Asparagus risotto

Last night I made an asparagus risotto for the girls' dinner. 

Ingredients 

1 bunch fresh asparagus from the farmers' market, trimmed 

Olive oil 

Coarse sea salt 

Freshly ground pepper 

1/2 red onion, finely chopped 

2 T extra virgin olive oil 

1 1/2 cups arborio rice 

1/2 cup reisiling (also from farmers' market) 

3 cups organic vegetable broth 

Salt 

What to do 

Preheat oven to 425. Wash and trim the asparagus. Then toss with evoo, coarse sea salt, and freshly ground pepper. Roast for ten minutes. Let asparagus cool, then cut into one inch pieces. Meanwhile, in a heavy bottom pan, heat the 2 T evoo and cook the red onion. When it is soft, add the arborio rice and cook for two minutes. Then add the white wine (I used reisiling), stirring constantly. When the wine is cooked in, add the veggie broth, one or one-half cup at a time, constantly stirring. With last cup or half-cup, add the roasted and cut asparagus and salt to taste. Serve with salt And nutritional yeast. Relatively easy dinner, except for the constant stirring. Jacqui complained about the asparagus, but ate everything up. Aji ate a bit more than half her portion, but had gorged on coco bread right before, so she may have been legitimately full. I liked it too. Leftovers for lunch this week!

Braised Brussels Sprouts and Asparagus with Beans and Couscous

For dinner Thursday night, I made braised Brussels sprouts, asparagus, and beans with couscous. My mom also cooked a super-sweet acorn squash that I stuffed with couscous and yellow zuchinni sauteed in earth balance.

Ingredients
~1 lb Brussels sprouts
1 large sweet yellow onion
handful asparagus
1 can kidney beans
1 can pinto beans
salt
pepper
olive oil
Earth Balance

1 package whole wheat couscous
2 T Earth Balance
3 cups water
Mrs. Dash no-salt spice

What to do
First, wash the Brussels sprouts and remove the hard/damaged outer leaves. Then slice them thinly (3-4 cuts per sprout). This takes a while, but it's worth it.
Second, chop the onion into small pieces.
Third, wash and break off the hard ends of the asparagus and then chop the asparagus into 1/2 to 1 inch pieces.
Warm a pan on the stove and add olive oil and Earth Balance when warm. When the oil and butter is heated, add the onion and saute for ~five minutes.
Meanwhile, put the water in a separate pan to boil and add a little salt. Once it's boiling, add the Earth Balance and then the couscous and cook for two minutes. Turn the heat off and add as much as little Mrs. Dash (using what I have here at my mom's!) as you like. Mix the spices in and cover the pot to allow the couscous to steam and use up any remaining water.
Back to the onion pan. Add the strips of sprouts and pieces of asparagus and stir. Cover the pan and let everything cook for 10-15 minutes (until the sprout strips and asparagus are bright green). Add a little water if needed to keep from burning and stir a few times. Add salt and pepper to season.
Rinse and add the two cans of beans (~3 cups beans). Cook for another five minutes or so, until all is warm.
Serve the sprout strips, asparagus, and beans over the couscous with extra salt and pepper for everyone to season as they wish.
This was enough food me me, D, J, KA, B, and Mom for dinner. With leftovers. It was pretty tasty.

For the acorn squash, I sauteed some golden yellow zuchinni that my mom got at the farmers' market in Towson with Earth Balance, added some broken up pecans, and stuffed the squash (also a mom's purchase from the farmers' market). These acorn squash were super sweet and tasty.