Spaghetti with goat cheese

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Photo: Wikipedia

Quick ... simple ... delicious.

Ingredients

1 lb spaghetti
4 (or more) oz. chèvre
freshly-grated pecorino or parmigiano
salt
freshly-ground black pepper
freshly-ground nutmeg
1 bay leaf
extra-virgin olive oil

Preparation

While the spaghetti is boiling, put a bowl over the pan.  Put all the other ingredients in the bowl.  When the spaghetti are done, don't strain them.  Remove them with tongs and transfer them to the bowl.  Doing so, a little of the cooking water will travel with the spaghetti and enter the bowl.  If it's still too dry, you can add ½ C cooking water to the bowl. Mix well and buon appetito!

This method — putting the bowl on top of the pan — is conducive to another cheese: gorgonzola.  And if you've never tasted pasta with gorgonzola and walnuts, you haven't lived.   Be it on pasta or on a salad, gorgonzola and walnuts make a marvelous pair.  Laura Tulimiero, author of the fabulous foodblog, “Matematica e Cucina” (http://matematicaecucina.blogspot.com ), offers an excellent recipe for pasta with gorgonzola and walnuts: http://matematicaecucina.blogspot.com/2013/05/farfalle-con-gorgonzola-e-pesto-di-noci.html.

Other variants

If by chance you happen to have smoked paprika, a few shakes of that would be divine. The smoked flavor pairs with the chèvre in a wonderful way.

Perhaps it's obvious that you can substitute ricotta for the chèvre. In fact, with supermarket ricotta, one always needs good methods for gently heating it. This is one.