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

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!  :)

beet rice with baked eggplant and grilled zucchini

i boil beets to cook them, though i know it’s nutritionally better to do it some other way.  it’s just that everything else is so slooooooowwwwwwwww!  (if i ever claimed to be a patient person, i take it back!)  i chop them up into bite sized cubes and boil them for ten or fifteen minutes, leaving a pot of gorgeous magenta colored water.  i really need to get more creative with this in the future!

i saved the water to do something with, even if it was just to throw it out onto the tree in the backyard (i do live in a desert!) and decided that cooking rice in it would be brilliant (brilliant pink if nothing else ;)  

we had locally grown eggplants, which i sliced into half-inch or so rounds and put on a baking pan drizzled with olive oil.  oven was preset to 300, and the eggplant was covered (loosely) with aluminum foil.  i didn’t set a timer.  (it usually works out ok for me, but you might not agree!  be safe :)  this was the first thing to start cooking, as i wanted to try and give it at least 45 or so minutes.

the rice was short grain brown, which i like very much.  it seems soft somehow...the ultimate comfort food!  it’s also a little bit sweet, and i believe it’s more nutritious than white.  one cup rice to two cups (pink) water was brought to a boil and then turned down to simmer.  i kept a good eye on it, in case the beet water was thicker and didn’t absorb as well.  it did just fine :)

who knows when eggplant is done....as long as it’s softer than when it went in it’s probably ok!  a fork shouldn’t meet much resistance, but other than that, it’ll be fine :)

i put a little butter and ground flax in with the rice, and put the eggplant rounds on top.  yum!

sides were grilled zucchini and green salad.

beet rice with baked eggplant and grilled zucchini 

approximate price: $4