Spaghetti with Broccoli and Garlic

Sometimes you just want a simple meal. I lack simple meals in my culinary repertoire. I usually like a challenge in the kitchen and learning new things - but there are some nights when you just want something easy that is healthy and tastes good. There are also some nights when you have a head of broccoli in your fridge from your CSA and need to figure out some way to use it. Well, if you are in similar straits, I have just the thing for you - Spaghetti with Broccoli and Garlic. (Doesn't it seem fancier than it really is when you capitalize the nouns? I think so.)

I've never had broccoli rabe which is what the recipe calls for, but I think you can reasonably substitute regular broccoli (you will just have a milder flavor and more florets than leaves). Well even if you can't, we did, and it turned out just fine. I only used 1/4 teaspoon of red pepper flakes, because our tastebuds are wimpy. Next time I would use a 1/2 teaspoon. I also used less olive oil, as 1/2 cup just seemed excessive. This was a great, easy one-pot meal. My husband helped me, so it was on the table in about 20 minutes. (He boiled the water and put the spaghetti in the pot. I know that does not seem like a great amount of help, but I am terrible at measuring out spaghetti and never make enough - so I prefer to let him do that step and that way I don't get scolded when we don't have enough spaghetti.) I'll make this again when I don't have time to cook something more elaborate. I like having pasta recipes that don't require a tomato sauce - it's nice to have a little variety.

Mozzarella, Tomato and Basil Salad

When we were on vacation in Colorado, one of our friends made this delicious appetizer. The other name for it is Insalata Caprese, and it is a classic dish from the Italian region of Campania (thanks Wikipedia). We loved it and it is a very easy, yet elegant dish to serve. Here is a paraphrased recipe:

Ingredients:
Fresh mozzarella
Tomatoes (I used grape tomatoes. You can also use cherry tomatoes, or sliced tomatoes)
Fresh basil
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar

Put the mozzarella and the tomatoes in a serving dish. Cut the basil up (I stacked the leaves, rolled them up, and then cut them into slivers), and sprinkle the basil on top of the mozzarella and tomatoes. Drizzle olive oil and balsamic vinegar on top. I mixed it all up at this point to evenly disperse the oil and vinegar. Viola! You are done.

I brought this to an Italian themed potluck tonight and people raved. And it only took me about 5-10 minutes to make this! We served it with slices of French baguette but you could eat this by itself too. You can also thread them onto toothpicks, but that takes too much work in my opinion. This is a great, easy dish you can quickly throw together for a party, and people think you are a fabulous cook because of it.

One-Step Lasagna with Basil

Last week was "Use Up All The Ingredients In The Kitchen Week". One such an ingredient was ground beef. I had a couple pounds of ground beef in my freezer from when I made sloppy joe's for a work potluck, which was many moons ago. I found this recipe for lasagna and thought this was a perfect way to use up that brick of ground beef that was taking up room in my little freezer. I skipped the Italian sausage and just used all ground beef, and used Walmart brand spaghetti sauce, which we like just fine. I also threw in some oregano, marjoram, salt and pepper while I sauteed the beef. I thought this was pretty good, but a little too meaty for us. Maybe if I had used Italian sausage I would have liked it more. For ease of preparation, though, this recipe cannot be beat. This was a lot simpler to make than my usual butternut squash lasagna (which is delicious but very labor intensive).

I would use this recipe again, but maybe cut back on the meat (this is just personal preference since we are not big meat eaters). I would also try adding spinach or some other veggies just for variety.

Bruschetta

I like bruschetta. I first tried bruschetta in college, at those afternoon special lectures that different groups would host that would get catered. I probably went to half of them just to eat bruschetta, shrimp cocktail, and fruit kabobs. Mmmm.....

For an appetizer last night we bought some baguettes that were already cut up into 1/2 inch slices. I broiled them for 2 minutes on each side - they got a little burnt so next time I would lower the rack a notch. I loosely followed the recipe from the Joy of Cooking. I rubbed garlic onto one side of the toasted baguettes, and then topped half of them with grated mozzarella and put them under the broiler again to melt the cheese. Then I topped all of them with fresh diced tomatoes mixed with chopped fresh basil and a little salt. Yum! These were great. I liked the mozzarella topped ones a little better. I will definitely make these again for company.