Tuesday, February 16, 2010

The Silver Spoon Pasta -- Penne with Broccoli



I discovered a new pasta cookbook, and truly, I think it's brilliant. The Silver Spoon Pasta is a continuation of the The Silver Spoon which was published in Italy in 1950. It's a huge best seller and a veritable bible of Italian cooking. I love the pasta book because the recipe feature so many veggies--my favorite part of Italian cooking. Everything is quite easy to make and many of the recipes are only 1/2 page long. There are few hard to find ingredients or complicated techniques.

The book is divided into two sections. Part one is recipes using dried pasta, and part two is making and cooking with fresh pasta. There are over 350 recipes in the book and though I've only read about 1/3 of the way through, I have at least a couple dozen recipes bookmarked to make later. This is a very veg friendly book, and fairly vegan friendly though you would need to leave out the cheese in many of the recipes.

The first recipe I made was the Orecchiette with Broccoli. I used what I had on hand which was kamut penne instead of orecchiette. I also added extra broccoli to the pasta since we had bunches of it in the fridge. I left out the cheese to keep the meal vegan. It was so delicious and super simple to put together.

Here's the original recipe:

Orecchiette with Broccoli
1 3/4 lbs. broccoli cut into florets
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 fresh chile, seeded and chopped
10 ounces Orecchiette
grated Parmesan or pecorino cheese to serve
salt

Cook the broccoli in salted boiling water for 8 minutes, then drain. Heat the olive oil in a pan, add the garlic and chile, and cook for 3 minutes, then add the broccoli, and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes until tender. Meanwhile, cook the pasta in a large pan of salted boiling water for 2-3 minutes until al dente, then drain, and toss with the broccoli. Serve with Parmesan or pecorino.

Alternatively, the broccoli may be cooked with the pasta. In this case, drain everything, then drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with cheese.

Mangia!

7 comments:

  1. Delicious! So simple and beautiful!

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  2. Like this one also..... you might make me a cook. :)

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  3. Like this one also, you might make me a cook. :)

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  4. oooh I may have to get that one. one of the top things next on my learn to do list is make homemade pasta!!!!

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  5. Yummy! I love love love broccoli!

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  6. Greetings from Montana!
    Love the recipe looks delicious. I represent Kamut International and we love to see great blogs about Kamut products. Hope to see you on twitter. www.twitter.com/kamutwheat

    Cheers

    Hannah

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