Noodles with Broccoli

First week of summer and the house has found its summer rhythm — the kids home, the air conditioner running, the chaos louder and later and more permanent than the quiet winter version of the same family. Amber is 17 and working a summer job at the pool snack bar, which suits her the way silence suits a cat; she comes home smelling like chlorine and soft pretzels and reads on the couch until dinner. Tyler is 14 and at the Freightliner dealership four days a week, sweeping floors and fetching tools for three dollars above minimum wage and a satisfaction you could cut with a knife. Justin is 14 and lifting weights in the garage at six in the morning because the football coach told him to and because Justin does what the football coach says with a single-mindedness he applies to nothing else. Josie is 11 and has fifteen friends, all of whom seem to live in our house now.

The book is at thirty thousand words. Sarah called Tuesday — the New York editor, the one whose voice sounds like clean sheets — and said the first half was "exactly what I hoped." I wrote the line down on a sticky note and put it on the dashboard of the truck. I do not believe in inspirational sayings. I believe in evidence. That sticky note is evidence.

I cooked on the road Monday and Tuesday and was home Wednesday through Sunday, which is the trucking miracle of summer regional freight — the dispatchers scramble, the loads shrink, the weeks get strange. I made a cold pasta salad for the kids to graze on through the week. Rotini, cherry tomatoes from Gayle's garden (she planted six this year, claims she won't eat them, eats them), cucumber, olives, a vinaigrette with too much garlic because I am Brenda Novak and I believe in garlic the way other people believe in god. It lived in the fridge in a big glass bowl. By Friday it was gone.

Gayle is gardening again. Her knees are the worst they have ever been but she is outside in the tomato patch with a stool and a pair of pruning shears and the stubbornness of a woman who has decided to outlive the plants. "They need me," she said. I said, "Ma, the tomatoes are fine." She said, "Not those. Me. I need them." And I understood then that the garden is not about the tomatoes. It never was.

Dave took Tyler fishing Saturday morning at the Platte. They brought home three catfish and Tyler cleaned them under Dave's quiet instruction at the mudroom sink, which means the mudroom sink now smells like fish and will smell like fish until Labor Day no matter what I do. I fried the catfish in cornmeal with Dave's hot sauce and we ate them on the porch while Josie's friends screamed in the yard and Amber read her book on the steps and Justin stayed in the garage with his weights because he is fourteen and hungry in a way food cannot fix. I saved him a plate. He ate it at ten that night, standing at the counter, in his shorts. He said, "Thanks, Mom." That is a paragraph for Justin. That is a novel for Justin.

The rotini bowl I mentioned — the one that disappeared by Friday — started with whatever I had on hand and a need to feed four very different people who eat on four very different schedules. This version with broccoli is the one I land on when I want something that holds up in the fridge, travels well to the couch or the garage or the porch steps, and doesn’t need reheating for a teenager who eats at ten o’clock at night standing over the counter. It’s not fancy. It’s just reliable, and some weeks reliable is everything.

Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 15 min | Total Time: 25 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

12 oz rotini or egg noodles
3 cups fresh broccoli florets
3 tablespoons olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced (or more — I always add more)
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1/3 cup sliced black olives
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped (optional)

Instructions

Cook the pasta. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook noodles according to package directions until al dente. In the last 3 minutes of cooking, add the broccoli florets directly to the pot. Drain together and rinse briefly with cool water to stop cooking.
Make the garlic oil. While pasta cooks, heat olive oil in a small skillet over medium-low heat. Add garlic and red pepper flakes and cook 1–2 minutes until fragrant but not browned. Remove from heat.
Combine. In a large bowl, toss the drained pasta and broccoli with the garlic oil, red wine vinegar, cherry tomatoes, and olives. Season with salt and pepper.
Finish and store. Sprinkle with Parmesan and parsley. Serve warm, or transfer to a large glass bowl, cover, and refrigerate. This keeps well for 4–5 days and is excellent cold straight from the fridge.

Nutrition (per serving)

Noodles with Broccoli — The Cold Pasta That Carried Us Through the Week