Teaching Michael Mondays (1/18) -- Proportions

One of my favorite food-related movie moments has to be the "perfect bite" scene from the Barbra Streisand film, "The Mirror Has Two Faces." Unfortunately, no kind soul has uploaded it on YouTube, but the film is worth a watch -- trust me. Long story short, Rose takes a small piece of every item of her plate and layers them neatly on her fork -- thereby building the perfect bite, with all flavors perfectly proportioned and balanced.

Enter my dear brother, who yes, has yet to learn this concept.

This week, Michael decided to attempt a batch of pasta with broccoli and some red bell pepper mixed in. The original recipe called for 1/4 pound of broccoli (which to Michael's credit) he added correctly.

At that point, Michael decided to make enough pasta to last him the week (kudos for meal planning, kid).

To quote the text he sent me, "Even though 1/4 lbs of broccoli is a lot, it is next to nothing when mixed into a pound a pasta. Also, one pound of pasta is a *lot*"

In this case, I would recommend upping the vegetables when you up the amount of carbs or protein in a dish. The goal here is to make sure that every forkful has a bite of every element in the dish (see "The Mirror Has Two Faces" tie-in).  If Michael's original dish called for 4 ounces of broccoli for 4 ounces of pasta, he should have continued with a 1:1 ratio when increasing the dish's volume.

The only situation in which I might not follow that rule, would be when increasing the amount of fat  -- like olive oil or butter -- but that's just my health-conscious preferences chiming in.