Wild Rice Salad

In the "great pantry stock up" before the baby was born I bought a giant bag of wild rice. I was surprised to find it at the Asian market on Duraleigh in Raleigh. Though wild rice is usually thought of as a food native to North America, I recently learned that it also grows in some places in Asia.

It seemed like forever since I had made anything with wild rice (I don't think I saw it in the markets in Germany), so this salad was a real treat.

1 and 1/2 cups wild rice
1 red onion
1 carrot
1 stalk celery
1 apple
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons mustard
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
3 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper

Bring a large, well-salted pot of water to a boil. Add rice and cook until the rice is al dante, about 25 minutes. Drain rice and place in a large bowl.

Finely dice onion and chop carrot, celery, and apples into small pieces. Add to the bowl with the rice along with the cranberries and walnuts. Grate cheese and add to the bowl as well.

In a small bowl prepare the vinaigrette by whisking together the mustard, vinegar, and olive oil. Pour vinaigrette over the rice and vegetables. Season with salt and pepper.

Serve warm or cold. To make the salad into a meal, place rice over mixed greens and top with grilled chicken.

Pumpkin Risotto

Those amazing little pumpkins* that I wrote about last week continue to catch my eye. They are the perfect size for cooking up one dish, easy to handle, and roast to fork tender in less then 30 minutes when I have the convection oven turned on. Having eaten my fill of quick breads in the last couple of weeks, though, this time I decided to try something new.

I roasted a chicken for dinner last week, so I had a fresh batch of chicken stock on hand. Therefore, a pot of pumpkin risotto seemed like a natural choice.

1 2 -pound pumpkin
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion
4 cloves garlic
1 cup aborio rice
1 quart chicken stock
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon cream
1/4 cup fresh grated Parmasian
Salt and pepper

Preheat over to 375 degrees. Cut pumpkin or squash in half, remove seeds, and rub with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Place flesh-side on a baking sheet and roast until the flesh can be easily pierce with a fork, about 45 minutes. (30 minutes if you have a convection oven.) Remove from oven. When it is cool enough to handle, remove the skin and place flesh in a bowl.** Mash pumpkin flesh with 1 tablespoon of stock.

Heat stock in a medium-sized sauce pan. Leave simmering.

Finely chop onion and mince garlic. Add 1 tablespoon of olive oil to a wide, pan with shallow sides. Over medium-high heat, cook onion and garlic for three to five minutes, until translucent. Add rice and cook for two or three minutes, until the rice smells slightly toasted.

Reduce heat to low and add two ladles of stock to the rice. Stirring frequently until most of the liquid has adsorbed. Continue to add stock, one or two ladles full at a time, and stirring frequently until the rice has cooked to al dente, about 35 minutes.

Add mashed pumpkin to the rice mixture and stir until fully incorporated. Add butter, cream, and Parmesans. Season with salt and pepper. Risotto is best served immediately.

*I know I told you there were really squash, but they don't look like squash, so I'm sticking with pumpkin. And for that matter, a tomato is a vegetable in my book.
** The pumpkin or squash can be cooked up to three days in advance.