Reviewed: Mar. 18, 2007

This is wonderful. I did change the blue cheese to feta since I do not like blue cheese- but the feta works as a nice compliment.

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ilovemyboys

Cooking Level: Intermediate

Home Town: Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

Living In: Phoenix, Arizona, USA

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Reviewed: Dec. 26, 2006

I made this for our Christmas dinner and it was very good. I added extra blue cheese and freshly cracked black pepper. It was indulgent, but delicious!

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Elizabeth

Cooking Level: Expert

Living In: Brookline, Massachusetts, USA

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Reviewed: Nov. 30, 2006

I made this for dinner last night as a side dish and it was very good. I added some slivered sundried tomatoes (packed in oil) and some toasted walnuts. This would be a great salad served at room temperature in the summertime.

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JanetM

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Reviewed: May 9, 2006

My boyfriend rated this a 4, although I rated it a 5, so 4.5 it is. I took a LONG time caramelizing my onions... probably over an hour over low-md heat. I like them to be uniformly brown and soft. I only used 4 ounces of bleu cheese, and I used cream cheese instead of mascarpone because my grocer was out. I used tiny shell pasta instead of the orzo and I thought it was a grown up version of shells and cheese! The bleu cheese didn't overpower at all. The sharp bleu cheese and the sweet onions were a perfect compliment. I loved it, and I will make it again, for sure.

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MOLLE888

Cooking Level: Intermediate

Home Town: Bethesda, Maryland, USA

Living In: Fairfax, Virginia, USA

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Reviewed: Jan. 10, 2006

Timing is essential in this recipe if you want to avoid a lukewarm final product since the only 'cooking' that the cheese and spinach get is from the orzo and the onions. To help warm it up a bit more, I recommend bringing your cheeses to room temp first and then adding some reserved pasta cooking water to the mixture to warm it up, as is done with many pasta recipes. I also agree about not skimping on the onions; they are absolutely necessary for balancing the blue cheese. My husband thought it needed more balancing, so increasing the onions might be a good idea. Finally, caramelizing the onions takes much longer than stated.

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stlkidd

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Reviewed: Dec. 22, 2005

A very good recipe. I did not drain the onions which kept the orzo from getting too dry. The onions need to be medium to large sized because it takes a lot of onion to balance the blue cheese flavor. This is a new favorite, though reserved for special occasions which justify all of the chopping and tears.

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Lisa L.

Cooking Level: Expert

Home Town: Dallas, Texas, USA

Living In: Johnson City, Tennessee, USA

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Reviewed: Nov. 27, 2005

This is a good recipe and I have made ir a few times now. Since there are few ingredients, I beleive the key to this recipe is to use good ingredients: vidalia or spanish onions onions and a good blue cheese.

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Stephanie M.

Cooking Level: Intermediate

Home Town: Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada

Living In: Montreal, Quebec, Canada

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Reviewed: Nov. 23, 2005

I substituted grated fresh parmesan for blue cheese because like a previous reviewer said, the blue cheese overwhelmed the dish. I also added a lot more spinach. This dish has a very mild taste and could use garlic maybe, or some bacon. I think this would be a hit with kids who like the more simple dishes.

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ANJA

Cooking Level: Intermediate

Home Town: Alameda, California, USA

Living In: Oakland, California, USA

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Reviewed: Nov. 9, 2005

Excellent! my family LOVES blue cheese and this recipe was just perfect!

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rugby1212

Cooking Level: Expert

Living In: Cleveland, Ohio, USA

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Reviewed: Oct. 11, 2005

I give this one star because: the blue cheese COMPLETELY overwhelmed all the other ingredients; it was VERY dry, AND to add insult to injury, slicing and carmelizing all those onions was a real pain in the butt!

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TORTUGAS2X

Cooking Level: Intermediate

Home Town: Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, USA

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Reviewed: Mar. 17, 2005

This is a great dish, something different. Next time I would cut the Blue cheese in half and add some toasted pine nuts.

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LTHRIPPLETON

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Reviewed: Mar. 15, 2005

This is very tasty, a nice change from rice or potatoes. I must admit ... I was very nervious about the amount of onions. But it honestly worked. I wish I had added even more (smile) Just a note, I think this might have the potential to become dry, so I used a bit of the water that I cooked the orzo in before it became dry. Last note, like another person mentioned, I added the spinach to the hot orzo, so that the spinach would wilt a bit.

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T9CHEBIT

Cooking Level: Expert

Living In: Teaneck, New Jersey, USA

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Reviewed: Jan. 17, 2005

Am glad I took the time and slowly caramalized the onion. The flavor really worked well with blue cheese and mascarpone,and the cheese melted so nicely. Topped off with some pine nuts and it was great!

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LynnInHK

Cooking Level: Expert

Home Town: Centreville, Virginia, USA

Living In: Hong Kong, Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong

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Reviewed: Jan. 16, 2005

This was very smooth, very mild taste. It was quite good (especially coming from my highly critical brothers). We discussed the flavor and all agreed that next time we will add either some bacon pieces or even a quality sausage to really make it awesome. THANK YOU FOR THIS RECIPE!

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KBREDEAU

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Reviewed: Jan. 10, 2005

Great side dish! Did not have mascarpone on hand so I used cream cheese. And I had Gorganzola (same thing?) so I used that instead.

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pammy74

Cooking Level: Intermediate

Home Town: Nazareth, Pennsylvania, USA

Living In: Northampton, Pennsylvania, USA

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Reviewed: Oct. 26, 2004

I've never thought i'd like onion but i did. Very tasty. One minus - it went out a bit dry.

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KATYA

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Reviewed: Aug. 19, 2004

Granted, I only had about 1/3 of the blue cheese the recipe called for and so I substituted goat cheese for the rest of the blue cheese, however I found this recipe less than delicious. The carmelized onions were slightly sweet which I thought would blend well with the sharp cheese but actually it didn't. I took one of the earlier reviewers suggestions and added pine nuts as well as doubling the spinach requirement. I also added two cloves of finely minced garlic. The garlic winded up being too strong so that apparantly wasn't the greatest idea. My husband disliked this recipe as well and he's not at all picky.

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PTHOMPS2

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Reviewed: Jul. 16, 2004

This was beautiful and if I could have given it 4.5 stars I would have. The only thing that didn't make this recipe a 5 star was that I felt it was missing just a little something and if I am going to spend time caramelizing onions (and I have a passion for caramelized onions) the resulting dish should be perfect. The next time I made the recipe I added some toasted pine nuts becuse I felt the missing ingredient was more a textural than a taste thing. It was stunning! Two points I would make are; One - I found it best to add the spinach when the pasta is nice and hot so the spinach wilts enough so that the rawness of it is taken away. Two - (For the onion timid) Four onions is *not* too many for this recipe! In fact, make them four nice big ones and a pinch of sugar to help the caramelization process along, you won't regret it!

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_SEVERINE_

Home Town: Perth, Western Australia, Australia

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Reviewed: Feb. 28, 2004

Initially I thought leaving the spinach uncooked was a weird idea, but it turned out brilliantly! Even my Italian friend said this was a great pasta dish. Will definitely make it again...

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