This wacky, nutritious recipe really caught the imaginations of the students at one of our first sessions. What did they ask for? More broccoli!
Ingredients
- 1-2 fresh broccoli crowns, cut into florets with long stems
- 1 pkg. tube-shaped pasta, as wide as possible, i.e., large rigatoni
- 2 tablespoons butter or margarine
- 2 tablespoons flour
- 1 cup 2% milk
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- Paprika (try smoked paprika!)
- 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
- 1 cup shredded cheddar, or mixed shredded cheese, – or try smoky Gouda or Monterey Jack
- ½ teaspoon smoke flavoring (optional)
- Parmesan cheese, grated, if desired
Instructions
- Boil pasta tubes until just tender. Rinse with cool water and spray lightly with oil to keep them from sticking or closing. Stand them up vertically in serving bowl, or individual bowls.
- Steam or microwave broccoli florets until just tender. Drain.
- Stuff broccoli shoots into pasta tubes so they resemble small trees.
- Melt butter. Add flour, salt and pepper, and mix well. Add milk and cook over low heat, stirring, until thickened. Remove from heat and add cheese, stirring until cheese melts. Add smoke flavoring and/or paprika.
- Sprinkle trees with a “snowfall” of grated Parmesan cheese.
- Carefully pour cheese sauce beside or over “trees” so that it creates an avalanche and coats the pasta and broccoli.
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