slightly spicy asparagus risotto and tomato salad

Apparently gina marie and sarah emily are more fun than I am when I'm cooking ... this is them having fun in the kitchen :)



When I was making the penne last week, I was seduced by asparagus at the store, and also bought fresh tomatoes - forgetting that I needed canned ones! In order to deal with this problem, I decided to retry my chard risotto recipe but this time with asparagus - and spiced up a little because i had a cold and needed to clear my sinuses. The tomatoes had to go too, and I didn't want them to muddy up the risotto, so I raided the fridge for random things with which to make a salad. Sarah emily took the pictures, and wanted to make the point that gina marie was stirring and sarah emily was helping by drinking beer.

First, the risotto:

I chopped a white onion and the rest of the garlic in the house (equivalent of 3-4 cloves - they were little baby garlic pieces! I popped them in my soup pot with the bottom coated in olive oil with 4 shakes of my new favorite spice (from the pea soup recipe!) smoked paprika, and 4 shakes of cayenne. I stirred and put it on low heat.



Then I got started with the asparagus. I had almost a whole bunch of it. I cut off the the woody stems (more cut off on the thick ones, the thin ones you can just trim), and then cut what was left of the asparagus into about 6 pieces (each about a half an inch? I'm bad with measuring.)

I popped them into a saute pan covered with some olive oil and put it on low heat, stirring occasionally until the asparagus was a very bright green. Then I shut off the heat and let them sit in the pan.



When the onion-garlic-spices mixture had cooked for about 5 minutes and seemed soft, I added half a cup of risotto rice and stirred. Then I added 4 cups of vegetable stock (apparently the boxes come in 4 cup portions, so I used an unnecessary measuring cup - but how was I to know!) and turned the heat on medium high.







As the risotto cooked down, gina marie did a good job of stirring constantly, which meant we could keep the heat pretty high and the risotto wouldn't burn. when I tasted the rice and it was soft and done, I stirred in all the asparagus, just long enough to get it hot - less than a minute - and then turned off the heat on the risotto. The risotto was served with lots of parmesan cheese and with...

tomato salad:

gina marie chopped about 3 not-so-awesome supermarket vine ripened tomatoes. I stripped a small handful of cilantro and about 6 leaves of basil and chopped them up.



Then I peeled and chopped a carrot I found in the fridge, and combined the chopped herbs, carrots, and tomatoes. Finally, I made some dressing by whisking about 2 parts olive oil to one part balsamic vinegar with a generous pinch of salt and about a half a teaspoon of cracked pepper. I dressed the salad just before serving.

We seem to have forgotten to take any pictures of the tomato salad. we ate it too fast.

Here's the risotto.

Sometimes sarah emily pretends to pour honey on it:




Sometimes it is in its bowl:

chard risotto -- vegan (or not!)

I bought some rainbow chard at the stop and shop yesterday because it looked good and seemed right for the season. I knew I was making dinner today, but had no idea what I would make! At work I looked up recipes that had swiss chard and I was thinking I wanted to make soup, but most of the chard soups had anchovies in them - and I wasn't interested in making that tonight. But then I found a list of recipes including chard and abelandcole.co.uk - and it had a cool risotto recipe in it in addition to a soup with anchovies, so risotto it was! The recipe is here: http://www.abelandcole.co.uk/content/recipes/chard.htm#recipe6 - all of the chard recipes are on that page, and it made me want to try some more!

First I took a bunch of rainbow chard and cut out the stems - I'm saving them for later - but not sure what I'm doing with them! then I tore it in large pieces and put it in a colander and washed the leaves.

Then I put the chard leaves still with some water on them in my saute pan and turned the heat on medium and put the lid on. Every so often I used some tongs to stir it around.

I chopped an onion and sarah emily chopped 4 cloves of garlic. I added those with two shakes of powdered cayenne pepper to a soup pot with the bottom covered in olive oil. I put the heat on medium low and stirred.

Once the chard was cooked I spooned it into a bowl to cool. I deglazed the pan with some white wine so that I could take advantage of the chard juice that was left over.

when the onions looked soft I added half a cup of risotto rice and stirred it in so that it was coated with the oil and onions and garlic and cayenne. Then I poured my delgazing wine from the saute pan over it and added 4 cups of vegetable stock to the pot. I turned the heat up to medium high until it bubbled.


While I was doing that, sarah emily chopped the now-cool chard into small pieces. after about 40 minutes, with occasional stirring, the rice started to seem cooked and it really thickened up - I was worried it wasn't enough rice - but a little goes a long way! when it was thick but still a bit liquid-y I stirred in the chard and added some pepper. after about 3 minutes it looked hot and good and it was ready!

I set out some fake and some real parmesan and the four of us ate everything. it was really pretty good!