I love broccoli.  Usually I think it’s best if it’s simple.  I recently needed to bring a vegetable side dish to a friend’s house for dinner.  I went back and forth between a few different options.  It’s always tricky picking a dish for a pot luck.  I don’t really know what other people are bringing, I don’t know if the host or certain critical mass doesn’t like a certain ingredient, and in this case I didn’t even know how much to make.

After hemming and hawing over a few different options I decided to keep it simple stupid: roasted broccoli.  I checked the food network website because this was something I could picture Ina Garten making.  That’s the funny thing when you’re a Food Network fan, when I’m thinking about certain dishes, I can usually pick a chef from the line up that probably has a recipe that I want to use for it.

Ina had a good looking recipe for roasted broccoli with garlic and parmesan.  Bingo.  I was eating this broccoli like candy, and so were my friends.  So easy, so quick, do delicious.

Roasted Garlic and Parmesan Broccoli

From Ina, scale the amounts to fit the size of your group

Ingredients

• Broccoli crowns rinsed and cut into florets
• minced garlic cloves (about 1 clove per serving)
• olive oil
• salt, pepper, crushed red pepper to taste
• Parmesan cheese, grated, about 1/3 cup per every 3-4 servings

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 425.  Line cookie sheets with foil.
2. Combine garlic with about 1/4 cup olive oil and pour mixture over broccoli.  Toss broccoli so it is coated with oil (add oil if needed) and pour out onto baking sheet(s).
3. Season with salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper. Roast broccoli in oven for 20-25 minutes.
4. Remove broccoli when edges of florets start to get brown.  Toss warm broccoli with parmesan and serve.