broccoli stirfry

Another of those deceptively simple meals, which take less time than required to phone for a pizza.

Take some (lots?) of broccoli, remove the florets from the stems, and boil/simmer/steam for about seven minutes.  Drain.

Peel and chop some garlic - we like Lots, so we did about four fat cloves; you might not want so much (how odd).

This is important when you’re stir-frying - fetch out everything you might need before you start; it’s a swift process ad things can go pear-shaped before you blink.  So, for this one: tamari, sesame oil, oyster sauce, sesame seeds, the aforementioned broccoli.

And spring onions and red chilli, chopped up.

At some point in these proceedings, you’ll need a pan of boiling water and some noodles too.

Groundnut oil in a wok, heat, add garlic and sesame seeds; stir about a bit.  Add broccoli, pre-steamed.  Stir about some more.  Add a sloosh of oyster sauce, a sloosh of tamari.  Sort noodles - two minutes, how hard can it be?

Serve in bowls, scatter with chilli and spring onions.  If we’re being conservative, this took 25 minutes from starting to denude the broccoli.  Do you really want to buy convenience food?!

pasta with cauliflower, broccoli and blue cheese

I love “bitsa” cooking - just open the fridge and see what needs eating.

And last night, what needed eating was some veg and some cheese. This was ridiculously quick and easy.

Divide the broccoli and cauliflower into smallish florets. Put them in a pan with a couple of inches of water and salt, bring to a boil, cover, and simmer/steam for about - oh - 7 minutes.

In the meantime, finely chop an onion - feel free to use a food processor - and sauté it gently in some olive oil, in a deepish frying pan, until it’s soft. While that’s all happening, crumble some blue cheese. I used stilton, because we had some that needed using up, but anything would do. And cook some pasta; we had tagliatelle.

When everything is done, drain the veg, drain the pasta, hurl them in the pan, add the cheese and stir it round.

Took about 15 minutes from going into the kitchen to hitting the plate - fast food!