Monday, January 21, 2013

directions

Today is our National Day of Service. On this day in 2010, I worked with two other VISTAs in my program to volunteer at a nonprofit that provided housing for people with family in the hospital. This year, I spent MLK Day running and buying furniture. It made me look at how my life has changed so much since my year of service in Milwaukee.
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When I started this blog, I was a very different person than I am today. I started my year as a VISTA as a driven person with goals and bit of naivete. I worked long hours at my site, but never let it get in the way of taking care of myself (well, except for that one time I worked myself so hard that I ended up sleeping for an entire weekend).

The goal of this blog was to prove a point that so many people argue against, which is that nutrition and budgeting cannot go hand-in-hand. With my EBT card in one hand and shopping list in the other, I set to make a point that the critics are wrong about this - just because you're living at the poverty level doesn't mean you can't do so while eating whole grains and vegetables. And I'd like to think I made that point in a compelling manner.

My life has changed since then. I moved back to New Jersey for graduate school. I no longer qualify for foodstamps, because despite the balance in my checking account, I make too much money.

I'm also cooking at a different level, too. My apartment consists of an amazing kitchen space that I have utilized to its capacity. I don't have to chop vegetables on my dining room table anymore - I actually have more than one countertop, unlike the studio I lived in during my time in Milwaukee. Cooking is no longer a challenge.

Bearing all of this in mind, I cannot help but feel like this growth has inhibited the point of this blog. I went through my phase of posting baking recipes, which completely defeated the purpose of this blog. Furthermore, I have an overall different quality of life from then. I have gadgets in my kitchen that I could only dream of owning back then. In fact, it felt like a splurge when I bought a blender in 2009.

By no means does of any of this mean that I will end this blog. It just means that I feel like I lost my original intent of maintaining it. And with that in mind, I am going to strive to provide more budget-friendly recipes in the future that require only tools and ingredients that are affordable.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Recipe: Vegetarian Paella

My introduction to paella was unforgettable. I was studying in France for a semester, and one weekend I took an impromptu trip to Madrid by myself. I felt tunnel-visioned in regards to political history paper I was writing (I did a comparison between the German and French Resistance during World War II, which is a difficult topic to deal with before you consider the fact that I had to write it entirely in French), so I decided to best way to relax would be to get out of town for a long weekend. The hostel I stayed in was a little hole-in-the-wall on a quiet street in the downtown area of the city. After my first full day in the city, which I spent going to museums and taking long walks through parks, I went down to the bar in the hostel's basement to unwind. I walked up to the bar to get a drink, and was given said drink, along with a bowl of vegetarian paella. It was so incredible, and to this day I always think of that trip whenever I see paella on a menu.

Recently, I've been on a soup kick for almost a month, so in order to mix things up a bit, I decided to make vegetarian paella for the first time. Not only was it tasty to me, but the omnivorous friend I shared it with one night practically ate his entire dish in two minutes flat.

The nice thing about vegetarian paella is that its complex flavors don't involve complex preparation. Once the vegetables are chopped and other ingredients are measured, there's a lot of waiting around. Furthermore, it's pretty budget-friendly. The most expensive ingredient is saffron, and any good chef will have that in their pantry already.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 teaspoons olive oil
1 red bell pepper, chopped (yields 1 cup)
6 green onions, sliced
3 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp crumbled saffron threads
1 cup short-grain brown rice
3 cups broccoli florets
1 cup baby peas (I used frozen, since I already had them in my freezer)
1 cup halved grape tomatoes
1 cup sliced baby bella mushrooms
1 cup chopped marinated artichoke hearts
1 lemon, cut into wedges
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

directions:
1. Heat oil in large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add bell pepper and green onions; cook 5 minutes. Stir in broth, garlic, and saffron; bring to a boil. Sprinkle rice over ingredients, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer, covered, 10 minutes.
2. Sprinkle broccoli, peas, tomatoes, mushrooms, and artichokes over rice. Cover, and cook paella 8 minutes, or until rice is tender. Remove from heat, and let rest, covered, 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, if desired.
3. To serve, spoon paella into 6 bowls, and garnish each with lemon wedges and parsley.

Serves 6