Lemongrass and Aspargus Risotto and Lots of Other Things

Wow. Seems I haven't posted in a while, eh? I feel like I've barely used the computer in the last week. The kids were at their grandparents' over the weekend, and I took a nice long break from cooking. I got back into the groove this evening, though, with lemongrass and asparagus risotto from V-con. While labor-intensive (lots of adding broth and stirring constantly) it was delicious. Crazy-good. Must make more risotto. To go with it, I made a sort-of crustless spanakopita. Jessica made it during our winter-fun weekend at Canaan Valley. I think she did hers like a casserole. I copied the recipe from her, and it called for making it in a pie-plate. I decided to try it that way and cut it into slices. Mmmmmm. So good. Jessica originally found the recipe in Health magazine. It was a really good meal, and the risotto was worth every second of preparation.

Now, back to last week...Wednesday evening, I made a really interesting lentil-kidney bean loaf. The recipe came from my Vegetarian cookbook. It turned out really good, and was especially good as leftovers on a sandwich. Cold with a little ketchup. Very reminiscent of a traditional meatloaf sandwich. I had a mandarin-pecan spinach salad with it. I made the dressing with some spicy pecan vinegar (Thanks, c-drums!), mandarin orange sections, olive oil, salt and pepper. I topped it with some toasted pecans.



Thursday I made the zucchini-chickpea-tomato curry from ED&BV. It was pretty good, but the recipe called for whole coriander seeds. Every few bites, Sleek and I would bite into one of the seeds. It was quite unpleasant. If I make it again, I'll definitely use ground coriander. First time I've thrown away leftovers in many, many months.





My absolute favorite thing I made last week was vegan, no-bake cookies. Yu-hum. Why hadn't I made these before? This is roughly the recipe I came up with:

4 TBS Earth Balance
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 cup turbinado sugar
1/4 cup soy milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 TBS peanut butter
3 cups oatmeal

Melt EB and cocoa powder. Add sugar and soy milk and bring to a boil. Let boil for a few minutes. Remove from heat and add vanilla extract, pb, and oatmeal. Drop spoonfuls onto parchment-lined baking sheets, or just start eating it out of the pot! So good! I'll definitely be making these again. Next time, I'm going to reduce the cocoa to 1/3 cup, and increase the pb by a TBS or two. They were a little too chocolate-y, and not quite peanut butter-y. Still freaking good, though.

Sunday (Not)Soup

Well folks, today was my first attempt at making risotto. I was inspired by carrie's risotto that she posted about on her blog, Adventures in Vegetarianism. I decided on the sun-tomato and mushroom risotto from VWaV. Sleek hates mushrooms, and doesn't really like sun-dried tomatoes either. It's a good thing he was gone for the day! I felt like I needed a strict recipe since I was a "risotto virgin." It was a little time-consuming, and definitely required constant attention when the time came for adding broth/stirring. My arms were certainly tired when the 1/2 hour of stirring finally ended. I was well-rewarded with a steaming hot dish of risotto, though! Holy crap. It was so good that I just couldn't believe it. OMG. Risotto will definitely become a regular dish around here. I can't wait to experiment with some different flavors. I'm thinking a garlic/parmesan or roasted red pepper/spinach risotto would be good. (Sleek-friendly too!)

One thing that helped me get through all that stirring was listening to Beirut's "Gulag Orkestar". I know I've mentioned that album here before. I really can't stress enough how amazing this album is. Please check it out. You won't be disappointed.