Broccoli... the worst kind of vegetable

Oh broccoli... the greenest of greens. The veggiest of veggies. The scourge of vegetable-haters everywhere. Not, unfortunately, a small tree where a family of gummi bears live. One of the age-old methods of dealing with these green abominations is smothering them in cheese. One way to kick it up a notch, while adding another vegetable, is to follow this Kraft recipe for "Hearty Sausage Skillet."

First, another disclaimer: I am not a Kraft representative. However, my family has been getting the Kraft Food & Family magazines for a few years (back when they were free), and I think they're great. They feature a lot of kid-friendly recipes. By kid-friendly, I mean they are so easy a 5-year old could make it (or a law student with the cooking skills of a 5 year old) and enjoy it at the same time. The strings attached to it is that the recipes feature a lot of Kraft brand or affiliated company products. Not a huge deal, but it's a little annoying sometimes.

Anyway, this recipe is super easy, quick, filling, and hides the vegetables under some good old-fashioned (Velveeta) mac & cheese. The recipe calls for Kielbasa, but obviously you can leave that out or substitute it with whatever (potentially healthier) alternative you want. Like I said, I am a meat eater. I have made this recipe a few times and used everything from fresh kielbasa to pre-packaged turkey sausage. This time around, I picked up some Aidells chicken sausages. It's pre-cooked so I didn't have to worry about not cooking it enough. Yes, I have given myself food poisoning before. The diced tomatoes are easy enough - I just picked up a can of Hunt's at the corner market.



I follow the recipe exactly, since deviating usually gets me in trouble. My first bump in the road came when the recipe called for "covering" the skillet. As a 20-something living for the first time on her own, I also only have cobbled together kitchenware. That means I have no Kitchen Aid mixer of my dreams, fancy cast iron skillets, or lids that properly fit my skillet...



Yup, sometimes you gotta rough it out. This messed up my timing somewhat, but it wasn't a big deal until I threw in the broccoli. I found that the broccoli was still pretty crunchy after a few minutes, plus the pan was getting pretty dry since the steam was obviously not having trouble staying in the pan. I added a little bit more water, then eventually just threw my hands up and covered up as much broccoli as I could:



I probably ended up cooking it for longer than the prescribed 5 minutes. In the end, though, it worked and was delicious. I ended up with a colorful, veggie-rific, filling meal that obviously included leftovers for later:

Tips for Enjoying

• Cut up the broccoli into teeny teeny pieces. I ended up putting in more broccoli than the recipe called for, so I made up for it by cutting it up super tiny.
• Make sure it is thoroughly cooked. Really, broccoli is bad enough when it's cooked, don't worsen it by under-cooking it.
• If you're looking to make it a smidge healthier, don't add in all the cheese mix. I also went for the 2% milk option, which tastes just fine to me, even if it's always a little abnormal in color.

- V