risotto

man, it has been a looong time since i talked about anything i cooked. it's been a long time since i cooked! anything more than spaghetti or soy barbecue wings, anyway. mostly because most days i come home feeling like i've been hit by a bus. however, today was a slow day. not one pregnant woman all. day. long. you would think a little snow wouldn't stop something like labor, for pete's sake, but it seems it does.

in the call room i watched:
sleepless in seattle
say yes to the dress (x2 episodes)
what not to wear
income property
first time design
divine design
colour confidential
color splash (only intermittently. i got up to visit my baby-friend, but she cried too much, so i put her back in her crib and left. also, i actually examined a second baby at this point.)
dear genevieve
what not to wear, again
say yes to the dress, again, which was good because i caught the beginning of this morning's first episode, which had been eclipsed by the end of sleepless in seattle.

while it kind of sucks to be busy like a maniac at work, there is something different yet equally terrible about being trapped in a place for 12 hours with absolutely nothing to do.

anyway, so i left the hospital feeling like a caged animal let into the wild. what would i do?? i would cook! yet any respectable grocery store is way out of the way and i was too lazy for that. so i started to ponder what i had at home. i came up with:

frozen spinach
arborio rice
1/2 of a box of vegetable broth

and, then... the missing link: a small tub of pesto left over from this summer!

i have also been cooking with walnuts a lot - my friend clued me in to the fact that they're a great protein replacement in meatless pasta sauce. so i tossed in some walnuts and made myself a nice little risotto! it turned out well, i have to say. and while i always thought risotto had to be super creamy and fatty (and bad for you), it really doesn't. i only tossed a little extra parmesean on top and did the rest of the cooking with olive oil. and it's really so easy but seems so decadent when you're eating it.

mmm. i forgot how much i like to cook. next goal, working my way through the pounds of legumes my mother sent me.

bon appetit!