 15 people if you have a buffet of some kind.

750 grams of small butterfly pasta shapes

4 oranges

300 grams of gorgonzola

140 ml of cream

250 grams of blue seedless grapes

250 grams of green seedless grapes

125 gram of chopped hazelnuts or macademia or pecan nuts

1 bunch of selery sticks

150 grams of rucola leaves

First boil the pasta in boiling salted water and drain.
In the mean time you mix the nuts with the grapes and the celary that you cut in small chuncks.

Remove the rind of the cheese.Put a saucepan on the heat and boil the cream with the cheese and the grated rind of one of the oranges and the juice of all the oranges.

Let the cheese melt in the orange juice and stirr until you have a smooth sauce. You need freshly squeesed orange juice for it. Season with pepper and a bit of salt. I put the sauce trough a fine sive to remove the 'blue' parts from the sauce. You could that do before you add the grated rind of the orange, otherwise the orange rind gets sifted out too.

Let the sauce cool down a bit but don't put it in the fridge because it will sett.

Half an hour before serving mix the cheese sauce with the pasta and toss the rucola leaves also under the pasta.
You really must add the sauce at the last minute otherwise the sauce is totally absorbed by the pasta and the pastasalad becomes too dry.

Limoncella strawberry's

Limoncella is the very fragent Italian lemon liqueur that will give that extra fresh and sumery taste to your strawberry's.

This is such a simple recepie but every time I serve it is a big hit.

For six to 8 little glasses

400 grams of strawberry's chopped in small pieces

1 small bunch of fresh basil leaves

50 grams of icing sugar

15 cl of limoncella

20 cl of water

Boil the water with the sugar and when it becomes a sirop add the limoncella.
Take from the fire. Let it cool down and put in the fridge to let it get cold.

Half an hour too 1 hour before serving pour this sirop over your strawberry's.Snip the basil in small pieces and sprinkle over the strawberry mixture.

This is also very nice to take on a picnic or to a lunchon or so. I made it all in individual portions and brought it like this to the kennel club grounds.