My husband and I married later in life so when our 20th wedding anniversary approached, I decided I wanted to try and get all of our children from our blended families (8 kids in all) together for a celebration. It was tough trying to coordinate fourteen schedules, especially when five of those work various weekends, days and afternoons. We did get the majority of our children and some of the grandkids and even one great-grandchild at our home for our celebration.

I love Pasta con Broccoli and this recipe is my favorite. I don’t necessarily care for the recipes that include tomato sauce mainly because I prefer the pure alfredo sauce. It took me a while to find this recipe because most of them did include tomato sauce. We used to have a Rich & Charlie’s restaurant down the street from us, but it closed quite a few years ago. I understand there area still some in other parts of St. Louis County.

Ingredients

1 qt. half & half
1 qt. mushrooms, sliced
1 lb. box sea shell pasta
1 lb. bag chopped broccoli (or one head fresh)
8 oz. Parmesan cheese
2 sticks butter (1 cup)
Pinch salt, pepper and garlic salt

Directions

Saute mushrooms and broccoli in 2 tbsp. butter. Add garlic salt to taste (lots if you like lots of garlic, less if you don’t.) Cook pasta and drain. Add 2 sticks butter and cheese to pasta, stir to combine. Add half and half gradually while stirring. Add broccoli mixture to pasta. Stir over low heat until thickened. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serves: 12-16 servings

Everyone raved about this recipe and I have to admit, it was really, really good. I did not include the full quart of half and half because I thought it was too much liquid. I put about half of it in there, but in hindsight, I should have used a little more. One thing I will change next time, is I won’t put as much butter in it. I think this recipe would have worked well with using only one stick of butter as the butter literally pooled on your plate, and each bite I envisioned it going right to my waist! This is definitely not a low calorie dish, but worth every bite!