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

Garlic Egg Pizza

It was another “I want to make pizza, but don’t have anything to put on it” night, and it was the closest I’ve come to giving up!  But I didn’t!  Not with fresh backyard eggs in glorious abundance in our kitchen :)  

I got the oven preheated and cracked four eggs (and four gorgeous yolks) into a bowl with two cloves of garlic and mixed it lightly with a fork.  The only other thing I added was a spoonful or two of Mama’s Miracle Dressing to give it a little zingy goodness.

I put a little olive oil on the crust (which probably wasn’t necessary, but it didn’t feel right to leave it dry) and began pouring and spreading the eggs around it.  Four was too many, but I emptied the bowl anyway and clumsily watched it reach the edge of the crust and begin siphoning itself out onto the pan.  There was nothing to do but hurry up and get it in the 400 degree oven so hopefully it would harden up before the crust was entirely abandoned!  

Well, that didn’t work, due partially to the fact that the oven has a slightly raised center so it aided the egg slide rather than hindering it :)  I pulled it out after a few minutes and did my best to get at least some of the egg back where it belonged, also adding some green onion and shredded cheese.  I had sauteed up some onions and then successfully forgot to add them.  (They went with the carrots instead :)

By the time the pizza was cooked it was all I could do to scrape (some of it) off of the pan.  I swear egg is like a super glue adhesive....I haven’t even tried to clean the pan yet!  It can soak for another 24 hours...

So most of the crust didn’t come up, but what did come up was super yummy!  (I gave my sweetie the pieces that most resembled pizza, rather than a flat frittata ;)

Garlic Egg Pizza

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.

mama's miracle dressing

when i was growing up i was not the biggest salad fan.  not that i disliked vegetables in general, but salad dressings were never very good and salad, for the most part, felt pretty darn boring.  i always ate it dry, most often as finger food.  (i was as fine with that as a kid could be ;)

and THEN....my mom made a dressing from three ingredients, and three ingredients only.  

olive oil

soy sauce (or tamari)

garlic

that was it.  about a half/half liquid ratio, and as much garlic as you can or can’t stand.  (it stays separated so it needs to be mixed with a spoon and scooped out to get some of everything.  we keep a stocked tupperware container on hand.)  and suddenly i was eating as much salad as was humanly possible.  oh my god.  sometimes we crave brownies.  sometimes we crave soy sauce and garlic.  i have no trouble attempting to satiate the latter.  

i made the dressing for Will recently and we both have turned into raging salad monsters.  plus i have realized that the dressing is good to put on all sorts of other things, like, well, pretty much any other savory thing i may be eating at the time.

fried/scrambled eggs?  YES.

pasta of any kind?        YES.

stir fry of any kind?       YES.

grain dish of any kind? YES.

try it!  grow list, grow!  :)