Oops I made it again - by Broccoli Spears

I have definitely had my fill of broccoli this week. Last week I bought two bags of broccoli salad mix for Thanksgiving dinner and we ended up only using one. And since it was Thanksgiving, nobody wanted to waste their stomach space on boring green vegetables so Don and I ended up taking most of it home with us and have been munching away at it for the last week. We definitely are not up for polishing off another bag of broccoli salad by ourselves so I will serve the other one tonight for our gaming group and beg someone to take the leftovers home.

Also, I had forgotten about all the broccoli we already had in the fridge, so I didn't think to swap out this new recipe for Broccoli Spears that was queued up in my meal plan for something else when I did my grocery shopping over the weekend. But it worked out well anyway. The cooking method was so desperately easy, even easier than steaming broccoli as it uses up less dishes and is easier to clean up afterwards. Also, it has you peel the broccoli stems with a vegetable peeler so that the spears are not too tough and they soak up the flavor better. Despite the recent overdose on these little green bouquets, I still found this recipe quite enjoyable. In fact, it might be my favorite broccoli recipe to date. I'm guessing Don would disagree with me as he bit off all the broccoli heads and left all the spears behind on his plate like pitiful little decapitated corpses. Looks like my man is not a fan of Spears - neither of the Brittany or the Broccoli variety.

I give this recipe five out of five stars based on taste, ease of preparation, and economical ingredients.

Garlicky Lemon Broccoli

Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds broccoli spears
1/2 cup water
2 teaspoons butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

Preparation

Peel broccoli stems using a vegetable peeler. Combine broccoli and water in a large nonstick skillet; cover and cook over medium-high heat 6 minutes or until crisp-tender. Remove broccoli from pan; wipe pan with a paper towel.

Melt butter in pan over medium heat. Add salt, pepper, and garlic; cook 2 minutes, stirring frequently. Add broccoli, and toss to coat. Sprinkle broccoli mixture with rind; drizzle with lemon juice.

Yield

4 servings (serving size: 1 cup)

Nutritional Information

CALORIES 67(34% from fat); FAT 2.5g (sat 1.3g,mono 0.6g,poly 0.4g); PROTEIN 5.2g; CHOLESTEROL 5mg; CALCIUM 85mg; SODIUM 212mg; FIBER 5.1g; IRON 1.5mg; CARBOHYDRATE 9.6g

Cooking Light, OCTOBER 2003