It’s another month for the Crazy Ingredient Challenge. For those of you who do not know about it, it is headed by Jutta of Hungry Little Girl blog and she selects two ingredients not normally found together then we all have to come up with a unique dish using both. It’s been quite a challenge to say the least and some of the combos have left me thinking very hard about what to do. December was no exception as I had to come up with a recipe using white chocolate and garlic… say what?

Let me tell you about it. My first idea was to do a spinach butternut squash ravioli with a garlic white chocolate creamy alfredo type sauce. It had many flavors and colors and sounded amazing. But as it turned out, it was great in theory, but a mess in reality. My employer recently gave me all the pasta attachments for my KitchenAid Mixer for my 10^th anniversary of employment. That had to be the coolest thing ever and I am blessed to work for such wonderful people. One of the attachments was the ravioli maker. Everything I read said it takes awhile to master this but I decided to jump in feet first and give it a go.

Not the best idea I ever had.

I rolled the dough a little too thick and the whole mess clumped up and I had smashed butternut squash and dough everywhere. I kid you not! My hands and counter were covered and I wish I got a picture because you all would have laughed. So instead of having my squash and spinach inside ravioli, they got tossed in with the sauce.

So now it was on to plan B. I had some dough rolled out so I popped the ravioli maker off the KitchenAid, plugged in the fettuccine cutter and voila….. parsley fettuccine with a white chocolate garlic alfredo sauce with butternut squash and spinach. The ravioli insides went right into the sauce. Disaster averted.

The recipe below picks up where the “Ravioli Fiasco of 2013” left off.

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Fettuccine with White Chocolate Garlic Spinach Cream Sauce

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Serves	2
Prep time	10 minutes
Cook time	15 minutes
Total time	25 minutes

This has a nice sweet and savory flavor and is a unique recipe for white chocolate

Ingredients

• 8oz pasta (fresh or boxed)
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 2oz cream cheese
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon garlic (chopped)
• 1 teaspoon italian seasoning
• 1/4 teaspoon onion salt
• 2 tablespoons grated parmesan
• 1 cup fresh spinach (loosely packed)
• 1/4 cup butternut squash (cooked and mashed)
• 1 heaped tablespoon white chocolate chips
• chopped butternut squash for garnish

Note

Add chopped chicken or shrimp for additional protein

Directions

Step 1

For the pasta, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Cook according to directions. Note: if using fresh pasta, it takes less then 5 minutes to cook through. I made a fresh parsley fettuccine

Step 2

While the water is boiling, add the heavy cream to a sauce pan and heat. Add cream cheese, butter, garlic, italian seasoning and onion salt and heat through until just about boiling. Add the parmesan and the chocolate chips.

Step 3

Add the spinach and butternut squash once the chips have melted.

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For nutrition information, please click the magic button

This one was a huge challenge. I was concerned over how a white chocolate garlic sauce would turn out, especially since Plan A did not work out so well. However, the sauce was refreshingly delicious and I think adding the spinach and butternut squash to the sauce rather then inside the ravioli gave it something extra. For a recipe that evolved during the entire cooking process, it was good!  I gave some to my friend Penny, who taste tests all my Crazy Ingredient Challenge dishes and she called it restaurant quality. I call it a restaurant nightmare that had a happy ending.

To check out previous challenge recipes, click below to visit my Crazy Ingredient Challenge Pinterest Board

Follow Lori’s Culinary’s board Crazy Ingredient Challenge on Pinterest.

For more Pasta ideas, click below to hop over to my Pasta Pinterest board

Follow Lori’s Culinary’s board Pasta Recipes on Pinterest.
Do you want to be a part of the CIC in January and all months going forward? Just click the button below to sign up