Give Me The Simple Life

We just celebrated our two year wedding anniversary last Monday night. 

Josh opened a bottle of wine & I cooked a simple dinner for two. 

On the menu: chicken breast with a stock, wine & lemon reduction, garlic broccoli and italian-garlic pastry sticks. Simple & Delicious.



I loved the garlic pastry sticks I had made with the Spinach & Broccoli Pizza, so I decided to make them again. Only this time, I added italian seasoning. I think I could eat these pastry sticks with every meal. To make them even more appealing, they are so easy to make! Josh really liked both versions, but preferred the italian-garlic.

While Julia Childs taught me the best way to cook spinach, she has nothing in her cookbooks about broccoli.

I decided to try a different way of cooking broccoli - not just blanching the broccoli and seasoning with salt and pepper.



I added 8 cloves of garlic to olive oil over medium heat. When the garlic lightly browned, I removed the oil from the heat and added a pinch of red pepper flakes (Josh loves heat) and kosher salt. After blanching the broccoli I tossed the broccoli with oil, garlic cloves and soy sauce. The broccoli had great flavor. Of course, being the first time I made this, I know I can make it better the second time around. The oil had heat from the red pepper flakes and garlic gave a creamy contrast to the bite of the broccoli. However, I would use less oil and maybe a little more soy sauce. All in all, this version of broccoli is a nice break from the same-old.