Pasta with roasted broccoli, olives, and Pecorino

My shopping habits at the farmers' market have changed quite a bit over the last two years. Two years ago, I would eagerly buy anything I hadn't tried before - heirloom tomatoes! fresh shell beans! celery root! - because I was so excited by all the variety. Now, I've tried almost everything at least once, and I know what I like best and what's most convenient for the amount of time I have available for cooking. I know that celery root just isn't my favorite, fresh shell beans are kind of a pain, and that while heirloom tomatoes are fantastic, regular tomatoes are pretty great too and are a lot better for my budget. This year, I've also found myself enjoying broccoli much more than I used to. In 2010, I posted about how broccoli is kind of boring,  but I feel differently now. I love the way broccoli soaks up sauce and the texture it has after being stir-fried or roasted.

For dinner tonight, I decided to make a pasta salad of sorts, combining rotini with roasted broccoli and shallots, garlic, olives, and pecorino cheese. It was a tasty and enjoyable meal, definitely far from boring!

Quinoa veggie bowl with tofu and peanut-miso sauce

I have a confession – until recently, I didn’t like quinoa very much. Gasp! I hope this doesn’t ruin my credibility as a healthy(ish) food blogger. I guess I tend to prefer heartier grains and felt that quinoa was kind of….bland. However, a recipe for a quinoa/rice/veggie bowl in last month’s issue of Food & Wine caught my eye and put quinoa in my head. I tossed some ideas around for a while, and eventually decided to combine quinoa with toasted coconut, add some zucchini, broccoli, and tofu, and drizzle with a peanut-miso sauce. A little avocado on top made the dish complete, at least in my avocado-obsessed mind. I loved this healthy meal, and something about quinoa in this context just worked well for me. I’m definitely opening up to the idea of cooking with quinoa more often now!

What is your favorite quinoa recipe?

Macaroni and cheese with silken tofu, carrots, and broccoli

Have you ever tried silken tofu? I first learned about it from Mark Bittman, who used it in a pudding recipe for the New York Times. Unlike the tofu that you may be more familiar with, silken tofu has a soft, smooth texture like custard and can be used as a dairy substitute. Bittman's recipe made me very curious to try it, but I'm not a huge fan of pudding, so I never got around to it. Then recently, Emily of A Cambridge Story used it to make a pasta casserole with alfredo sauce. When I saw her recipe, I knew that I wanted to do something similar to create a healthier version of mac 'n cheese (maybe healthified mac 'n cheese will become a whole category on this blog. I've already got this one). The sauce in this recipe is made of silken tofu, carrots, garlic and some smoked Gouda cheese. That's it. No butter, no milk, no cream. The tofu really gives it a velvety smooth texture that just feels creamy, and the carrots give it some good cheesy color. The smoked Gouda adds tons of flavor - Andrew even thought there was bacon in this dish. I have to admit that I get a big kick out of sneaky uses for vegetables and healthy ingredients, so I really had fun with this =).

Do you have any tricks for sneaking vegetables or other healthy ingredients into recipes?

(Do you like the new dishes that I got for Christmas? They are technically French onion soup bowls but I think they were perfect for this recipe!)

Broccoli-almond soup

I was feeling mildly sick yesterday, and that combined with the rainy weather made me feel like having soup for dinner. I wasn't sure what type of soup I wanted so I turned to my cookbooks for inspiration. I came across this recipe in Soup For Every Body, a cute little cookbook that I had picked up at a yard sale a year or two ago but had never actually cooked from. Joanne's recent post on cashew-tomato soup got me interested in soups using nuts, and this broccoli-almond soup seemed like the perfect way to use the broccoli I had bought at the market that morning. You may remember that I tend to think of broccoli as a boring vegetable, so I'm always happy to find interesting new ways to use it. This soup was very good - the toasted almonds thickened the soup and gave it a nice nutty flavor, and ground coriander added a warm spiced note that I really enjoyed. It made a perfect healthy but filling meal - give it a try if you're looking for a lighter alternative to cream-of-broccoli or broccoli-cheddar soup.

What is your favorite fall soup?

Garlic-sesame broccoli salad

 

This is another gem from Melissa Clark's In the Kitchen With a Good Appetite. It's a simple salad of raw broccoli - yes, raw, but I swear it's really good - marinated in olive oil with some red wine vinegar, garlic, cumin, red pepper flakes, and sesame oil. It's really delicious - the vinegar takes the rawness out of the broccoli, leaving it crisp and bright green, and the marinade is very flavorful. Andrew loved it and was surprised to hear that the broccoli wasn't cooked at all. The dish is super quick to put together, and just needs to marinate for at least an hour before eating. I generally don't get too excited when I see broccoli at the market, but this recipe has got me already looking forward to buying some more. I'm interested in trying this "cooking" technique with some other combinations of spices and acids...I bet there are a lot of great directions it can go.

Garlic-sesame broccoli salad
Adapted from In the Kitchen With a Good Appetite
Serves 3-4 as a side dish

1 head of broccoli, weighing about 1 pound, cut into small florets
3/4 tsp red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/4 cup plus 2 tbs extra-virgin olive oil
2 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp Asian roasted sesame oil
Large pinch red pepper flakes

Mix together the vinegar and salt in a large bowl. Add the broccoli florets and mix well. Heat olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat until hot but not smoking. Add garlic and cumin and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Remove pan from heat and add red pepper flakes and sesame oil. Pour oil mixture over broccoli and toss to coat broccoli evenly with dressing. Let sit for 1-2 hours at room temperature, or if you want to keep it longer than 2 hours, marinate in the fridge (for up to 48 hours). Taste for salt and adjust if necessary before serving.

Broccoli with mustard seeds and horseradish

Okay, so...broccoli. Broccoli is a vegetable that I have a hard time getting excited about. It's not that I dislike it, I just don't quite know how to make it interesting. I tend to walk right by it at the farmers' market, favoring prettier or more unique vegetables. But this week I realized that I've been buying the same veggies over and over, and decided to add some broccoli to the usual mix. I figured this blog would motivate me to find a good recipe, and that I might as well sample the full range of what the market has to offer. I turned to The Gourmet Cookbook (companion to the trusty Gourmet Today), and this recipe caught my eye. The editors' notes say that this is "so satisfying that some of us have been known to make a meal out of it". I'm not sure I would go quite that far, but this was really good! The flavors were unique, and nicely balanced. Plus it was quick and easy to make, which is a welcome bonus. This was enough to convince me that broccoli does have potential - maybe I'll even buy some more next week...

I've you've got any stellar broccoli recipes, please tell me about them in the comments!

Broccoli with mustard seeds and horseradish
Adapted from The Gourmet Cookbook
Serves 4 according to the recipe, but I'd estimate more like 6-8 side dish servings

1 1/2 pounds broccoli
3/4 stick (6 tbs) unsalted butter
3 tbs mustard seeds
2 tbs drained bottled horseradish
1 tbs fresh lemon juice
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Cut off stalks of broccoli and peel with a paring knife, removing fibrous parts. Cut stalks into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Cut heads of broccoli into 1 1/2-inch-wide florets. Steam broccoli (covered) until tender, 6-8 minutes.

Meanwhile, melt butter over moderate heat in a saucepan. Stir in mustard seeds and cook uncovered until seeds begin to pop, about 3 minutes. Lower the heat if the butter looks like it might burn. When the mustard seeds start to pop, cover pan, and continue cooking until popping begins to slow down. Remove pan from heat and stir in remaining ingredients. Toss broccoli with dressing and serve warm.