We were at the store and it all went down like this… “Ohhh, look Mommy! What’s this? It’s pretty! Can we buy it?” And who am I to deny my child a vegetable when she asks for it? Even though I knew that it was a vegetable related to cauliflower, the most loathsome of vegetables in my mind, I stuck the thing in the bag and went on with my shopping list. That was last week. I stuffed it in a drawer in the refrigerator and nearly forgot about it.

Fast forward to the end of a long, snowy weekend. The whole city was canceling events left and right due to freezing temperatures and icy roads. And as I LOVE to hole up during times like this and wear my pajamas all day, I decided we had enough left overs, milk, eggs and Nutella to survive a long weekend without a grocery run. So there we were last night. Dinner time and no dinner because we were now sick of eggs and left over soup. I needed to fix something quickly to keep the little people on their bedtime schedule, when I discovered the head of Romanesco as I was rummaging through every drawer in the fridge in desperation. I’m trying to be better about cooking the produce I tend to buy on a whim, so I determined that dinner would revolve around this thing. I found two half-used boxes of spaghetti and the idea was born… The Italians can do it. So can I. It was, as Dave later coined it, “The Romanesco Challenge.” How to make a tasty pasta dish with Romanesco as the main ingredient, using WHATEVER I could find that would make sense. In case you think I’m always planning my meals ahead and dreaming up beautiful photo shoots of the results, you are mistaken. HA! I was busy dredging out the basement which had become our catch-all and honestly just refused to think of dinner until I had the piles under control.

But, hey, I think if you have fresh garlic, something acidic, something briny, and good cheese, it’s hard not to have a delicious result. Thank goodness. My kids inhaled this, along with Dave. And now I’m a fan of Romanesco… If you aren’t, I have to say, you just might be pleasantly surprised. It totally hit the spot.

 Zesty Spaghetti with Romanesco

recipe by Stephanie Kunstle

Notes: As I cooked, I kept thinking of my dear friend Nicky (who I had the absolute treat of visiting with by phone this week) who now and then has her recipes measured “by guess and gosh.” With that in mind, don’t get hung up on making this EXACTLY… You want to substitute one kind of sausage for another? Go for it. Hate feta? Then grab some goat cheese or Parmigiano Reggiano. You get the point. It’s about flavor.

Ingredients:

• plenty of extra virgin olive oil
• 3-4 whole slices of lemon, cut in half
• 4 garlic cloves, sliced thinly
• 1 cup green Greek olives (mine were stuffed with pimentos, but whatever olive you like will work)
• 2 links of good cooked sausage, chopped (I used chicken apple sausage, but go for a nice Italian pork sausage if you’d like)
• 1 head of Romanesco, stems mostly removed, florets chopped roughly
• dried hot chile flakes
• 1/4 cup pine nuts, lightly toasted
• 2 big handfuls of chopped feta
• sea salt and freshly ground pepper
• 1 lb. dried spaghetti

Preparation:

1. Heat a good swirl of olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium low heat.
2. Add the lemon slices and give them a couple of minutes to cook and infuse the oil, stirring now and then.
3. Add the garlic, olives, chopped sausage, Romanesco, and a good shaking all around (to your taste) of hot chile flakes. Be sure there is enough olive oil to coat the veggies without them sticking in the pan, and keep shaking, tossing, and stirring the veggies. The goal is to get the sausage heated, the olives nice and hot, and the Romanesco just fork tender (it’s should still be bright green, not soft and mushy AT ALL).
4. Add a generous sprinkling of sea salt and taste the Romanesco for doneness.
5. Meanwhile, toast the pine nuts in a small dry pan over medium heat, stirring and tossing frequently, for about 3-4 minutes until just golden. Remove from the heat source and put them in a bowl to cool (if you leave them in the pan, they will continue to cook).
6. Cook the spaghetti in a huge pot of salted water until al dente and drain. Pour into a big serving bowl and drizzle with olive oil.
7. Pour the Romanesco mixture over the pasta, top with feta and finally the pine nuts. Give the entire dish another good drizzling of olive oil, freshly cracked pepper and serve!