Fresh Friday

I'm starting a series this year, to partner with my resolution to eat locally AND seasonally. "Fresh Fridays!"  I know how much easier it is to do this in California than most other places in the country, however, let me just tell you, we're getting slightly over eating winter greens in our house. Here's the deal:  we're using our CSA box and a food wheel as our guides -- even if the food wheel doesn't say it, if it comes in our CSA box, we count it as allowable, and can buy more of that from the market if we need to.  In the Bay Area, seasonal vegetables in January are bitter leafy greens like spinach, kale, mustard greens, bok choy, and we're getting leeks, broccoli, romanesco, oranges, some apples, and winter squash. Frozen and canned food is allowed, however, we're really trying to be local as well, and are therefore trying to avoid them as much as possible.

Week 1:

Winter Squash Baked Risotto  (this recipe is adapted from one from Real Simple, and it's both simple and amazingly delicious. We've made it so far with butternut, acorn, and red kuri squashes, all have been great!)

about 3 cups of squash cut into 3/4 inch cubes.
1 cup pearl barley
about 2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup dry white wine
3 cups vegetable broth
1 tablespoon of butter
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
5 or 8 oz of spinach, however much you like/have
salt and pepper
tsp of garlic

Prep your squash and your onion, pre-heat oven to 350, and then heat olive oil in a dutch oven on the stove. Add the onions and garlic and saute until soft, about 3 minutes, crack some salt and pepper in there.  Add the squash and saute another 5 minutes until it's soft too.  Add the barley and stir, cook for one minute, add the wine, cook for another 3 minutes, add the broth, stir and bring to a boil.  Put the lid on and transfer your dutch oven to the heated oven, and cook for 45 minutes.  Pull it out, stir in the butter and most of the Parmesan, and then the spinach.  Garnish with the rest of the parm sprinkled on top.  Serve it with your same dry white and enjoy!  serves about 6.

photo credit: Real Simple