Food...mmmmmmm

I love risotto. The reason I first decided I wanted to make my own was during the first season of Hell's Kitchen, wherein Gordon Ramsay yelled and pitched fits and was always harping about the risotto. There's nothing really super hard about this dish, but it does take patience and time.

Anyway, how excited was I when I got my Vegetarian Times magazine and found a risotto recipe? Very excited. Until I read the recipe, which uses the microwave. What, WHAT? I don't have anything against microwaves, we use ours all the time. But can you really call something risotto if you haven't taken the time to add the broth one ladelfull at a time, if you haven't stirred lovingly for upwards of thirty minutes until your rice is just the right texture? Questionable, Vegetarian Times, questionable.

But the actual recipe, Curried Butternut Squash Risotto with Cashews, still sounded pretty good. So I took my techniques and the ingredients and ran with it. Here's what I ended up with:

Sorry for the crummy picture. I'm still not super great with the camera. The plate on the left is baked kale, and if you've never had baked kale, you're missing out. So good. And the risotto on the right. You can't tell, but the consistency is exactly like what I've had in restaurants.

I thought about posting the how to for this dish, but it would take forever. So you'll have to do what I did: google and then practice. The basics for risotto are the same no matter what the recipe. Have fun!!

And I guess I'll post our dinner tonight real quick. I had some technical difficulties and meant to get this whole thing posted earlier in the day. During dinner, I took a quick pic of my plate, so here it is:

This is a stir fry with red peppers, broccoli, mushrooms, onions, and soy curls. There's some brown rice peeking out under all the stir fry goodness too.

You're probably wondering...do her kids really eat that stuff?? The best answer is...yes. Some of the time. On any given night we'll have a main dish, usually a grain on the side, and then some raw fruit or veggies that I know the kids will eat. They are not starving by any means. We do dish up a small scoop of whatever we're eating onto their plates and ask them to at least try a bite. Or at least lick it. Sometimes they eat it, like Reese gobbling up stir fry tonight, and sometimes they don't. No big deal. Kids can control two things, toileting and eating, and I'm not about to get into a battle about those things. We offer three good, nutritious meals a day around here, and I'm pretty loose with the snacks (as long as they're reasonably healthy). It all seems to work out.

So yeah. I'm going to be blogging more food because starting in October, I'd like to blog our meals for the entire month. October 1st is World Vegetarian Day, and October is Vegetarian Awareness Month. I wanted to share how a regular family eats vegetarian, and show readers that veg food doesn't have to be complicated, and it is kid friendly. If any of you would like to join me in a meatless October 1st, or a meatless month, that would rock!! I'll write more about it later, but start thinking!