Orecchiette with mushrooms, onions, garlic, and broccolini

If you are like me and could sit down to at least 8 ounces of pasta and wish you could have more then you need to find a way to make a little pasta go a long way. I stretch my pasta calories by adding a lot of vegetables to 2 or 3 ounces of pasta. This yummy dish is less than 3 ounces of orecchiette and contains 1 teaspoon of oil. I use a lot of mushrooms cut fairly chunky, half of a large onion, chopped, 2 or 3 minced garlic cloves, and a bunch of broccolini, stems and all.

Here is how our process goes – John salts a pot of water and puts it on to boil. While that is going on I cut up the vegetables and start to saute the mushrooms in a spray of olive oil, then I add the onions, and finally the garlic being careful not to let the garlic get dark. By this time the water is boiling and John puts the orecchiette on to cook. It takes about 10 minutes. At the five minute mark I put the chopped broccolini stems in to cook with the mushroom mixture along with a little pasta water. At the one minute mark I add the broccolini tops. John drains the pasta but reserves a half cup or so of the pasta water. He dumps the pasta into the vegetables and I stir it around adding one teaspoon of olive oil and some of the pasta water to make a sauce.

That is about 20 minutes total and you end up having a giant bowl of pasta that is delicious and filling.