Roasted Broccoli Pasta

This was an absolute winner for a weekday eating. It took maybe 40 minutes or so.

First we turned the oven to 425F. Then we tossed 2 heads worth of broccoli florets onto a baking tray and seasoned them with cumin, salt, and pepper.

We stuck them into the oven for 20 minutes.

In the meantime, we cooked 1lb of pasta.

In a food processor we whizzed up 2 slices of stale bread, a handful of freshly shredded Parmesan, the zest of 1 lemon, salt, and pepper.

  

Then we tossed it all together: the cooked broccoli, the pasta, and the bread and cheese mixture. As well as a small container of ricotta cheese, and a couple of glugs of olive oil.

We broiled the heap of goodness for a few minutes to get a nice crispy crust going and dug in. Totally delicious.

Weekend Chili

On a moody weekend day this chili hit our table with a hungry thud. For 3 1/2 hours it had been slow cooking to perfection in the oven.

We gave us a lazy 30 minutes to prepare. First we turned the oven to 350F and roughly chopped up 3 onions, 3 carrots, 4 celery sticks, and 4 garlic cloves.

We stuffed it all into a food processor.

Next we chopped up 4 peppers and a chunk of brisket, a bit heavier than 1 lb.

With some olive oil we first fried up the peppers in a casserole dish over high heat and then added the meat and cooked until it was browned.

We added 3 small cans of whole tomatoes, 3 cans of kidney beans, and a tablespoon of each ground cumin, ground coriander, and smoked paprika. With a  little salt and pepper we brought it all to a boil, including the chopped veggies, and ...

shoved it into the oven for 3 1/2 hours.

About 45 minutes before dinner time we prepared a pot of brown rice, wedges of 1 lime, a chopped up chili pepper, and parsley.

Oh my. We were supposed to keep about half for left overs. But we dug in so deep that we got dangerously close to licking the pot clean.