I know the title of this post sounds really deceitful, but after a million failed attempts at trying to get Ryland to eat “yummy little trees,” I had to resort to trickery. And my method could not be simpler. I steamed up some broccoli, blended it into pasta sauce, and voila! There are a few other steps in there, but bottom line – he finally ate it. I don’t even want to post this picture because I know it doesn’t look the least bit appetizing, but it was actually really good.
And we only ever eat brown rice pasta, which this is. The ingredients are 100% organic brown rice and honestly, once you sauce it up, it tastes no different than regular white pasta. At least in my opinion. You can buy it in all of the usual pasta shapes; this here is spiral macaroni. A few of the many benefits of brown rice include it’s high fiber, nutrient and anti-oxidant content while also stabilizing blood sugar. Win, win, win. If you love pasta but feel guilty and 9 months pregnant every time you eat it, give this stuff a try. It’s not to be confused with whole wheat pasta though, which I think it awful.
Brown Rice Pasta & Broccoli Marina
Ingredients
- 2 cups dry brown rice pasta (any shape)
- 1 jar of your favorite pasta sauce
- 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 1/4 chopped cooking onion
- 2 cups of broccoli florets
- 1 tbsp olive or cold pressed coconut oil
Instructions
- Cook pasta according to instructions on package. Be sure not to overcook.
- Steam broccoli until tender. Place in blender with entire jar of pasta sauce and blend until smooth.
- Place oil, garlic, and onion in a skillet and heat over medium/high heat on the stove for about 30 seconds, or until onions become tender.
- Pour blended pasta sauce into skillet, reduce heat to low and simmer for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Season with salt and pepper if you like.
- Pour over pasta and serve.
It’s not the most exciting meal, but it’s healthy, filling and most importantly, my toddler ate broccoli!!! I might sneak some cauliflower in there next time, as he wants nothing to do with that either.
We had some plain rice cakes with Nutella for dessert, which isn’t pictured because rice cakes are not picture worthy, but since we’re on the topic, look what we had on the weekend!
We went to a farmers market and had the BEST strawberry frozen yogurt on the planet. We won’t talk about the (delicious) waffle cone nutritional content, but the fro-yo itself consisted of organic strawberries and organic vanilla yogurt. That’s it. Totally healthy so basically, it would be unhealthy NOT to eat it. Again, we won’t talk about the waffle cone.
Wine Wednesdays are an official thing at my house. I tell myself it’s well-deserved for making it halfway through the week.
You’ll notice I put ice cubes in my white wine. I’m pretty sure that’s breaking all kinds of wine rules, but I only like it ice cold. Hey, at least it’s in a wine glass!
With that being said, happy {Wine} Wednesday!
And an obligatory picture of my kid, because I’m obsessed. And because fall colours are so pretty.
my little lemon tree 