Bride of Magazine Challenge: Pasta Salad with Broccoli and Peanuts

So.
I love being home for the summer.  I'm not always as motivated as I should be, but that's beside the point.  The long and the short of it is that I enjoy spending time in the house, cooking and slowly getting done the large number of projects around here that there never seems to be time to complete.
One of the things about being home for the summer is that I need to make lunches as well as dinners. While J believes that there should be meat at every meal, I am always on the lookout for recipes that use less meat or are meatless because I know that our consumption is probably higher than it should be.
When looking back through the issues of Everyday Food, one of the things I found were dinner salads that I had earmarked for making that were meat free.  This salad here is a case in point.  The protein is from the peanut butter and chopped nuts that are sprinkled over the salad.  Serving it warm the first day also makes it seem more of a meal and less of a side dish.
While I can't make this during the school year and take it to work because of allergies, it was a nice lunch for a couple of days this month.
I present to you now from the May 2006 issue of Everyday Food, Pasta Salad with Broccoli and Peanuts:

Ingredients:
250 g Whole wheat fusilli pasta
Large head of fresh broccoli
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 Tbsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
2 Tbsp natural peanut butter
1/4 c rice wine vinegar
3 Tbsp soy sauce
1 bunch green onions, thinly sliced
1/2 c peanuts, roughly chopped
Method:
1.  In a large pot of boiling water, cook pasta until done, then drain and rinse so that the pasta doesn't stick together.  Set aside.
2.  Thinly slice the stalk of the broccoli, and divide the head into bite-sized florets.  Heat 1 Tbsp of the vegetable oil in a large skillet.  Add pepper flakes, and then broccoli.  Stirfry briefly before adding 3/4 c of water and covering to steam the broccoli, about 6-8 minutes.  Uncover and cook until the moisture has evaporated.
3.  In a large bowl, stir together the oils, peanut butter, soy sauce and green onions.  Add pasta and broccoli, tossing to combine.
4.  Serve, scattered with chopped peanuts.

Adapted from Everyday Food, May 2006

This seemed to me to be a whole lot of broccoli.  But when you think the recipe is for 4, it wasn't that bad.  I liked the addition of the red pepper flakes.  It gave the final product a little extra kick.

The dressing:  not super attractive, but it smelled so good.  I love Asian flavours.  This totally delivered.

Isn't this pretty?  I liked it warm and cold the next day.  A great lunch for the middle of summer.