Jenn Dolari @dolari@driveinsaturday.org

This Week's Fancy Pants Meal #1 - Appulian Broccoli Pasta

Once I go through all my cookbooks, I start looking at my online cooking shows to see what I can pull off them. I'd wanted some pasta for a while, and this looked pretty simple. And it was!

It's funny how much flavor you can pull out from just a few recipes. Some of my recipes are GIGANTIC. But this is simple, tasty and sticks to your ribs.

If you get broccoli withj a lot of stem, I'd highly suggest cutting it up into small pieces before adding to the sauce.

# Appulian Broccoli Pasta

Pasta Grammar
8.0 servings

3.0 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
7.6 ounces Italian sausages (casings removed) (crumbled)
1.0 cup white wine
1.0 tbsp tomato paste
10.0 ounces broccoli
salt (to taste)
12.0 ounces orecchiette pasta

1 - Boil the broccoli in a large pot of salted water for about 15 minutes, or until it is slightly tender but not completely cooked. 2
2 - Drain and set aside for later.
3 - Put a large pot of water on to boil for the pasta and salt it generously.
4 - Meanwhile, heat the olive oil a large pan over medium heat.
5 - Add the sausage and sauté until browned, breaking it up into a crumble as it cooks.
6 - Add the white wine and stir in the tomato paste.
7 - Reduce the heat, bring the wine to a simmer, and cook until the smell of alcohol has dissipated—about 2-3 minutes.
8 - Add the broccoli into the pan and ladle in just enough of the pasta water to get a simmer going (if the wine doesn’t already provide enough liquid).
9 - Cook the broccoli until it is very tender, then mash it into a paste with a fork. If needed, add more pasta water as necessary to maintain moisture.
10 - When the pasta water comes to a rolling boil, add the orrecciette. Boil it for 2 minutes less than the recommended “al dente” cook time.
11 - Meanwhile, salt the broccoli sauce to taste.
12 - When the pasta is cooked, transfer it into the sauce with tongs.
13 - Stir all together over medium/high heat until the pasta is al dente to your taste. Ladle in more pasta water if the sauce is too thick.
14 - Serve immediately, topped with a drizzle of olive oil.

Makes 8 servings at ~37.5g carbs per serving

Calories 327
Total Fat 13g
Total Carbohydrates 37g
Protein 8g

Normally yields 4 servings

#cooking #thisweeksmeals #pastagrammar

Bread Update #4.

Results...inconclusive.

I cut into it, and was dissapointed to see that it was still pretty dense. No real air pocketing, even thought the loaf puffed up instead of out.

I was about to call it, when I sliced a piece and ate it. It's actually not nearly as dense as before. The crumb totally looks dense, but it's fluffy and soft. Again, the taste is fine. Even better with a smidge of butter.

It more "bread" than any other bread I've made before. Maybe I will go ahead and try this again with a white bread, or my struan loaf.

So, instructions say 20 minutes to bake. I KNOW to ignore that, and take the bread out once the top is golden brown and the thump sounds hollowish. This was nicely done in 10 (my oven is way off kilter and is either too hot or too cold).

And it LOOKS like bread. Like...it puffed UP instead of OUT.

I did mess one thing up where I was supposed to steam the bread, so if it's a dryer than I'd like, I'll call that a genuine mistake versus "baking bread is not for you."

But it certainly is looking like I just need to ignore any times given in recipes and just go with what looks best. Which is hard when you're not taught what looks best.

I'm cutting this open when it cools down....

Bread Update #2 - I checked on the bread in after 15 mintues with the poke test. It was already super spread out, and after poking it, none of the pokes sprang back. The instructions said an hour, this had overproofed in 15 minutes.

I was about to chuck the bread and call it "baking bread is not for me" when I figured, well, Why not just reshape it, and check on it every five minutes instead of 15.

So we'll see. I'm gonna really try with these loaves cause if they fail on me, they're likely the last homemade loaves of bread I'm gonna make.

Bread Update #1

So I got some really good advice my last time around, and it's looking more and more like it's super over proofing. So the first test of proofing is using some kind of measured bowl to determine if a loaf has doubled in size.

Instructions said "this should take an hour." Mine doubled in 35 minutes. So. Yeah. Might be overproofing.

I'm in the second stage of ignoring the instructions, which say "let the dough rise for an hour." Instead, I'm using the poke test to put the dough in for baking as soon as the dough springs back slowly.

STAY TUNED.

If you tell me I can only work inside a stringent set of impermeable immutable set of rules, and cannot test, stretch or creatively interpret those rules - I won't be doing that very long.

My fave map guys take on Gerrymandering. Includes my hometowns of San Antonio and Austin...in ONE district!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwBslntC3xg