Food Friday: "Going Green" - for Dinner?

Here's a thought-provoking blog post from a good friend of mine working on nutrition and food safety issues...
Food Friday: "Going Green" - for Dinner?

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Buttery Risotto with Portobello and Parmesan

In an effort to make some comfort food on Sunday night and also clean out the cabinets a bit, I found this recipe on Epicurious. I adapted it to use Arborio rice because I discovered that the barley I have in the cabinet is not pearl barley, and would likely have taken to my 30th birthday to cook.

While trying to discern if I had pearl barley or not, I learned more about barley than I suspect many health food store employees know. (That's not to disparage very knowledgeable and helpful health food store employees!) Now I am 75% sure that the Goya barley in my cabinet is hulled barley (aka barley groats), but of course the package only says "barley," hence my uncertainty. Hulled barley is more nutritious than pearl barley because it is less processed/refined (not sure of the correct term here); only its outermost hull has been polished off. However, pretty much the only use for hulled barley is in stews and soups. And I like stew...but Sunday I wanted to throw some grains, butter and cheese in a pot and call it dinner.

This was the first time I've ever scraped the gills out of a mushroom. My initial reaction was that this sounded really fussy, but I figured out pretty quickly that the gills would have discolored the risotto, probably making it an unappetizing gray color. Point taken.

I would use more portobello next time (this was about 6 oz). Since I cut the amount of grain ingredient in half, I sort of made a half recipe, but I kept the portobello at full force. There are just never enough mushrooms. I'm frequently disappointed by the shrinkage of mushrooms.

Baaaaa! It's lamb season.

First grilling of the season!

These lamb loin chops came from the incredible little emporium of local grub, Maple Avenue Market in Vienna, VA. Its owners, Chris and Sara are also among the forces behind On the Gourmet, which, by the way, outfitted my first date with my boyfriend. He's got good taste (paté, goat cheese and flatbread crackers) and entrepreneurial foodie friends.

He was also responsible for preparing these chops with a combination of bbq sauce, balsamic vinegar and pepper and grilling them to perfection.

I've been left wanting more lamb! BAAAAA!

Salads and Vinaigrette

Spring has sprung and the lettuces are growing. I signed up for a month of Arganica and ordered the $25 fresh picks box last week. I got a lot of green stuff: lettuce, spinach, chiles, sprouts, celery, cilantro, two tomatoes and two apples. I wasn't expecting to get non-local produce, the apples and celery were organic but were packaged/labeled. Oh well...I think I'll wait until the summer to try being a better locavore. For what it's worth, I searched for some more local asparagus at the grocery store the other day. I bought the asparagus from Californian among the Mexican bundles. CA is more local than Mexico, right? Hmm....that's a stretch.

Vinaigrette has always been my favorite salad dressing. Growing up my mom used to make her own "oil and vinegar" and keep it in a corked bottle in the fridge. We usually had a few other salad dressings on hand but the oil and vinegar was everyone's favorite. This week I made vinaigrette with apple cider vinegar, olive oil and some grainy dijon mustard. Putting dijon in my salad dressing makes me feel French.

Here's a salad (adapted) from the Paris Cookbook by Patricia Wells, a book I received from my college roommate while she was living in Paris. So simple: Spinach, avocado, bacon and vinaigrette. I made this two nights in a row! And ended up eating (with help from my bf) an 8 oz package of bacon in 4 days. Have I ever mentioned how much I love bacon?