pasta

Broccoli Pasta Comeback!

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For years, Santa Maria and I had a fallback, no-name weeknight recipe involving broccoli and pasta. It was the kind of thing we could throw together at a moment's notice, but more often than not, I found it lacking. Unless I was completely starving, it tasted poorly conceived, and it gave me the feeling that I had no idea what I was doing.

So I dropped it from my rotation.

But the other day Santa Maria had a massive vegetable craving, and she proposed the dish for lunch. I decided to try making it again, but this time I was armed with experience, and the new issue of Bon Appétit, which has a great article on how to make better pasta. I tried out a few of their suggested a few tricks, such as:

  1. Building a base for the sauce in a sauté pan. (I started with garlic and crushed red peppers.)
  2. Using lots of salt in the pasta water.
  3. Saving the pasta water for the sauce.
  4. Under cooking the pasta, and finishing it in the sauté pan.
  5. Grating in a bunch of cheese into the sauté pan.

I was very pleased with the results. By slightly adjusting my technique, I turned a lousy weeknight dish into a delicious and well rounded meal. It didn't have enough protein for me in the end, but it tasted mighty fine. I'll keep experimenting with the recipe to see if I can add a bit of meat—I'm thinking prosciutto or sausage—to it without upsetting its balance. That's the plan for next time, and with these new techniques, I'm sure I'll continue to get it right. (If you want the full Bon Appétit article, it is available online.)

Naked Broccoli and Pasta

  • 1 head broccoli, washed and cut into floretes
  • 1 teaspoon crushed red peppers, or to taste
  • 6 garlic cloves, peeled, cut in half, and thinly sliced (or to taste)
  • 1/2 cup or more of freshly grated Parmesan cheese
  • Spaghetti

Put the pasta water on to boil.

Cook the pasta to within about two minutes of being finished (a little white inside is perfect) reserving the cooking liquid.

Steam the broccoli until it is tender but firm; set aside.

In a large pan sauté the garlic and peppers in a bit of olive oil.

Once the garlic is soft and about to brown, add the broccoli, and a few ladles of the pasta water.

Add the pasta and continue to cook until the pasta is finished, about a minute longer (add more water if it starts to stick).

Turn the heat off and finish with the cheese. There should only be a bit of liquid, and the strands of pasta and the broccoli should all be coated with it nicely.

Enjoy.

Kale Salad SmackDown

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When both parents work, life gets a bit like tag-team wrestling. I was home last night at 7:25, and Santa Maria had the girls ready for bed. I kissed them goodnight and started to think about dinner for myself. Santa Maria put on some makeup and headed out to a work event.

Earlier in that afternoon, she had a craving for kale. The Park Slope Food Coop was out of lacinato kale, and only had purple-stem kale. Both are fairly similar, so she bought it. Taking it home, she discovered one key difference—she didn’t need to pull the stem out before making the Fly Sky High Kale Salad.  She liked this convenience a great deal.

Santa Maria left the kitchen and the rest of the house in perfect shape. More than perfect, actually. She had grated the Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, cut half a lemon, and toasted some pine nuts for me. All I needed to do was wash the kale, chop it, and start cooking.

I wanted more than a salad for dinner, though, so I added a few things to the dish. Taking a nod from Pinta, who had combined penne with her kale the first night she tasted it, I decided to pair it with a bit of leftover spaghetti. I didn’t think kale and pasta and cheese would satisfy me, so I added prosciutto  (and some garlic, for good measure).

I cooked the kale the same way as the salad, fried up the prosciutto and chopped it, and warmed the pasta in the microwave. I tossed everything in with the kale when it was finished, gave it a quick stir, and sat down to enjoy it.

Pinta had other ideas, though. She was having a hard time going to sleep, and she made a couple of curtain calls. Twice she called out. The first time I went to her, I leaned in close and asked her what she needed in a whisper (so as not to wake her sister). “You smell like Bolognese,” she said. I told her about my dinner. She said she needed water. The next time she called out, we made a trip down the hall to use the bathroom. On her way back to her room, I gave her a hug and she said, “You smell like prosciutto.” That girl was paying attention.

Software companies release beta versions of their product all the time, but I’m not going to stoop to that level. I don’t think this recipe is quite complete. I used too much of the ham (I was hungry, and I threw in four pieces), and the dish lacked balance. Though I was happy to have it while wrestling with my parenting duties, I'm going to have to go back to the mat on this one.

Easy Guilt-Free Basil Pesto Recipe

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Nina starts pre-K in a few weeks, and this morning, the parents at her school had a picnic. We were very excited about this event and have scheduled our remaining summer plans around it. One of those plans included visiting the Abuelita this afternoon, which meant a harried morning getting ready not just for the picnic, but also preparing for an overnight stay, upstate. The idea was to hop into my late father’s Chevrolet right after the picnic and let the kids nap while cruising up the Major Deegan.

We weren’t that busy this morning, though. Santa Maria went out to yoga. I took care of the kids and got things ready for the trip, although not necessarily in that order. I had to make pesto.

I happened to mention this to Santa Maria before she left for her class. She shuddered and  heaved a sigh. The flag was up: a great, blaring non-verbal sign that I was out of my mind for thinking this way. She went further. Her eyebrows lowered, she said, “You might want to spend some time with your children. They really need you.” I replied that I would be spending all weekend with them, and thought to myself, “What am I missing here?” She left for yoga, and I was left with the feeling of having to choose between playing with the kids and cooking. I felt awful, because I knew which one would win out—the cooking, of course. I had a head of basil in the refrigerator that wasn’t going to last much longer.

Nina and Pinta I had fun getting packed. We stacked the beach towels, swimsuits, stuffed animals, and all the other things a young child might want for an overnight trip to the Abuelita’s (we were planning on visiting the town pool where she resides). Two-year-old Pinta earned my eternal gratitude when she reminded me to pack their swim shirts.

I read them books—“Wacky Wednesday” and a Clifford lift-the-flap book about Christmas. That last one was a little out of season, but in keeping with Nina’s choice of music this morning: Bing Crosby’s “The Voice of Christmas” collection. She loves “Jingle Bells.”

Then I started to make the pesto. Nina ran into the kitchen and asked if she could help me. “Of course,” I said, and felt relief spreading through my veins. I wouldn’t feel guilty about standing in the kitchen while they were left to their own devices. It would be a clean-conscious batch of pesto. No childhood neglect lurking in the shadows. Instead, a future-happy memory of standing counterside and tossing salt and pine nuts into a blender. Oh, what a happy day.

Pinta wanted to join in. Together, we measured pine nuts and toasted them in a cast-iron pan. Together, tossed the sea salt atop the washed basil. They took turns pushing the button on the base of the blender and sending the food-processor attachment blades whirring. Pinta kept repeating “not putting hands in there,” which is what she gleaned from my running narration about how dangerous the machine is.

We made it to the picnic, but we never reached the Abuelita’s. Nina got sick in the car a block from our house and we turned around, unpacked, and took it easy this afternoon.

Santa Maria went to a friend’s house for dinner and Pinta and I ate pesto pasta with her before she left (Nina downed two bowls of plain pasta, so maybe she’s getting better). Actually I was the only one to eat it: Pinta showed a distressing lack of appetite that made us wonder if she was getting sick, too. Santa Maria loved the pesto. She had a small bowl, and I caught her eating more in the kitchen, later.

Basil Pesto
  • 1 head fresh basil
  • 2 cloves garlic, or to taste
  • just under 1/4 teaspoon sea salt, or to taste (I like even a bit less)
  • 2 tablespoons pine nuts
  • olive oil

Pick the basil leaves and wash them thoroughly. I soak and rinse them three times in a salad spinner, which I use to dry them.

Peel and crush or chop the garlic

Toast the pine nuts in a cast iron pan with no oil. Heat until they are brown.

Combine the basil, the pine nuts, the salt, and the garlic in a food processor or blender.

Add olive oil, and run through the machine until you have a sauce. This will require stopping every so often, opening the top, and scraping down the sides with a rubber spatula.

Notes: Pesto at this stage in the game freezes well. When you serve it, combine it with grated Parmigiano-Reggiano. Also, pesto is an open-source sort of recipe. Some call for walnuts. Others, like my brother-in-laws, incorporate a stick of butter. Feel free to experiment (advice that applies to all recipes, by the way)

Pesto Pasta with Chicken and Mozzarella

There’s no right or wrong recipe for this dish. Poach some chicken breasts, or fry up some boneless thighs, and chop. Or pick a roasted chicken. I happened to have some left over breasts and thighs on hand, and I liked the combined taste of those two meats. Chop the chicken and toss it with chopped Mozzarella and dress with the pesto over the pasta of your choice. My latest discovery is that whole-wheat fusilli is better than the regular pasta. Who knew?