Lots of fun music shows this past week… oddly enough, all of them at clothing shops. I saw Thad Cockrell at Imogene & Willie and Derek Hoke and Korby Lenker at Hip Zipper. (Side note from music and food- Imogene & Willie has one of the coolest spaces ever and they make totally awesome and amazing custom jeans. Carrie and Matt are good people! Teresa at Hip Zipper in East Nashville has some of the best vintage threads in town and she has a ton of new stuff!)

Oooh so back to the title there, tornadie weather in Nashville kept us in the house on this Saturday evening… and unexpectedly we needed to cook some dinner so I took stock of what we had on hand and came up with a good plan. I created a Green Risotto with cooked carrots on the side. It was delicious and very nutritious and oh so pretty! It went something like this…

I was lucky to get a little concert of Grant’s new slide guitar as I worked on the prep. Our kitchen seems to have some good acoustics! Maybe kitchen concerts in the near future?!

So, back to the risotto- First, I heated some veggie stock we already had open (Imagine’s No-Chicken stock) and added some thinly sliced garlic (2 cloves). Then I blended a little of the stock with a bunch of spinach and a bunch of parsley and mixed that in to the stock. It made the stock turn a beautiful Kelly green color!

Then I sliced up the colorful organic carrots we had and cut them in match sticks to saute in a little butter. They were so sweet and delicious that we didn’t even have to salt them. They were a perfect side dish- color and flavor.

Once all the other prep work was done, we started on the risotto. I learned to make risotto from Grant who learned from his Italian friend Maurizio long ago. First we sauteed finely chopped onion, then added garlic and the arborio rice. Then gradually we added the stock, stirring constantly. It was at this point I summoned Grant in to help. On the side we sauteed the cut zucchini and green pepper and added that in when the rice was almost done. At the very end, we stirred in some shredded Parmesan Reggiano.

AND then, this morning Grant made risotto cakes with eggs and Old Folk’s turkey sausage for our Sunday brunch! It was so delicious and a great use of left overs.

Tomato, pepper, and herb starts to plant in the garden today!!! More music and food to report soon.