Sun dried tomato and pumpkin risotto

TGIF... so goes the saying. I wholeheartedly believe in this. The kitchen's always the place to be - either dreaming up new recipes or throwing away the spoils of summer.
This evening we decided to make risotto to complement the excellent baguette the wife had made the day before. Its been a while since I've come back to risotto. The earlier attempts were desperately trying to get the flavouring ans stock right. This time there was more time to contemplate what needed to go into the dish.
Started out with boiling half a pumpkin which I thought would give it a good orange hue with a hint of sweetness. Turns out the pumpkin lost almost all its colour and hardly had any taste left. Combined a chunk of this with some freshly dried tomato (last batch before the rains here) and gave it a quick whisk in the blender.
I've got a packet of Italian arborio sitting up in the pantry waiting to be used, but didn't want to use that precious cargo before I got my recipe right. I chose the highly versatile short grained (idly) rice that is a perennial in any South Indian home.
A dash of garlic in a little olive oil with the pumpkin-tomato puree and half a cup of rice got things started. Stock was replaced with plain hot water, poured a cup at a time every 6-7mts until i was able to completely cook the rice. An addition of some agri parmegiano grand padano completed the pot.
The dish was served with home made baguettes and fresh butter. Lovely taste with the tomato giving it a beauiful yellowish-brown color. Next time the original arborio comes out with some mushroom and parsley.

The Rice of the Incas

Quinoa (spelt Kin-vah) has been a traditional South American staple for centuries. Its supposedly as common as our millets here. The missus and me, being frequent visitors to Heidi Swanson's website, where she uses quinoa extensively, often wondered what it would be like.

I happened to lay my hands on some red quinoa in the course of my travels. After a packed Saurday night schedule, neither of us were in a mood to make anything elaborate for breakfast. I took it on myself to try out this cereal. The instructions said it could be treated as rice and cooked as such.

I'd decided to try something simple which wouldn't overwhelm the grain. I tossed some onion and garlic into a soup pan and then mixed in the quinoa, toasting it well in the olive oil. 2 cups of water and 20mts later, my grain was cooked, with a translucent look. I added some newly bought grand padano, toasted pecan halves and pine nuts and fresh coriander.

The texture was nutty with a delicious bite, but certainly something that is an acquired taste. The olive oil and salt balanced the nuttiness with the cheese providing just the right amount of sourness.

This is definitely wort exploring more. Apart from its obvious health benefits, its a great texture grain to add into any salad.

My first Baguette

With the missus getting really good at breads, I decided it was time I did some experimenting of my own. My bible on this has loosely been The Breadbakers Apprentice. The problem is the time you need to invest in getting the traditional process completed - about 20hours, of which you need to be in the vicinity for the last 6. Given work schedules, this is only possible on the weekends.
I wanted to see if I could get this done in the course of a work week.
The original poulish was kept for around 14hrs and the rest of the ingredients were added in using a slightly modified recipe found here.

The resulting bread was ok, not great, but just about ok. The adage 'Practise makes perfect' is definitely true in this case. All in all, the left overs of the baguette go into making some perfect summer gazpacho - now thats something I'm really looking forward to.