Penne with Broccoli & Garlic

From Lila:

“So yesterday I blew off yet another night of blogging to make up for the relaxation hours I had lost two days ago because I was making that scallop stir fry that sucked. Fortunately yesterday I didn’t waste my time on a sucky dish that took up all of my relaxation hours. Instead I made smart decision and made the perfect broccoli and pasta that’s not actually what it’s called but it was pretty perfect. So anyway today I’m spending my day not cooking, relaxing, and you guessed it reading MAD Magazine [unfortunately still had to do some actual work.] so bye, as you already know my mom will post the recipe. P.S. I hope that you have had at least one day to do nothing this summer vacation.”

From Ambika:

I am running a bit behind in posting these days. Sorry all. This was Tuesday’s dinner. Penne with Broccoli has been one of my favorite dishes since I was in my twenties (long time ago now) and first had it at an Italian restaurant. So this was kind of torturous for me, as I am not eating wheat these days and it looked and smelled sooooo good! That said I have made this dish for years (when I was eating wheat of course – the glory days) with many variations. This latest version is so far my favorite. My husband John discovered the book “How to Boil Water” (great cookbook btw) from the FoodNetwork when he was teaching himself how to cook a couple of years ago. One night he made a recipe for spaghetti with olive oil & garlic from that book and it came out fabulous! I have since adapted the recipe to penne with broccoli (which is how Lila made it). I now blanch my broccoli first, which makes it much better. Got this idea from “How to Boil Water” as well. Actually I knew about blanching long ago but resisted it for some reason. Can’t imagine why…