Given that I live in Tenney, the small vegetarian co-op on campus, I’m accustomed to cooking dinner at least once a week for the other members of my house. Of course, I prefer this style of home cooked meals to the dining hall bulk dinners, but cooking for a co-op is quite different from the concept of cooking for say a group of friends. Living in a house of 14 requires one to recognize that serving size in recipes must always be altered to adjust for the number of mouths to feed. Also, one must be conscious of cooking on a budget and trying to make use of all the available house ingredients. However, I think this style of living has made me more confident in the kitchen, as I have come to understand that cooking should be less reliant on exact guidelines and measurements, and more reliant on the importance of consistency and flavor.
Last Tuesday I decided to make a pasta dish with sautéed cauliflower and broccoli. I looked up a Sicilian cooking blog online in order to give me a rough idea of what ingredients I would need to balance out my desired flavors for the dish. While the recipe had a mixture of great savory seasonings, I felt that it might be even better with a hint of sweet, such as the bulk raisins that nobody seems to want to finish. I ended up creating my own concept of serving size and ingredients and I am happy to report that my entire house found the dish to be a success.
If I were to recreate my recipe, it would probably resemble one featured in an old fashioned cookbook, calling for the reader to make their own interpretation of what say a dab, pinch, or smidgen might represent.
Ingredients:
A couple bunches of broccoli, trimmed and cut into desired sizes
A few heads of cauliflower, core removed and cut as desired
Some white onions, sliced into thin pieces
Many cloves garlic (Tenney House loves garlic!), finely chopped
A generous pinch of saffron
A generous dab of pepper flakes and salt
A smidgen of fresh rosemary
A truck load of
olive oil (not really, but a lot)
A bunch of golden and red raisins, so that each bite will contain an equal amount of at least the main ingredients of pasta, broccoli, cauliflower, and raisins.
A couple handfuls of walnuts and almonds, sliced if desired
Freshly grated Parmesan
Two large bags of pasta, some gluten-free options available
Cooking:
Slice the broccoli stems into desired sizes. Cut cauliflower into similar sized pieces as the broccoli. Heat a large heavy saute pan or skillet over moderate heat. Pour in a generous amount of olive oil, then add cauliflower and broccoli to same pan. Add raisins throughout, let simmer and allow heat to drain the sugar into other savory ingredients. Then add garlic and onions (always later so as not burn but caramelize with sugary raisins). Stir-fry until all items in the veggie dish are tender and browned in spots, adding more oil if needed and seasonings for taste. Simultaneously, cook pasta and drain. Then add stir-fry to pasta and serve.
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