All of the above ingredients went into the dinner I made last night after a very rough day at work. Cooking was the furthest thing from my mind when I got home; all I could think about was propping up the achy foot I walked around on all day (boo, plantar fasciitis). I'm glad I did because I was getting sick of settling for a frozen Amy's Kitchen entree (even though they're good), chips and salsa, chips and hummus or a salad consisting of the salad greens and dressing (nothing to chop).
Until yesterday, I also had a ridiculously overgrown parsley plant in the backyard with stalks - actual stalks, like five or six of them - that were making it hard for the newer leaves to grow in. So, inspired by necessity, I chopped off all the stalks, snipped all the parsley with normal-looking stems off them and then used all four cups worth to make a parsley and walnut pesto, about half of which went into the risotto (same recipe as
here but with ground sage sauteed in Earth Balance with the rice; the pesto instead of spinach; and no nutmeg). The lentils were cooked in salt, rosemary and a few sprigs of fresh thyme. Steve found the lentils a nice complement to the brightness of the pesto risotto, and the leftovers hit the spot after my 10-mile run this morning! I also look forward to using the leftover pesto in a quick and easy pasta dish in the next day or two.
Tonight I made
a recipe from this month's Food and Wine magazine that came together really fast by substituting canned chickpeas for dried. I also left out the caraway and cilantro because I didn't have any and because the recipe seemed to have enough flavor without them.
I was right! I also substituted about six big, finely chopped spearmint leaves (one tablespoon?) for the teaspoon of dried mint because I have tons of mint in the veggie/herb garden right now and because the dried mint that I have on hand right now is the cheap stuff from the Mexican aisle that's chock full of stems. (Double boo. I should collect some from the backyard and start preserving it myself.) With canned chickpeas, it only took a little over a half-hour to make, and the combination of wilted Swiss chard and a cool yogurt topping was a lot like something by a Turkish chef they profiled several years back. Try it out sometime when you don't have a lot of time or energy to cook! The recipe doesn't mention a starch, but a bed of couscous seemed like the obvious choice.
Hope everyone's enjoying this nice weather - I know I've been enjoying the rain in intervals that keep me from having to water the veggies I'll be cooking with this summer!
