Thursday, May 17, 2007

MMMMMMM....Lemony

So today I have decided to share a recipe with you. I make this recipe at least once every week and even my daughter (who won’t eat anything more than once except bananas) begs for it the whole time I am cooking. It is a delicious lemon pasta with steamed broccoli. Now I guess I should have used the term recipe loosely. I don’t so much truck with recipes. I have nothing against recipes. I look at them all the time, in fact I love to read them but when it comes down to actually making something, I find that I rarely have everything called for, or I want to change something. Eventually I guess any cook will make a treasured recipe “her (or his) own”. So this is actually less of a recipe and more of what I do to make this without really measuring anything, blah blah blah.

Lemon Pasta

Put on water to boil for the pasta (I use brown rice spaghetti. It is yummy and healthy and all. I feel better about eating roughly my body weight in pasta because of all that delicious fiber content.). I use one of those pasta pots that has the steamer you can set into it (more on that later). Then get out a big bowl and add:

Juice of 4 lemons (that’s right, I said it- 4)
Chopped fresh basil to taste
Salt and Pepper to taste
Garlic powder to taste
A good couple of glugs of olive oil (think salad dressing, but on the oily side)
Then add enough parmesan to make the whole mess into sort of a paste.

When the water is boiling, add the pasta. At this point I also put my broccoli in the steamer basket over the pasta (multitasking-ooohhhh). If I have my druthers, I use a bag of pre-cut, pre-washed broccoli and just dump it in. Otherwise, I use a couple of stalks and just cut off the “little trees” at the top.

The broccoli is usually done a little bit before the pasta. But anyway, dump the broccoli in the bowl with the paste. Drain the pasta and add. Stir up (Stir it good to really get the pasta to soak up all the lemony goodness). Voila! You have lemon pasta. For kicks, I sometimes like to add red chili flakes, but then I feel like I have to pick around them for my daughter and that is complicated while she is screaming for more pasta in her perfect pterodactyl toddler manner.

If you like lemon, you will love this pasta. It is even better the second day.

My gift to you.


I have no picture of my lemon pasta, so here is something for visual interest.

5 comments:

renee said...

Mmmmm that does sound yummy. If I ever made it, I'd probably leave out the broccoli. You know how it is with me and veggies. Though I suppose the yumminess might disquise the broccoli taste which might be the whole point. Cool domestic pic of you, also. If I tried to wear my hair like that I would look ridiculous.

renee said...

P.S. My husband loves your blog and that domestic pic of you, too.

lonestarcasie said...

Awesome! Three whole people read my blog. I am blogtastic.

jen said...

Make that 4- Now you are blogsational.
I made your lemony pasta tonight- it was yummy.
Renee- Try shredding spinach (fresh) and mixing it in- maybe you will think there is just A LOT of basil.
Blog-on!

jen said...

Paul just read the recipe for the lemony pasta that I have had on the fridge since I made it on Monday. His comment was "Exactly what kind of measurement is a glug? Is that metric?" He's both a smartass and a strict follower of recipes. He has trouble with my directions of how to make things because I, like you, just sort of add, subtract, substitute, and estimate. I think that's why I'm not much of a baker- you have to follow the recipes too closely. It's more chemistry and less art.