Pasta with Creamy Broccoli Sauce

Now I'd like to introduce a guest cooker to this blog, my associate Ben. He'll be making appearances now and then, sharing his tasty recipes. Take it away, Ben.

Thanks, Alison. It's great to be here on alisoncooks.blogspot.com. I'm a big fan of the show. Nice desk you've got there, very authoritative-looking. My, this chair is so comfy!

Anyway, a short foreword is required before I can tell you about the mystical inspirations and geopolitical context that conspired to create "my" Creamy Broccoli Sauce. It's a confession of sorts, and my agent is going to kill me for saying this on the air. But in the name of all that is noble and true and delicious, I feel I must unveil the source of my culinary extravagance. Truth be told, my success in the kitchen is due to a 6-letter G word: (genies, gamete, and ghetto are all good guesses, but sadly incorrect) Google. It's true. When I want to cook something, my first step is always to google it and compare a few different recipes. (In this case I googled "broccoli recipes" because we had broccoli in the fridge.) It's helpful to google "[the food you want] recipes" because otherwise you have to wade through all sorts of broccoli fan pages, broccoli youtube videos, and "CHEAP BROCCOLI ORDER NOW!!!" before you get to the recipes. The next step is you pick a recipe you like most of the ones you've found, and follow that one generally, though you can include bits from others, or adjust it depending on what ingredients you have available. In biblical scholarship, this is called redaction. I should also note that I don't measure stuff very much, especially spices. I mostly just dump some in (sometimes more than I intend) and taste. Sometimes I don't even taste, or know what I'm going for really. But it usually works out in the end, due either to my extensive experience and accomplishment as an eater, or to some absurd streak of luck which will abruptly end and leave me with very large gambling debts.

But anyway, this Creamy Broccoli Sauce is inspired by a recipe I encountered on southernfood.about.com. I don't have any idea what, if anything, is Southern about this, except for maybe the call for both butter and heavy cream (in the original; I redacted it.) But anyway, this is a fun thing to do if you've got broccoli lying around and lots
of time to experiment with food. Also, it's tasty and healthy and exciting. Here goes:

Pasta with Creamy Broccoli Sauce

12 ounces pasta
florets from 2 stalks of broccoli
5 medium fresh basil leaves (original; I used dried basil and it was still yummy)
1/2 tablespoon butter
3 heaping tablespoons plain yogurt
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
pepper to taste (perhaps 1 teaspoon--should be fairly peppery)


Cook pasta until tender; drain.
Boil broccoli in salted water 4-7 minutes.
In food processor with steel blade, combine 8-10 broccoli florets,basil, butter and yogurt. Pulse to purée. Add Parmesan cheese and pulse to blend.
Mix broccoli mixture and remaining boiled broccoli into drained pasta; stir.
Cook, stirring, over medium-low heat. Serve when heated through and well combined. (I forgot to do the whole second heating thing and it still worked out great, just a little colder.)

Serves 4.