Cook broccoli long enough and it becomes comfort food
As a son of the South, I have a thing for long-cooked vegetables. One of the dishes my mother made that I remember most fondly was her broccoli cream-cheese casserole, for which the broccoli was steamed until soft, then combined with cream cheese and butter, showered with bread crumbs and baked. It was a far cry from the crisp-tender, bright-green broccoli that took hold a decade or two later — it wasn't health food, in other words — and I loved every bite.
This pasta dish from Alice Hart, one of my favorite vegetarian cookbook authors, reminds me of that casserole. Broccoli, boiled for a few minutes then cooked again until soft in garlicky butter, provides the bulk. The indulgence comes from blue cheese and a little mascarpone, which create a luxurious yet punchy sauce. For crunch, there are more pine nuts than might seem reasonable.
All of it, in fact, seems like too much, at least at first: The broccoli is cooked too long, there's too much blue cheese, too many nuts. Until you taste it and realize that it's perfect.