Veggie Paella

So it turns out that going to the grocery store to do the weekly shopping, when I don't know what recipe I'm planning to make on Sunday, isn't the best idea. It's also not the best idea to buy the store brand Greek yogurt (It's disgusting, and for some reason, they felt compelled to add "natural flavors" to plain Greek yogurt. Whatever...).

I have one week to go before I have a week-long break from school. So far, I haven't resorted to throwing a frozen burrito into the microwave and photographing that as my weekly cooking masterpiece (I did have one in the freezer, just in case though... ). I had been pretty concerned that as I got closer to this part of the quarter I would be resorting to that. What I didn't count on was using cooking to procrastinate from doing homework. This is similar to last fall, when I somehow managed to find time to clean my whole apartment before finally sitting down to right my 20 page globalization paper... hmmm...

So anyways, I found this recipe yesterday mainly based off of ingredients online. It turns out, when you grocery shop on a weekly basis, you tend to have a lot more on hand than when you don't. Who knew? I only had to make a couple of substitutions on this one, but sadly, I didn't have a single spice that the recipe called for, so some improvisation was done. I have no idea what the spices in the original recipe were supposed to taste like, or what traditional paella spices are, but mine came out pretty darn well if I do say so myself.

There's a really interesting article on what a Paella is on wikipedia: Paella . Sadly, I didn't read it until after I had made mine, or I would have reconsidered its presentation. From the pictures, food is neatly laid on top of the rice concoction, to make it quite pretty. Instead, I omitted the final touches from what my recipe called for, and used whole wheat orzo instead of couscous (although traditional dishes use rice, not couscous). The pictures on wikipedia are quite pretty. Traditional paella is made with either meat or seafood or a combination of both. Since this is vegetarian, it pretty much goes against that anyway. But hell, I'm calling it Paella anyway. Sweet!

This recipe was found on epicurious.com, and is from Bon Appetit, 1997. http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/4688 The ingredients listed below are what I used, not what the recipe called for.
I ended up adding more than the original recipe called for in almost all of the ingredients. And maybe that's why I am pretty sure that this will easily feed 8-10 people. The picture above is after I had removed my serving for dinner tonight. I was a bit concerned that the whole thing was going to overflow at points in the cooking process...


Ingredients: 
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 cups chopped red pepper (I used three small red peppers. I am assuming that amounted to about 2 cups.)
1 tablespoon chopped garlic (I actually used garlic instead of garlic powder. There's a first.)
5 tablespoons, or about half of a small can of tomato paste 
2 cups water1 15 oz can of fire roasted diced tomatoes
1 15 oz can of diced tomatoes with mild green chiles2 cups frozen peas (I only had frozen peas and carrots on hand, which worked out fine, except that I also added sliced carrots. So, lots of carrots.)1 15 oz can rinsed and drained garbonzo beans
1/2 cup chopped peeled carrot (I added 3 medium chopped carrots)
2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon oregano
12 oz frozen package of quartered artichoke hearts, thawed1 1/2 cups whole wheat orzo


Directions: 
1. In a large pot, cook onion in the oil for about 3 mins. Add the red pepper, and cook until the onion changes color, about 15 minutes
2. Heat two cups of water to boiling, and stir in tomato paste (otherwise, you could substitute this step for vegetable broth. I've been trying to invent flavorful alternatives that don't involve so much salt. This worked for me in this recipe.)
3. Combine all remaining ingredients besides the orzo and simmer for 5-10 minutes.
4. Add the orzo, simmer for an additional 10 minutes, covered. Remove from heat, and allow any excess liquid to absorb for about 5 minutes.