The Hottest Thing Around
I hope you are all having a wonderful Tuesday! Today, I tabled nutrition information and recipes at Generations Family Health Center. What does “tabling” mean? It means we try to attack waylay draw people to our table of fun fun fun nutrition information as they enter the building. ;) I’m still a little surprised at how hard it is for people to take FREE information, recipes, and samples. Then again, life has handed hard knocks to some of the people coming into the Center, so I can imagine that they may be distrustful of a group of strange girls. (Then again, some of the gentlemen visitors didn’t mind coming up to chat with us at all.)
After a long day of sitting, I did NOT feel like exercising when I returned home. Sometimes I give in to my semi-exhaustion, but today I talked myself into my exercise clothes because I knew I would feel better. And you know what? 30 (sweaty) minutes later, I felt a heckuva lot better. If only everything was such a quick fix ;)
On the menu was Peter-made risotto with some fun ingredients. He made a typical risotto base (Arborio rice with heated broth added in small amounts), and added lemon, Parmesan, Vermouth (!!), mushrooms, andouille sausage, and shrimp.
Showing off the freshly-grated Parmesan, ’cause I can:
Andouille sausage:
… yeah, we’re going to have a lot of leftovers.
To go with the risotto, I made Megan‘s broccoli-pesto quinoa, only without the quinoa. And no red pepper, because I’m a wimp.
All together:
Broccoli tree:
This combination was fantastic! One thing I like about this type of risotto is that meat is more of a garnish than the main event, and it’s easily replaced with tofu or beans or another protein source. The broccoli pesto is full of healthy fats and is delicious to boot! Instead of tasting broccoli, I tasted cheese and garlic creaminess (especially the extremely pungent garlic – poor Peter).
I could have used this little gem in the pesto …
… but then, I wouldn’t be able to feel my tongue now. After my last post mentioning how the spiciest thing in our kitchen was wasabi, Peter reminded me that our kitchen actually contained several of the hottest peppers in the world. Ho ho, you think I jest … but no.
This pepper is called the Bhut Jolokia pepper, aka “Ghost pepper”, and it is in the Guiness World Records as the hottest pepper in the world. Full of capsaicin. Peter bought it while we were last in Colorado in a fit of madness. The spice store worker was required to wear gloves while handling the pepper. We have not tried them yet.
Sophia, if you would like to try a couple, I’ll send them to you just to see you try them! ;)
I finished the evening with the best dark chocolate in the world – Valrhona Manjari – displayed here in my strangely distorted hand.
I’m off to tackle my research paper – good evening, all!
Q: Do you like spicy food? What’s the spiciest food you’ve ever eaten?
