Farfalle with Cruciferous Vegetables

The farmers' market is gradually transitioning from summer eggplants and tomatoes, to broccoli and cauliflower.  There were some lovely examples of the latter two this past weekend, which brought to mind a pasta recipe that someone passed on to me. The original recipe uses two heads of broccoli, but I couldn't pass up the cauliflower, so I decided to use both.

The recipe also calls for cooking the broccoli by tossing the florets in with the boiling pasta during the last 5 minutes, but I had some time and decided to roast them before adding to the pasta.

Recipe adapted from Giada de Laurentiis (shaded with gray just because).

• 1 pound farfalle pasta
• 1 head broccoli, florets separated and stalks sliced into 1/4" coins
• 1 head cauliflower, same treatment as broccoli
• lotsa extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 3 garlic cloves, sliced
• 5 anchovy fillets
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan, or to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Prep the cauliflower and broccoli by separating the heads into florets, and slicing the stalks into 1/4" coins.

I did two rounds of roasting--one for the cauliflower and one for, you guessed it, the broccoli.  Spread the cauliflower on a baking sheet. You'll probably need 2 baking sheets--you want there to be enough space so that the veggie actually roasts instead of just steaming happily next to each other.  I needed two baking sheets for each round.

Toss with generous amount of olive oil to coat, and a sprinkle or salt and pepper.

The way my oven was going, I had to toss and rotate the baking pans at about 6 minutes, and roast for another 6 minutes, for a total of 12 minutes.  It'll depend on your oven, how much veggie you have, and what size your chopped veggies are. 

Some of them got a wee bit more cooked than other.  I call it artsy and spontaneous.  I played it a little safer with the broccoli, as you can see below.

After the vegetables are roasted, heat the butter and about 2-3 TBS of olive oil in a large pot over medium heat.  Throw in the garlic slices, anchovies, and the red pepper flakes.

Cook for about 5 minutes, until anchovies are broken down and garlic is golden brown.

Throw in the veggies and toss well to mix.

Cook pasta according to package directions, shaving off a minute or so. Drain pasta, saving about a cup of the pasta cooking water.  Add drained pasta to veggies.  Continue to cook over low heat until pasta reaches desired consistency, adding in as much pasta water as you like to help make it a little saucy (mine was not very saucy). Dump in the cheese!

Ta-da!

Next time I think I would add at least a couple more anchovy fillets and more cheese, and who knows, maybe toss in some whole garlic cloves when I'm roasting the veggies.  If you want to make this veggie, of course you can leave out the anchovies.