Homemade Cracked Pepper Spaghetti with Broccoli & Goat Cheese Pesto

All Photos © Christine Elise McCarthy 2013

To see images of my past posts & get links to the recipes – look on my Pinterest board – HERE.

This is not a Cinco de Mayo recipe but several will be coming in the next few days. This is just a yummy broccoli pasta recipe that is really easy – especially if you use dry spaghetti.

I am not going to post a formal recipe here for the spaghetti except to say that the ingredients are: 600 grams flour, six eggs, a tsp salt & 2 TBS fresh cracked pepper. That works out to what they call 6 servings. I put all those things in my bread machine & let that thing work its magic. It produced this tacky ball:

which I then put through this process:

to get this result:

Homemade pasta is a glorious thing! Comprehensive instructions on making pasta dough is HERE in this post. It can be done without any tools beyond a rolling pin & a knife – but that seems like a lot of work.

This pesto doesn’t have any nuts. It is as easy as any pesto & just as yummy.

Also – I bought red basil at the AMAZING store – Super King – that I blogged about yesterday & that is the dark leafy stuff you might make out in the photos. Regular basil is fine.

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Broccoli & Goat Cheese Pesto

INGREDIENTS

2 small – medium heads broccoli

garlic cloves (I used 10 – but that might be too hardcore for more tender palates)

1/2 cup fresh basil

5 oz goat cheese

1/2 cup olive oil

juice & zest of 1/2 lemon

S&P to taste

Lemon wedges as garnish

Grated Parmesan as garnish

Parsley and/or extra basil, chopped as garnish

DIRECTIONS

Cut the florets off of one head of cauliflower & quick steam them for 3-5 minutes in a covered pan with very shallow (1/2 inch) boiling water. Drain & rinse under cold water. Set aside.

Take the stems from the first head & all of the second & chop them up. Blend in a food processor with goat cheese, garlic, basil, lemon juice & zest and S&P – adding the olive oil slowly. You might not need it all – you might need more – depending on the quantity of broccoli you have. It also might need to be scraped down the sides of the work bowl a few times. If it is still too thick and you want to limit the olive oil used – just add a bit of water.

Cook your pasta. While it cooks, heat a TBS olive oil in a pan & heat up your pesto. Add the broccoli florets you set aside. Heat it through but do not cook it too long so that your florets do not get soggy.

When the pasta is done, drain it & toss it with the pesto. Garnish with grated Parmesan, chopped parsley & a lemon wedge.

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