Vegetable paella

Vegetable paella
Originally uploaded by EatingVideo

We had a small gathering of friends to celebrate the week of birthdays. I grilled some lamb, my wife made some great hummus and seeing as we had some vegetarian guests, I made a vegetable paella.
Ingredients
3 cups bomba rice
9 cups of salted water (should taste like the ocean) (including the water from the asparagus)
1 lb of roasted red pepper, sliced into strips
4 cooked artichoke hearts
1/4 cup of pine nuts
1/2 cup of cooked large white beans
one jar of white asparagus
2 handfulls of fresh green beans
2 tablespoons of pimenton
pinch of paprika
one large grated tomato
4 cloves of garlic
1/3 cup of olive oil
2 cups of assorted wild mushrooms

I sauteed the garlic and mushrooms and pine nuts in the olive oil, the added mushrooms and when soft added the paprika and quickly mixed and added the grated tomato.
After another several minutes I added the water, paprika and the rice.
when the water came to a boil the green beans went in followed by the red pepper strips and large white beas.
when the water level lowered to the rice then I layered the artichokes and white asparagus on top. I kept it on the burners till a slight char developed on the bottom, then served.
Turned out great!

Grilled lamb with eggplant and green beans

lamb.1
Originally uploaded by EatingVideo

My daughter fell in love with some rack of lamb we had on vacation and wanted to try and make it. The one she had eaten came with a demiglace sauce so we tried that too. We first marinated two frenched racks of lamb. The marinade we made in the blender out of the following:
6 large figs
2 sprigs of rosemary
4 cloves of garlic
¼ cup of olive oil
2 tablespoons of apple juice
2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
1 tsp of salt
4 black peppercorns
1 tsp of capers
1 tsp of Dijon mustard
We coated the racks and let them sit overnight in the fridge.



The next day we started the sauce with some beef soup bones that we bought at the SOJ market. We painted them in tomato paste.



and roasted them on the grill (but it can be done in the oven, just it's summer and all...) till well browned.



In a stock pot we covered the bones in water, added some carrots, half an onion, a head of garlic, and a bay leaf. Brought it to a boil, skimmed the foam and then turned to a simmer for 45 min.

For the demiglace sauce we reduced one bottle of red wine, 2 cups of beef stock and 2 cups of chicken stock all down to one cup of liquid. (Kind of interesting effect of causing it to hard boil when a skewer touches the bottom of the pan)



The sauce was then finished with a tablespoon of butter, salt and pepper to taste, a little honey to balance the acid.

For sides we roasted some eggplants (SOJ market) with oregano, salt, pepper, olive oil and whole heads of garlic



and we steamed some green beans (Also SOJ)



The lamb was grilled to medium rare



and cut into two rib pieces for serving





It turned out very good particularly the lamb with crusty edges and pink center. The fig can be just tasted in the marinade. The sauce took forever but was incredibly rich and meaty tasting. We had fun start to finish with probably one of the more complicated meals my daughter has cooked with me from sauce to meat, and two sides we made everything together. And enjoyed it!



Go cook with your kids!