some friends came over for dinner the other week and i made this rip off of heidi swanson’s barley risotto with lemon. it wasn’t creamy like a risotto, more hearty and less creamy i suppose? although i did include a generous scoop of goat cheese to give it a little richness. i just didn’t go through the cook-in-creamy-liquid labor intensive risotto process. i usually set out to make risotto, and then decide that i don’t have the patience for the traditional consistency.
1 cup rice and 1 cup barley cooked in veg broth, about 1/2 cup goat cheese, zest of four lemons–don’t worry if they’re not meyer lemons, juice of one of those lemons, 3 cups chopped greens (i used kale, i think, it’s all a jumble of leaves in our fridge) sauteed with garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper, and the lemon juice, as well as half a minced white onion…mix it all up, cheese goes on last. serve it warm.
we also made the classic victoria salad, named after a friend of mine who made the best salads for us when we were in south africa.
the victoria salad is a mix of whatever plants you have around (in this case some co-op romaine with avocado, tomato, raisins, sunflower seeds) and dressed with the classic mustard vinaigrette, which is just balsamic, olive oil, maybe a little lemon, definitely a generous bit of mustard, and salt and pepper. i like to add a little sugar to mine to emulsify it all up.
i also adapted this pair of recipes from the homesick texan, which is cafe con olla ice cream covered with a bunch of home made chocolate fudge. which i decided to also spike with cinnamon. it didn’t freeze up for the guests to have some the way it was supposed to be (the coffee was hot, my mistake) but boy oh boy when it did freeze up…excellent. d. took this photo:
that ice cream machine was worth every penny.
