So, um, do YOU know how to peel a chestnut easily? I suckity suck suck at it. I think I still have a chunk of shell wedged under my left thumb nail. *sigh*

I’ve googled, Kitchn’d, wikipedia’d, asked friends and strangers. I’ve boiled, roasted and microwaved them – and I still can’t figure out how to peel the little suckers easily! arrrrrrgggghhhhh.

So. For dinner tonight, I’d PLANNED on making Roasted Persimmons in a Chestnut Cream Sauce over Linguine, but the persimmons ended up being V.I.L.E. and I needed to fish every last freakin’ one outta the sauce. Like I need something else to complain about tonight.

So I had 2 lbs of unshelled chestnuts. I scored them, microwaved and peeled them (mostly). I melted some butter in a pan, added flour to make a roux, threw in the chestnuts and tossed them to coat in butter mix. I added more butter, then threw in the persimmons. I added in 3/4 cup of whole milk, tasted the mix and gagged on the persimmons. Then I spent 10 minutes fishing the stupid fruit out of the sauce. Then I added in some blue cheese to add a little tang to the sweet chestnuts. I ended up using 3 oz, but added one at a time and tasted after it’d melted in. The sauce was a little thin, so I took some sauce out, thickened it with a Tablespoon of flour and added it back into the sauce. Worked like a charm. I boiled a box of linguine, drained and then added back in 1/3 cup of the pasta water to help it not stick. I heaped the sauce on top of the pasta and along with a bag o’ salad – We Had Dinner! Voila!

Sweet sweet chestnut joy

Linguine with Chestnuts in Cream Sauce by me

Printable Recipe HERE

Ingredients:

2 lb. Chestnuts, shelled and cut into bite sized pieces

3 Tablespoons of Butter, divided

2 Tablespoons of Flour, divided

(DO NOT BOTHER ADDING IN ROASTED PERSIMMONS HERE. IT MIGHT MAKE YOU CRY).

3/4 cup Milk

3 oz. Blue Cheese, divided

Salt and Pepper to taste

1 lb. Linguine **I used Barilla in a box

How To:

1- Peel and pre-cook the chestnuts in whatever manner you see fit.

Bubble Bubble Toil and Trouble

2- Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil. Add pasta when it does.

Bubbling away on the stove

3- In a large skillet over med-low heat, melt 1 Tablespoon butter and then mix in 1 Tablespoon flour to create a roux. Cook until the roux is sorta golden-y colored. Add in the chestnuts and other 2 Tablespoons of butter. As it melts toss to coat the chestnuts in the buttery goodness. When warmed up, add in the milk. When that’s warmed, add in the blue cheese 1 ounce at a time. Stir in to melt. Taste and see if you like it’s sweet nuttiness. Continue adding blue cheese until you do a little happy dance in the kitchen and all the children look at you funny.

Piled atop the pasta

4- Drain pasta, top with chestnut cream sauce and serve any willing parties.

The addition of blue cheese balances out some of the sweetness inherent in the chestnuts

Unfortunately, midway through bite 2, our 7 year old told us that it wasn’t that she didn’t like the meal…but the sauce, was, well, she preferred plain pasta from now on please.

J spent most of dinner time double dipping his baby carrots in his ranch dip sauce while R reorganized her pasta on her tray. *sigh*

Luckily, both C and I enjoyed dinner. A Lot.