This is the story of my past few days. Chris and I picked 22 pounds of cherries Saturday. I was so excited when I found the orchard where you could pick fresh! tart! cherries! I went crazy. We filled small boxes and dumped them into the flats, piling the red shiny orbs on top of one another.
The whole hour-long drive home, I daydreamed of my grandma's cherry jam! and cherry pie! and fresh cherries! that I would eat.
I also didn't account for not having access to my grandma's cherry jam recipe. I went with Martha's. She may have great ideas for party decorations, but I now have serious doubts about her cooking skills. Let's just say the cherry jam did not so much work out. Now I have cherry tar. My enthusiasm for cherries has somewhat diminished.
Today, I was in search of a way to use up the rest of my CSA share from last week, when I found a recipe online in the New York Times Health section for herbed risotto.This week our CSA share was pretty light- we had a fennel bulb, sage, mint, chives, thyme and radishes. On Saturday I used the fennel and some sage in a pasta dish, but that left me with a ton of fresh herbs to use.
I haven't made a ton of risotto, but for some reason I always had the impression that it took forever to make. My previous attempts at risotto had been 1-2 hour fiascos and sometimes ended up crunchy.
But I was pretty excited to find something in which I could use up all of my herbs. And, this took probably 35-40 minutes total to make and it made for a nice satisfying way to use up those herbs. The taste is creamy, bright, interesting and the best part, a pretty purple color with bright green bits mixed in.
