Shallots, chorizo & gorgonzola pasta-in-a-pan

I don't own any pasta cookbooks but if I do this would be a standby recipe because it is easy, fast and versatile not to mention very tasty. It doesn't contain much meat but would satisfy meat lovers, children would not know that they are eating a bunch of vegetables and  few adults would not succumb to the "sauce" which is essentially melted gorgonzola. If you stick to using hard vegetables (vs 'wet' ones like chinese cabbages or leafy greens that leach water upon cooking) you can make extra and it'll keep well for lunch the day after.

The base is made up of roasted vegetables and some tasty meat. Here I used a packet of chorizo sausagemeat which I bought from Bellota Bellota but I've had really good results with Italian sausages and fresh sausages from my market charcuterie.

I love roasting vegetables like leeks, onions, shallots, and going down the bitter and anise flavour profile, fennel, endives and even brussels sprouts. For a different effect, roast eggplants and zucchinis as I did when these vegetables were abundant in late summer. Equally happy to go into the mix are carrots, green beans and broccoli. On this occasion I used leeks and some leftover shallots, and broccolli which I could have roasted but didn't because I did not want to crowd the roasting pan. 

Try to time the pasta to finish cooking at the same time as the vegetables. All ingredients except the cheese should be hot at the moment of mixing otherwise the dish would cool too quickly. I reserved some pasta cooking liquid just in case the pasta sticked, but it was not really necessary.

Ingredients

Pasta

2 leeks, cleaned, sliced in diagonal chunks

2 shallots, quartered

1 cup chorizo sausagemeat

1/2 head broccolli, cut into florets

1 slab gorgonzola, cut into small chunks

1. Roast shallots and leeks at 190C (200C if not using convention oven) for 30 minutes then add chorizo and continue to cook until vegetables are soft.

2. In meantime, boil broccoli in oiled and salted water until tender. Set aside. Just before mixing reheat in a microwave or plunge into boiling water for 1 minute.

3. Cook pasta in oiled, salted, boiling water until done. Drain.

4. Take leeks out of the oven, quickly put pasta, broccoli and cheese into the pan and stir briefly. Serve.