Whole Wheat Broccoli Pasta with Parmesan

What a lovely, lovely family dinner we had!  My mama was in town, and my sweetie’s family all came over to share a meal and an evening.  I’m always a little bit anxious cooking for them because his mom is a master chef and cooks up a storm of masterpieces every time we go over (and assuredly many times in between!) and I, well, just never know exactly what I’m doing, and do not have a single real recipe under my belt.  So.....let’s do this.

I wanted to make a pasta dish, ‘cause it’s generally an easy, safe way to feed a lot of people, but wanted something a little different from the standard marinara variety.  I went for a veggie base, choosing broccoli as the main guest of honor, and the kind of whole wheat pasta shaped like bite sized tubes.  I thought whole wheat would be more hearty and fitting with the broccoli. 

I cooked the pasta fairly early, using a colander atop the pot to steam the bite sized broccoli pieces, and then put it into a large frying pan with some butter, on medium low heat.  The idea is to get the flavoring to somewhat crust onto the noodles a bit, though I’m still working on honing that craft....before the meal was served I rescued a small share of crispy-enough-to-embarrass-me pasta shards.  Having enough butter/oil in the pan is important, and a few good splashes of organic tamari (soy sauce) will help get some chewy flavor accents going.

I minced two cloves of garlic to toss it, as well as a good crackling of salt and sprinkling of nutritional yeast near the “end” (the end could have really been any time, but I was keeping it warm until serving time).  If it still seemed too dry I’d add another dose of olive oil.  No better way to live up to the reputation of whole wheat pasta than to make it too dry!  :)  

I put the broccoli in a pan on it’s own for a few minutes just to be sure it got coated in it’s own bit of oil flavoring before going into the soon-to-be overflowing pan.  The last touch was a handful of fresh chopped green onions, served with a spoonful of parmesan.

The rest of dinner included backyard deviled eggs (which I let my mama take care of ;), cheesy bread made on a pizza crust with Irish cheddar cheese, flaxseed and green onion, and a green salad with candied pecans and Mama’s Miracle Dressing (which she now informs she makes with Bragg’s since I turned her on to that some time ago....I’m urging her to go back!  ;)

It was so good and everyone ate very well with even a few leftovers (of the non-deviled egg, or cheesy bread, or salad variety that is :)

Whole Wheat Broccoli Pasta with Parmesan 

Approximate price: $5

Broccoli Parmesan Pasta

It was definitely a pasta night.  It was pretty much the perfect day, and I couldn’t wait to make the perfect dinner to follow it up.  We had some beautiful organic broccoli, and colored veggie spiral pasta.  No sauce to speak of, but that’s no trouble at all...

I had gotten on a big afternoon song kick, remembering and playing some really old tunes, and by the time Will got home I was excited and just kept on playing, even managing a few he’d never heard before.  After almost two years with someone with whom your first dates consisted almost entirely of song swapping, that’s an impressive feat!  Dinner was cooked largely between songs with a guitar strung over my shoulder.  Fun :)

I put the pasta water on to boil, and sauteed half an onion in the large pan.  I chopped up a couple cups worth of broccoli and placed it in the colander on top of the pasta water.  (Probably not as clever as I think it is, but I get a small thrill from my resourcefulness ;)  After 7-10 minutes of steaming I transferred the broccoli into the pan with the onions.

I drained the pasta and added butter, garlic, olive oil, soy sauce, nutritional yeast (to help the liquids actually stick to the noodles), and flaxseed (for texture and color), spooning only what I needed to properly fill out the broccoli and onions.  (Sometimes I get overzealous and add too many noodles to not enough “good stuff,” which is always a bit of a shame.)

I like to cook noodles in a pan for a few minutes with their toppings, so they can soak up  more of the flavor, and if I’m patient enough they’ll get a bit of a flavor crust around the edges....me = total pasta junkie.

A little parmesan cheese and a side salad (I’ve grown to accept the “lazy salad” and can get away with organic salad mix and Mama’s Miracle Dressing with no one missing anything) and we had a rather delicious meal!  I commented to Will just how much like my mother I am when I exclaimed excitedly from the kitchen, “Oh this is gonna be goooooood...”   love, love, love my mama :)

Broccoli Parmesan Pasta

Approximate price: $3

Yam and Broccoli Stir Fry Over Brown Rice

this started out as yams and a separate stir fry, but as often happens they were converged in a moment of decision.

i started out chopping up the two medium sized yams we had into 1/2 inch or so cubes and putting them into boiling water.  next, i put 1 cup of rice in a saucepan with 2 cups of water to bring to a boil (once boiling turn down to simmer with the lid on).  then, i proceeded on as i always seem to do, with a chopped yellow onion in a lightly buttered frying pan.  

our veggies for the night were red peppers and broccoli, so i chopped and put the peppers in soon after the onion.  to soften the broccoli up before putting it in the pan i used a colander atop the boiling yams to steam them for five minutes or so.  once the broccoli was added to the stir fry i minced two cloves of garlic to toss in as well (if too much of the surface area of the pan is bare the garlic can burn easily).

when the rice was soft enough i mixed in a few spoonfuls of mama’s miracle dressing, some sunflower seeds and some ground flaxseed.

i scooped the rice onto plates with a heap of stir fry drizzled with my pesto-less chard pesto (leftover from red pepper and chard pesto-less pasta with grilled eggplant) and sprinkled with flaxseed.

served with a side of kale chips.

yam and broccoli stir fry over brown rice 

approximate price: $6

***in general, i’m pretty sure that the sum of orange and green things mixed together become suddenly less appetizing than their parts.  the last dinner i really messed up (see HERE :)  involved orange and green and i had an “uh oh” moment thinking i had done it again.  it tasted plenty good, it just didn’t look so pretty....the flaxseed evened it out a bit though.