Weird Tasty Pasta Dish (and Formatting!)

I know Brussels Sprouts aren’t everyone’s thing, but I like them. I especially like them roasted. So it made sense as I was attempting to figure out how to fulfill my craving to turn them into a pasta dish- another one of those things I like so much I forget that not everyone is willing to eat it three or four nights a week.

Pasta with Brussels Sprouts:

• 1 16oz bag frozen Brussels Sprouts (yes, I buy frozen veggies. You know what I like about frozen veggies? They don’t go bad in my fridge if I forget about them for a couple weeks. Is the flavor and texture exactly the same? No. But most of the time it’s still damned tasty)
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic (I pre-mince my garlic and store that frozen as well)
• 1 Tablespoon butter (I used unsalted, because that’s what I keep around for baking)
• 1 generous pinch rosemary
• 1 scant shake thyme
• 1 handful breadcrumbs
• Enough oil to liberally coat the bottom of my cast iron skillet
• Two people’s worth of spaghetti (because that’s what I have on-hand. Linguini would be better. I think bow-tie pasta would be perfect*)
• Salt and pepper

I always feel weird writing how I do this, because it’s so utterly winging it. I wasn’t sure I was making a pasta dish when I started, or what was going to go into it. But I started by cutting the frozen Sprouts into pieces. I halved all of them, and cut the biggest ones into fourths. Even the itty bitty ones. The reason is that then all the inside leaves get all coated in oil and crisped, too. By making them all roughly I knew they’d cook in roughly the same amount of time.

While I was doing that, the butter went into the cast iron on a hot stove. I left it there to sizzle and pop until it stopped, so that it would clarify and not smoke when I roasted the Brussels Sprouts in the oven (did I mention I turned the oven to 400 degrees?). Once it was ready, I added oil to the pan to generously coat the bottom, gave it a minute to heat up, and dumped the Brussels Sprouts in. Salted and peppered, added garlic, rosemary, and thyme, and put it in the oven.

Once that was in, I started a large pot of water, heavily salted it, and turned the heat to high. The pasta would go in once the water reached boiling. I aimed for just tender. Different pastas take different amounts of time, so

Every ten minutes or so, I checked on the Brussels Sprouts stirring them with a big metal spoon to ensure even browning. It took about half an hour.

With both cooked, I took the cast iron skillet with the Brussels sprouts out of the oven and tossed in the handful of breadcrumbs. I gave it a stir, then dumped the pasta in and poured a smidge of olive oil on it. Gave another toss, then divided between two bowls.

I grated parmesan over each bowl. There are schools of thought that not all pasta dishes should be doused in cheese. I don’t ascribe to them. I firmly believe in the power of cheese to strengthen just about any dish. I have yet to hear complaints from anyone eating my food ;)

Ways to improve this dish:

1. Nuts- I would add them about 2/3 of the way through the roasting process, so they don’t burn. I’d imagine just about anything chopped up would do (chop whole nuts in the food processor, by hand takes forever and is messy)
2. Bacon or Prosciutto- both pork products, so left out of the equation with my pescetarian boyfriend. I’d say, skip the butter and cook the meat on the stovetop first, then remove but don’t drain the pan. Chop and sprinkle back in with the breadcrumbs at the end. You could chop it before cooking and cook in the oven, but the pork sticks something fierce.
3. A cheese sauce- Not sure how I’d do this. Probably make it on the stovetop while the Brussels Sprouts cooked, then poured it over everything at the end. Would be lots of work, though.

Tonight: black bean soup and fried polenta! (the things I made when I'm not willing to go out in the cold to the store)


* While all semolina pasta may taste the same, different shapes have different textures and food-complimenting properties. Thin noodles are good for light sauces, seafood, and small pieces of stuff. Thicker noodles are good for thicker sauces. Shapes are useful for gripping things, and for pasta with lots of big, oddly sized stuff in it. Ziti with grooves is actually the ideal for red meat sauce, regardless of tradition. Bow-tie I think would work for this because you can pierce it with a fork easily and get a good pasta to Brussels sprouts ratio.