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!

Mushroom Risotto with French Lentils

Here's what I made for J last night (for her lunch or dinner today).

Ingredients
1 cup French lentils
several big shakes of Organic no-salt Seasoning
2 cups water

3/4 cup arborio rice
1 medium organic sweet onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced and coarsely chopped
3/4 -1 cup mixed exotic mushrooms, coarsely chopped
1 1/2 cups water
olive oil

What I did
First, I cooked the lentils in my medium Le Creuset: combine water, lentils, and seasoning; cover; stir as needed until water is absorbed and lentils are cooked. When the lentils were finished, I transferred them to a medium glass bowl.
I then heated the olive oil in the same pan. When it was warm, I sautéed the onion for 4 minutes, and then added the garlic for another minutes. Then I added the rice to coat it in the oil and the mushrooms. I sautéed everything together for a minute or two, then added the water. I covered the pot partially and let it all cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally. When the water was absorbed and the rice creamy, I added 3/4 of the cooked lentils and stirred to combine. Then I turned off the heat.

Voila! Mushroom risotto with french lentils! And only one dirty dish! Woo hoo!!

It smelled good, so hopefully it will taste good too! I put the remaining lentils in another dish to save for another meal. :)

The verdict on this dish: too much of a mushroom flavor (and not enough of something else) for J. She ate it rather unwillingly, but ate it. I ate it with LOTS of nutritional yeast added, which made it taste a lot better. But noone gave J sprinkles for hers with lunch. Oh well.