broccoli in my pasta

I feel all out of the habit of writing recipes. It's not that I'm not cooking, it's that what I can do in my kitchen is limited by the equipment and ingredients. Some equipment I'm used to I can buy, but I don't want to purchase only to leave it behind at the end of my twelve months; some equipment I just cannot find. Such as last night's disaster where I couldn't get this bottle of red open. In the end I used a chopstick and pushed it into the bottle, but frustrating was the knowledge that the person who gifted me with this bottle of red had also brought a corkscrew for me, and forgotten to give it to me.


Anyway, PASTA. It's a comfort food for me here in China. As I'm blogged before, it's hard for me to order because very few places in Beijing do a good pasta and they almost always, even if I ask for it without, come with cheese. But I cheat here in Beijing like I never would at home. I've posted a previous cheatery pasta, but this one I cook probably a bit more often. And it's a bit cheaper and easier to get the ingredients.

You know how to make pasta, you don't really need a recipe, but in case you're interested (it's kind of like cataloging what I can get in China):

coloured broccoli pasta

slice three button mushrooms, and fry in a little olive oil. add half a dozen cherry tomatoes, halved, and saute until they start to soften. add some tomato pasta sauce, a little chilli flakes, and one or two cloves of garlic, and simmer on reduced heat for five minutes. in the meantime, cook 250 grams of coloured pasta, and when it's almost done, add one small head of broccoli that has been pulled apart. drain and mix it in with the pasta sauce and two or three or four tablespoons of nutritional yeast. the broccoli should be crisp and everything else should be squishy.

did I mention that in China, cherry tomatoes are considered a fruit, and found in the fruit section?