Broccoli and Brussle Sprouts Pasta

Since I finally bought a pot to boil water in (after 7 months in my apartment)  I have decided to start my cooking adventures with pasta. I am aware that pasta isn't that great for you, and the dish I made used regular pasta (not whole wheat), but at least I'm cooking right? I love vegetables, and I really don't like cooking meat, so most of my meals will most likely be vegetarian, or some sort of seafood. I may do more with chicken down the line, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Veggies and Bow Tie Pasta

Difficulty:  Extremely Easy (like go ahead and drink a little while you cook easy)
Wine: Cupcake Sauv Blanc

Ingredients:
Frozen Broccoli
Frozen Brussle Sprouts
Olive Oil
LOTS of Garlic Cloves
Garlic Salt
Bow Tie Pasta
Feta Cheese
Parmesan Cheese

I used frozen veggies because I mistakenly thought that Target would have some non-frozen veggies... and they did not (or at least they had an awful selection), thus I used the frozen. They worked fine. but it just took a while for them to de-thaw. I made it by "browning" the garlic in the olive oil first....

 Lesson # 1: You really CAN burn garlic! I didn't think it was possible for some reason.... So, use caution when doing this, in fact only have the garlic on there for like a minute, because it burns really quickly when the oil gets hot. Then I threw the veggies in with the oil.

Lesson # 2: Frozen veggies take forever to cook. Maybe de-thaw somehow before trying to saute them.While I was doing this I put water on the stove to boil.

Lesson # 3: Water takes a long time to boil.... why is  that? I guess put the water on first and crank it up. Once the water boils throw the pasta in, and wait till everything is all cooked and ready to go. The veggies will get kinda crispy, which I liked personally. But you can always cook them however you like them. Also, I added garlic salt to taste, since I'm a little obsessed with garlic... After combining all the pasta and veggies, I sprinkled parm and feta over the pasta. Doing this made the pasta taste amazing.

Lesson # 4: Cheese makes everything taste great.I'm not sure how good this dish would have been without the cheese, esp. the feta, which was a great surprise for me. I had read about adding it to pasta, but I've had it before. I will be adding feta to things more often, it magically adds tons of flavor!

All in all it was a great success. I enjoyed cooking it and loved eating it. I also enjoyed drinking half a bottle of wine with it, and telling all my friends the rest of the night how I had cooked dinner for myself....  I look forward to more cooking adventures! I think tonight there will be more pasta... more to come on that later.

I will also be including a review of the wine I have with my meals.

Wine Selection: Cupcake Sauv Blanc (under 10.00)

I really enjoyed the Sauv Blanc, though it was an awful choice for this dish. It is a crisp and refreshing wine, chill it and bring it to a picnic or the pool. Most likely it would be great with a light fish or chicken dish.