Roasted Broccoli Pasta

Sorry the pics are bad.  I had to take them with Dan's iphone again.

I found this recipe for roasted broccoli a while ago.  While I love veggies and I could just eat veggies for any meal, hubby likes to have a little more sustenance.  So I decided to make it into roasted broccoli pasta!  However, if you just want this as a side dish with meat, then forget the pasta and just have some roasted broccoli.  You could also make the pasta and slice up a chicken breast to put on top.

What I love about this recipe is that it’s simple, easy, and hardly uses any ingredients.  Oh yeah, and it’s healthy!  Now, the first time I made this I used whole wheat spaghetti, which was really good.  The second time I made it I didn’t have spaghetti on hand so I used orecciette which is a cup or bowl shaped pasta.   Both ways were good, I’m not sure which I liked better.  You can use any pasta, although I do not recommend any tube shaped pastas.

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds broccoli (four heads)
• 1 package pasta
• 2 head of garlic (or 3 if you love garlic like me)
• red pepper flakes (0ptional)
• 2 tsp olive oil
• olive oil cooking spray
• 1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese (not the stuff in the green container)

Pre-heat your oven to 450.  Cut you broccoli as you normally would, but leave the stems about a half inch longer than you usually would.  Now, cut each piece of broccoli length wise (about 3 times on larger piece and 1-2 times on smaller pieces).  Lay your broccoli as evenly as possible on a baking dish sprayed with olive oil spray.  I prefer to use two dishes because it helps all the pieces roast evenly.  When it comes to the garlic, I like to crush about ¾ of it and slice the rest into almond-looking pieces.  Sprinkle it evenly over the broccoli.  Sprinkle with red pepper flakes according to you taste and finally spray with olive oil spray.  Bake in the oven for 25-35 minutes.  In the meantime, you can cook your choice of pasta.  The broccoli will begin to brown and crisp up a little and the stalks should be tender.

Once both the pasta and the broccoli are done, combine them together.  Make sure you get all the pieces of garlic out of the baking dish.  Add your 2 teaspoons of olive oil and ½ cup of parmesan cheese and toss to evenly coat.  I also like to add even MORE parmesan cheese on top of my serving :)

Enjoy!!!