Recipe of the Week: Pan Seared Scallops with Saffron Risotto

Even though it's officially spring, the weather in PA has been far more winter like and I always want to make more comfort food when its cold and wet out. 
Risotto takes a while, and requires a little tending too, but it's not that hard. I tend to keep my risotto on the al dente side as I'm not fond of mushy stuff!

Ingredients:

1 quart vegetable broth
1/2 cup white wine
1 cup brown arborio rice
1/2 lb sea scallops (mine were huge and I sliced them in half)
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 onion diced
1/4 of red pepper sliced
handful of snap peas, cut in 1/2
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 Saffron threads, crushed
ground pepper

1. In a saucepan add vegetable broth and wine, heat at medium low until warm and then turn off. Keep a lid on the sauce pan
2. Add rice to large saute pan, put heat on medium and toast rice, until fragrant. Turn heat down.
3. Add 2 cups of vegetable broth/wine mixture to rice, stir gently and cover
4. When liquid is almost absorbed by the rice add another cup of liquid
5. Meanwhile in another saute pan add 1 tablespoon butter and saute onion, pepper and mushrooms.
6. When vegetables are close to cooked add snap peas. When snap peas are warmed remove all veggies from the pan
7. Add another tablespoon of butter, turn pan to medium high heat, wait for pan to heat and then add scallops
8. Sear scallops for a couple minutes on each side until just cooked through
9. Test rice. It is cooked when the rice is still firm, but soft. Add Parmesan at this point and stir
10. Add saffron and a dash of pepper, mix in
11. Add sauteed veggies in  and place cooked scallops on top. 

NOTE: The whole process take about 45 minutes. 

Vegetable Substitutions:
Celery
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Spinach
Grape Tomatoes
Carrots
Corn

Use your imagination and combine different things.

What We Had for Dinner

The fall back to school schedule is a bit full this year, I'm not sure how it happened, but somehow the boys have at least one commitment most weekdays. Tuesdays are my favorite, there is cross country, intramural sports, baseball and piano, and Tuesdays happen to be the day that I have most of my networking events too. Finding the time to make dinner, never mind something that everyone likes and is healthy seems like an impossible feat. This last week we have had the following:

Lemon Garlic Braised Chicken: I made this last Sunday and while it does take a while to make, about one hour of cooking time, I made a lot of extra brown rice which I used later in the week. For this dish, you place whole cloves of garlic in 2 cups of chicken broth and simmer for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, place the chicken thighs a saute pan and brown. When the chicken is done add 1 tablespoon of flour and make a roux with the fat. Slowly add about 2/3 cup of white wine, stirring constantly. Pour the chicken broth in the saute pan and continue to stir until slightly thickened. Place chicken, sliced lemon, and liquid into oven-proof dish and cook for about 45 minutes on 350. I served with local green beans, beets and shitake mushrooms, but you can serve with whatever makes you happy. While it does take a while to make, I love this dish because I can double or even triple it and we have leftovers or I can freeze it for dinner another week.


Fried Rice: With the left-over rice from the Lemon Garlic Braised Chicken I made what we call "Fried Rice" Not exactly Asian, our Fried Rice includes whatever vegetables are on hand at the moment. For this I scrambled 2 eggs and then sauteed, onions, carrots, swiss chard,  and mushrooms. I add the cold rice to the pan and let it heat through, not stirring too often. Once heated I add mixture of tamari, minced ginger, fish sauce and rice vinegar. Toss gently until mixed through. Serve with cashew if you like. Oh, and make sure you stir the ginger in thoroughly. I got sidetracked and we had a lot of ginger in one area.

Stuffed Pumpkins: I made this Saturday with the local Sweet Italian Sausage, red quinoa, and lentils as the base. Again I cooked extra lentils to use in soup later. For this I sauteed onions, garlic, carrots, sweet potatoes and one beet. Mix everything together and stuff your pumpkin. Cooking time is about one hour, but at least you can do something else while it's in the oven.

Lentil Soup:  We'll be having this on Tuesday! I made this on Sunday, while I was making a bunch of other things. Sauteed onions, carrot and sweet potatoes, added the lentils in and the broth that was left over from cooking them. Next add one 15 ounce can of diced tomatoes and I had some broccoli left over from something else so I put that in too. When I reheat I'm going to add some baby spinach and serve with a loaf of this amazing bread I bought from Sweetwater Baking Co. http://www.sweetwaterbakingcompany.com/index.html

Enjoy and try something new

Healthy, Easy Dinner Salad

We haven't had summer squash or zucchini since the zucchini cakes about a month ago, but I saw this recipe from Clean Eating and had to try it. The local zucchini/summer squash season is pretty much over, but I was lucky to find a few at my favorite farmers market. I added mushrooms and substituted the champagne vinegar for rice vinegar and fresh mozzarella for the feta, because I forgot to pick up feta at the farmers market. The feta would only make this dish even better than it was.

http://www.cleaneatingmag.com/recipes/downloads/ce32_harvest_salad.pdf

enjoy and eat real!