This pasta dish is quick, satisfying and the perfect light dinner or for lunch. You could easily add your protein of choice but I love it as a vegetarian meal. You’re getting some protein from the almonds and cheese any way and a great vegetarian option would be using a pulse pasta.

I made this for my sister and I one day before I headed off on my road trip as I though my chances of getting lots of green things might be limited at times. Lucky for me I was mostly wrong – we ate so well! The highlights were: the strawberry, goats cheese and balsamic toast at Moab Garage Co., everything we ate at The Farm Bistro in Cortez (this place is so incredibly good, farm to table with loads of seasonal veg), and RGP’s flame grilled wraps (all of them, because their homemade flame grilled bread is ridiculous) in Durango.

That said, I still want to eat this pasta again this week so I thought you could all join me. It’s like a pesto pasta for people that don’t have a food processor (*cough* my sister). The whole thing is made in the time it takes to cook the pasta so it’s really quick and easy. There’s also a whole lot of broccoli in it for you so you can feel good about how well you’re eating;)

The secret to this pasta is cutting the broccoli in a rough chop, I used the stalks too and kept these slightly smaller than the chopped florets. No need to be too fussy, just run your knife through the head a couple of times and roughly dice the stalk.

Serves 2

Ingredients

160-200g of short pasta (I used casarecce because I’m obsessed)

2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup finely sliced spring onion or brown onion

1 head of broccoli, roughly chopped into 1-2cm pieces

1 clove of garlic, crushed

1/4 cup roasted almonds, roughly chopped

1/4 cup roughly chopped flat leaf parsley

1 Tbs lemon Juice

2 tsps lemon zest

1/4 tsp black pepper

1/3 cup freshly grated parmesan

salt to taste

Directions

Place a large pot of salted water on to boil and once boiling add pasta, cook according to packet directions.

While the pasta is cooking, put a large heavy based fry pan. Add 1 Tbs of oil and once hot add the onion and cook for 2 minutes over medium high heat. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add the broccoli and sauté until bright green and softened.

At this point add a few tbs of the pasta water to loosen and then toss through the almonds and parsley and cook until the parsley has softened slightly.

Drain the pasta, reserving 1/2 a cup of the cooking water, and add the pasta to the broccoli along with the lemon zest and juice, parmesan, pepper and the remaining oil. Toss well to combine, taste and adjust seasoning.

Sprinkle with some extra parmesan to serve and dig in.

HH. x