A New Vegetable!

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about a wonderful three-ingredient pasta recipe that I have and utilize very frequently (often to the dismay of my older kids): Three Ingredient Dinner? Yes, please!  Last night, I played with a variation on that recipe, using organic frozen peas and a new find at my local grocery store, frozen Broccoli Romesco!  I really wish I had taken a picture of either the package or the final product after I was done cooking the meal, but I super suck at remembering to do that, so I will just apologize to my sister (who I know reads my blog and who is constantly telling me that I need to have more pictures and less words and who I apparently don't listen to very often) right now.  Anyway, this Broccoli Romesco stuff is a cross between regular old broccoli and regular old cauliflower and it is the weirdest, prettiest vegetable I think I have ever seen.  You know what broccoli looks like, right?  Tiny, deep emerald green (if you haven't cooked the bejesus out of it) trees?  OK.  Now picture a chartreuse Christmas tree.  Got it?  No?  Well, that is pretty much the only way I can describe this stuff - light, yellowish green and conical shaped.  The flavor was somewhere between that of broccoli and cauliflower (stop saying, "duh"!) - it was lightly nutty and very, very slightly sweet, but completely lacking that kind of sulfurous stank that broccoli can have.  My kids seemed to enjoy it (sort of), but it did get eaten (pretty much).  They all at least tried it and I have to say, I think it really perked up the dish for me.  I also really liked it because it came in a "steams in the bag in the microwave" package, which made it super simple for me to whip together the dinner in less than 30 minutes.  I promise that next time I buy the Broccoli Romesco, I will not only post a picture of the packaging, but also of the resulting dish.

Author's Note: In addition to remembering to take a picture, I also will need to brush up on my Mendelian genetics because my oldest daughter wanted an explanation of how the cross between the broccoli and cauliflower came to pass.  That was fun and you would never know that I had actually studied that stuff in college (I was Pre-Med) the way I was stumbling over terms like "recessive" and "dominant" and "traits".  I am pretty sure she thinks I just made it all up. 

Second Author's Note: The sad part about this story is that I was actually growing purple Broccoli Romesco in my garden and was very excited about it as I had never actually tasted it.  Then, the bunny descended (Gardening Successes and Failures) upon my tender little plants and I am sorry to report that the Broccoli Romesco never had a chance.  Apparently, rabbits know a good thing when they see it as well.