Recipe: Quick and easy vegan entree - garlic broccoli penne

I'm always on the hunt for simple recipes to make on a weeknight.  After a long day of work and usually working out, by the time I'm home and ready to cook, it's well past the time that most people would eat dinner.

I recently discovered a great recipe for garlic broccoli penne on vegweb.com - a great site that houses vegan recipes for just about anything.  If you like garlic and broccoli, you have to try out this recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups dry multigrain penne pasta
• 2 cups broccoli florets
• 8 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/4 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped

Method:

1. Prepare penne according to package directions and drain.
2. Meanwhile steam broccoli until just tender.
3. In a large frying pan saute garlic in olive oil until fragrant, remove from heat. Stir in pepper flakes & salt.
4. Add  penne & broccoli, stirring to coat with garlic mixture.  Transfer to serving dishes & sprinkle with parsley. Serve immediately.

The finished product: 

 I generally like anything with garlic, but broccoli?  I'm iffy about broccoli.  It has to be cooked just right.  But this ended up being really good - and ridiculously garlicy.  If you don't like garlic, cut down on the number of cloves you use.  (Unless you're trying to keep vampires away or something.)  I don't like parsley, so I didn't use any.  I also used "regular" pasta instead of multi-grain, since that's what I have in my cupboard.  

I'd definitely make this recipe again.  The meat eater I fed this to was even a fan, so this could be a great entree to serve to your non-vegetarian/vegan friends.  The original recipe says the ingredients makes two servings, but you could easily stretch this to serve 3 people or as a side dish for 4.