Sunday Night Feast (On Monday Night)

With the long weekend spent at baseball games and backyard barbeques, my usual Sunday evening ritual of cooking dinner and relaxing at home was delayed a day this week. After a long a productive Memorial Day, I tossed the last load of laundry into the washer and set to work on dinner. Last week I had purchased some hearty looking boneless pork ribs, which I was determined to soak in a homemade barbque sauce and grill. With the main dish underway, I looked at the vast array of greens picked up from the market yesterday and decided on a risotto with mushrooms, onion, and a hefty amount of the delicious spinach from the farm.

For the barbeque sauce, I sauteed about a cup of onion and two cloves of garlic in a little canola oil, added 1 cup of ketchup, a few squirts of dijon mustard, brown sugar, grape jelly, salt and pepper, and let it simmer for about 30 minutes. I marinated the boneless ribs for about an hour, and would have let it soak a total of two or so hours had my stomach not told me otherwise. I set to work on the risotto just after lighting the grill. Again with sauteeing a bit of onion and garlic, and then tossed in about a cup of arborio rice to toast and release some of its starch. Once the rice had toasted a bit, I hit the pan with a bit of white wine left from a previous evening. Then I added the first batch of chicken broth. I got the ribs and a few stalks of asparagus on the grill and commenced the ping pong match of walking from the grill outside and back to the kitchen to stir the risotto. Hindsight might tell me that risotto is not the best choice to accompany something being prepared on the grill. I tended to the risotto, adding chicken broth every few minutes and stirring pretty consistently. I rinsed and chopped the spinach (chiffonade) and added it to the risotto close to the end. To finish the dish, I added two pats of unsalted butter and a bit of fresh grated parmesean cheese to add a creamy texture. I grabbed the grilled items and a glass of iced tea and set to work enjoying the feast. The spinach had a fresh and crisp taste even after wilting a bit in the risotto.

I should mention that for breakfast I made an egg scramble with some veggies I had on hand and sprinked the fresh chives from the farm in, and it was fantastic. Still ahead from this week's basket: swiss chard, parsley, romaine lettuce, garlic chives and plenty more parley and chives. I'm considering a spinach salad with a hot bacon dressing later on in the week. Yum!